Earlier this week, a sports writer from Oklahoma City posed the question of whether Okies and Seattlites can bury the hatchet involving basketball and the Sonics now that Seattle has a winning football team. My answer to her: Heck no.
You know the saying, you never forget your first love? Well as a sports fan, you never forget when you first fell in love of the game. Sounds cheesy, but sports can bring out the ridiculous in people. For me, I was bit by the crazy-fan bug when I was in the fifth grade. The team: the 1995-1996 Seattle SuperSonics. My favorite player and hero: #33 Hersey Hawkins. The villains: Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Even though the Sonics lost in the NBA Finals, the memory of seeing and experiencing a championship series in my home town for the first time, the civic pride among strangers wearing Kemp and Payton jerseys – that comradery behind the green and gold symbol of the city – it was like magic to a 10-year-old. You know, warm, fuzzy Disney-magic in a sense that’s difficult to explain and sounds silly to try.
That’s largely why I relate to the thousands of bitter Sonics fans who refuse to accept and get over the team’s move to Oklahoma City. The Sonics were the second major professional sports team ever founded in Seattle (1967). They were the first of Seattle’s professional sports teams to win a championship title (1979). Since then, Seattle teams are more familiar with losing than winning. Like the 1995 Seattle Mariners. That team overcame improbable odds to famously beat the New York Yankees, only to be defeated by the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series – the closest the franchise ever got within a stone’s throw of a World Series. Or how about the 2005-2006 Seattle Seahawks who lost to the Pittsburg Steelers in their first trip to the Super Bowl in franchise history. So when Sonics fans lost their team in 2008, it became yet another instance in the city’s sad history of losing that added to Seattle’s distinction as one of America’s most miserable sports cities.
It’s because of those disappointing moments in sports history that make the Seahawks’ berth to Super Bowl XLVIII just a little extra special. And not only because fans have been waiting for another chance at the Lombardi Trophy for eight years ever since the referees handed Super Bowl XL to the Steelers. It’s special because we’re not Boston, L.A or New York where championship rings come in bulk and championship games are just another Sunday. The Northwest needs a little of that magic once again. Something to believe in. Something to bring people together and have an excuse to yell at the TV for a few hours and forget about work, school, bills and other stuff outside four quarters and 100 yards of grass or turf.
Should the fact that the Seahawks are playing in the big game once again make Seattle fans a little less bitter? Maybe…but we’re long suffering fans and there’s a lot of resentment to get over, so final answer: No.
Go Hawks!
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