Favoring the Underdog

It always happens.  Every year.  In the NCAA Tournament, there is always at least one school we've never heard of that shocks the world by beating a perennial powerhouse.  Dayton, Florida Gulf Coast, Lehigh, Norfolk State, Wichita State, and VCU are recent cinderella stories that come to mind.  And year in and year, out everyone is rooting for these schools that they couldn't even point out on a map.

I find it fascinating that there really seems to be no other feelings towards these teams besides people rooting for them.  I feel like there's a counter-argument to almost everything else, yet there seems to be unanimous support for these underdogs.  Maybe someone could say that they'd rather have the better team advance, or that a program with an established culture of winning deserves to go farther in the tournament than an irrelevant team that got lucky one night.  But I never hear these arguments, which begs the question:  Why are we so obsessed with the underdog?

I believe that it's simply the American way to cheer for the underdog.  It begins with our roots as a country in which we started as colonies ruled by Great Britain, eventually fighting our way against the world's most powerful nation and gaining our independence.  We're the country that people from across the world immigrate to in search of a new life and a place in which one could find success if they are willing to work.

Why do you think we as a society love the underdog?  Do you love the underdog?