Ex-ESPN.com Daily Quickie writer Dan Shanoff -- his first name is "Ex-ESPN.com Daily Quickie writer" like former Cincinnati kicker Chris Bahr like how said his wife thought his first name was "much-maligned" -- has begun a social experiment on his child, one that does not involve a Skinner box, though perhaps does include some operant conditioning.

Shanoff is using his new blog, Varsitydad.com, to chronicle his attempt to raise what he calls "the ultimate fan," one who embodies ideals that Shanoff plans to lay out in his blog. Shanoff's subject is his 9-month-old son Gabe, who, I hope we can assume, was not bred for this very project.

Actually, Shanoff's experiment is inspired by two things: items on the nature on fandom he wrote for the Daily Quickie, a daily (of course) compendium of sports news and opinion he posted to ESPN.com from 2003 to 2006, and the realization his son was not going to grow up to be LeBron James. Rather than worry about making the all-star athlete, as other fathers do, why not concentrate on making an all-star sports fan?

Certainly, even Shanoff knows this experiment has its risks. He writes: "It may be wildly wrong: I could turn into the equivalent of Todd Marinovich's father, creating a "Robo-Fan" who leads a thoroughly joyless life (though perhaps not ultimately ending up as some drugged-out freak, like Papa Marinovich's poor son). Worse, my son-as-fan could end up a misinformed blowhard, writing a sports column for some online sports site."

Shanoff realizes already that his experiment is not being done after ideal conditions. Little Gabe already has his mother plying him with sports gear from the University of Florida, her alma mater, and just as important, the reigning NCAA football and men's basketball champions.

Also, he is taking any suggestions on how he might be able to tweak his all-star fan model as he goes along. So we all get a chance to shape little Gabe's fandom.

So here is the point where I toss in my expertise. I have not concentrated on raising all-star fans. But I do have four kids, two of whom are old enough to start making their own choices when it comes to their relationship to sports as spectators. Based on my nonscientific observations, I will offer the following hypotheses to Shanoff:

1. Who a child roots for has more to do with peers and present location than it does his or her parents.

 I'm seeing this in spades now that the Indianapolis Colts, my hometown team, and the Chicago Bears, the team in the town in which I live, are in the Super Bowl. My 7-year-old daughter -- who as a 5-year-old cried crocodile tears after I took her to an Indiana Pacers game, and the hated New York Knicks, in Reggie Miller's last home game against them, won on a last-second putback -- has given me nothing but grief ever since the Colts-Bears matchup was set. You could say in some way, a parental figure had an influence, what with my Chicago native wife being a big Bears fan. But it also has to do with her school having had two Bears days, her peers rooting for the Bears, and everything around her being Bears, Bears, Bears. I'm going to guess next time I take her to a Pacers game, particuarly if the Chicago Bulls are involved, she's going to spit in my face if the Pacers lose.

But as a child, I was the same way, though not as intense. My father, a Boston native, rooted particularly hard for the Celtics, and as a kid I followed his lead. But after we settled in Indianapolis, that Celtics fandom waned and became Pacers fandom, which has embedded itself permanently in my soul. I could go on -- my 10-year-old nephew in Dallas is a Texas Rangers fan, not a White Sox fan like his Chicago native dad.

2. Then again, there is no guarantee your child will be a sports fan -- or at least not a fan of the sports you like.

 My 9-year-old son, despite the influence of peers and parents, will not pick a team to root for in the Super Bowl. Mainly, that's because he doesn't care. "I like to play football," he said. "I don't like to watch it." He's that way with just about all sports, even though he has been to games at the home stadiums of the Chicago White Sox, Indiana Pacers, Dallas Mavericks, Chicago Bulls, St. Xavier University Cougars (men's basketball), and even a visit to Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for high school basketball regionals. (I think you're getting a sense of what sport I was steering him toward.) He is a Chicago Bulls fan, and he enjoys going to games, but he has zero interest in watching games. If he does anything with sports and a TV screen, it's video games. The one "sport" he will watch religiously? Pro wrestling.

3. Your child's fandom also will be influenced by what sports he or she plays.

 My 7-year-old daughter, since she could walk, has grabbed a bat and ball and wanted me to pitch to her. This spring, she will be in a softball league for the first time. But does that mean she wants to watch a White Sox game? (We're on the South Side, so forget the Cubs.) Not really. When it was her turn to be student of the week in her second grade, she was asked -- as part of the Q&A with classmates that comes with the honor -- White Sox or Cubs? She answered, "Well, I'm more of a softball person, so I would say the Chicago Bandits." The Bandits, as you probably don't know, is the Chicago entry in the women's pro softball league.

My 9-year-old son has been moving from sport to sport to find his niche -- baseball,  wrestling and soccer, I think, are over and done, basketball is still on the list, volleyball is a new one, and hockey is one he still seems to come back to, despite our lack of interest in getting a third mortgage to pay for it. Until (or unless) he finds one sport he's intensely passionate about (I fear that's going to be hockey), I don't expect him to be demanding to see any particular team on TV. Expect maybe pro wrestling tag teams.

4. Coaching him or her on a team could make a big difference -- or not.

That basketball is the only sport in which I've coached my kids in a league (my son, twice) should make pretty clear to my kids what sport I would like them to follow. We've signed up my son and daughter multiple times for basketball camps. I don't expected them to turn into Kobe Bryant and Candace Parker, but hopefully knowledge develops a love of the sport. It's tough to tell whether that will work. I've seen it work with other parents, although they seem to be far more uncomfortably overbearing than I am.  I hope.

5. Despite all these variables, team loyalty is not only possible, but probable.

One of the least-respected fans is the bandwagon jumper, the one who moves from championship team to championship team and pretends they've liked their current team forever. Shanoff posits that there are ways to switch allegiances without being a bandwagon fan, though in my experience it is easiest to do that when a person has little rooting interest in something to begin with. I didn't grow up in cities with major-league baseball, so it's been easy for me to embrace the White Sox, for example.

At least with my children, one thing that is not happening is random flitting from one team to another. If they are into a team, they are into a team, and I suspect they will stay that way -- unless they stop being a fan altogether. It seems to me that the ages of six to nine are critical in fan development, at least if you're raising children in a city that has pro or college teams for which the local populace overwhelmingly roots. For example, I expect my daughter's Bears fandom to last. As for my son, with him going through phases, the issue with him is finding a sport to root for more than a team. I just hope the pro wrestling thing is a phase.

Dan Shanoff, I wish you luck in your experiment. Just don't break out the Skinner box.