From our seats in section 220, high up in the darkened upper bowl of Oracle, we surveyed the whole glorious scene: blue and yellow lights streaking across the arena...highlights from last year’s playoff run flashing on the huge video board...rabid fans screaming in our ears as each player is introduced, jogs to center court, puts on the ring, and waves to all of us.
Steph Curry and the Dubs were raising their championship banner, the first since 1975.
As the surreal elation of being WORLD CHAMPIONS surrounds and lifts the two of us -- along with the 19,000 delirious others at the “Roaracle”...I watch my ten year old son clap and scream and stomp his feet, in rhythm with those next to us -- with the dozen or so in our row -- with the hundred or so in our section -- with the thousands in our level...the grin across my face turns up into a smile, opening up into a full-throated “Waaaariiiiooooors!”
I look at my him again and smile again, as a hazy thought rolls in from the back of my mind...reaching shore...crystallizing into two truths, previously unrelated yet colliding together now, in this spinning particle accelerator of basketball physics. Two eternal and unalterable axioms about fathers and sons fuse into a new grand unified theory:
1. Fathers pass the objects of their sports fandom on to their sons
2. Sons always have it EASIER than their fathers
Like so many of his generation, my father come to the West Coast in the late 70s looking for opportunity, a better place to raise his family. Part of that Bay Area acculturation was rooting for the Niners, the Giants and the Dubs. Lead by Joe Montana and Dwight Clark, the Niners beat the Cowboys on their way to winning their first Superbowl when I was eight years old, marking the Big Bang moment of my nascent sports consciousness, that team our family’s first sports love.
Nine years later, when I was in high school, those sports particles expanded outward, cooling and solidifying, as Will “The Thrill” Clark lead the Giants to their first World Series since moving from New York, eventually getting swept by their cross-town rivals, the As. By then, my dad and I had earned our Croix De Candlesticks fifty times over.
Catalyzed by the exciting players coming through during the 80s and 90s, the swirling heat and gas of the Dubs was as explosive as a non-contender could be -- they never got past the second round of the playoffs and never EVER sniffed the Finals. Still, when I played basketball on the schoolyard, I tried to incorporate ALL of Run TMC’s signature moves into my game: The Killer Crossover, The Shot from Downtown, the Fast Break Reverse Layup.
My total Bay Area championship count, ages 8-29: five Superbowls, two lost World Series’. Not bad. Most fans would take that.
Yet here we were, celebrating the Season Opener of the WORLD CHAMPION DUBS who capped off a #comefromnowhere dominant regular season with a #justlucky run through the playoffs.
The Dub’s ending a drought of forty years and sixty reasons was the cherry on top of a double-fudge, three-layered chocolate cake of a Bay Area sports half-decade.
When my son was five, at the end of T-ball season, the Giants, on Timmy’s electric fastball and Buster’s patient bat, surprised the sports world by winning the 2010 World Series, beating the Rangers in five games. Then they surprised themselves by surviving five elimination playoff games before going on to sweep the heavily favored Tigers to win the 2012 World Series. By this time my son knew each player, their nicknames (“Freak” “Horse” and “Panda”) where they batted in the line-up and why.
That same year Colin Kaepernick was three missed Michael Crabtree fade routes short of winning SB47 against the Ravens in the Superdome. My son began wearing a Kap jersey when he took over the starting QB role that season. He could tell you why Kap had so much more upside (fearless, hard-throwing, lethal out of the pocket) than the proficient, but boring, Alex Smith.
Although the Niners came up short, their future seemed supernova bright.
Yet not quite as bright as the Giants, whose even-year magic won them a third-World-Series-in-five-years on the back of Madison Bunyen-gardner’s most dominant pitching performance ever in a World Series to beat the Cinderella Royals almost single-handedly in seven games.
My son’s Bay Area Championship, count ages 5-9: Three Giants World Series, one lost Superbowl. Hey, ANYONE would take that.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, the 2015 Warriors happened.
Now let’s see, that’s a ridiculous Four Championships in a five year span, all before the age of ten!
After the game, we talked about how Steph could be the best player in the League (“The Warriors have the BEST PLAYER in the NBA!!!!!!!?????”), how many more Championships their young core could win (”...Between 2-4...”), whether we could sign Harrison Barnes and Festus after this season (“Festus, if we had to choose.”)
But what sticks out in my mind most from that glorious opening ceremony, when the Banner was unveiled, on our feet together at Oracle, reveling in it all...father and son...was the inverse-Oedipal twinge of admiration and jealousy when I looked at him,
He really doesn't know what losing is, does he? Man, he has it SOOOOO GOOD....
And in that moment, up up in the upper bowl of Oracle, under the cacophony of music and screams, seeing the flashing lights reflected in his eyes...my hand on his shoulder...so did I.
