Born and partially raised in Kirkland WA. I had a Seattle Times paper route when I turned 10 YO. And NO, my parents didn't drive me around, all done by me and my Mongoose bike. I always had spare papers and quickly learned to read the sports page, then the cartoons. That started in 1980. I kept that job until 1984, then my family moved to Sacramento. I was lost, zero news about my Hawks and Dawgs, except for the George Michael Sports Machine that aired at like 11:00pm on Sunday nights and blurbs in the USA today sports section. My parents new I loved the Hawks so I would get t-shirts, jackets, sweatshirts etc for Christmas and my B day. I wore that shit like a king in HS. I still remember all my buddies parents were niner fans. They all would say "I really like the Hawks, they have a great fan base, entertaining to watch and the colors are cool". One of my buddies, Paul, was from SCal and his team was the LA Rams. My friends that were Raider fans were not so cool about that the Hawks and lost a couple of bets between 86 and 88. Some where between 88 and 91 I put a Hawks license plate on a Mexican coworkers car that was a Raiders fan. It took a couple of days and then he approached me with a bullet ridden Hawks plate. He threatened to do the same to me if it happened again. I did it again and he didn't shoot me, told him I would and that he better get the first shot right or I would beat his ass.
We all have our reasons for the way we feel about the Hawks success, but long time Hawk fans have dealt with way to much crap to let a blanket " bandwagon fan" accusation go unchallenged.