The Warriors Belong To Us
Game three of the finals is upon us and for the past week the Bay Area has been lit a brilliant blue and yellow, thunder sticks have been crashing and the earthquake roar of proud and impassioned Warriors fans have filled everywhere within range of a television. The Warriors have arrived and at a time when the Bay Area should be standing present for the world to see, within the Bay Area we have been distracted by more ridiculous headlines.
“Oakland left out of media coverage”
“Curry attends a Giants game, shun to Oakland”
“Oakland, are you cool with SF already acting like the Warriors are their team?”
I would rather discuss what we need to do to win these next games. Shit – I’d rather discuss how they refurbished LeBron’s hairline than to discuss these childish, discordant and unnecessary topics. We are busy discussing where the parade will be held when we need make sure we win first and we argue over who is entitled to the Warriors, which is an argument with the playground maturity of “who smelt it, dealt it” And what everyone fails to see is that we are all wrong.
When you think of Golden State, what do you think of? California. When you see the logo of California, where is the star located? The Bay Area. At this point, we should honestly be shutting up and figuring out our next pitcher and what variation of French fries we are going to order, but since we must continue, let’s…
Warriors Team Photo: 1966-1967. Photo: www.uni-watch.com
When the Warriors came to the west coast from Philly They were known as the San Francisco Warriors and displayed the bay bridge on their jersey with ‘THE CITY’ above it and also had a symbol of SF, the cable car, on the back. After a little less than a decade, they began playing their home games in Oakland and also dropped the San Francisco and went with The Warriors, then The Golden State Warriors and they’ve been based in Oakland for the past few decades. At this point I understand Oakland’s claim to the team. They’ve been there, intimately through all the years, wins and many loses. There’s a stubbornly beautiful familial loyalty. I also understand Oakland feeling slighted by the media coverage as they don’t say Oakland when talking about where The Warriors are playing, coverage is done in San Francisco and landmarks shown are all San Francisco’s. It…Is…Disrespectful.
‘San Francisco’ Warriors…but who cares Photo: uniformcritics.com
Disrespectful to treat a handsomely colorful city like Oakland like some satellite city, a city in a shadow with no real history, purpose, character or personality. This untruth is what births the fervor and the understandable gnarling frustration that shouldn’t be aimed at SF, but at the media perpetuating this falsehood. As seen in the example of New York teams that play in New Jersey and our own SF Niners who play in Santa Clara, where a team plays is not the determining factor in where its loyalty lies. Also, when the Warriors went from The San Francisco Warriors to The Golden State Warriors, contrary to what some believe, this was not the ceremonious yet unofficial renaming to The Oakland Warriors. There is as much an argument favoring them as an SF team as there is an Oakland team, but you know what we’ve all have selfishly forgotten is that the star on that logo is The Bay Area and The Bay Area is more than just San Francisco and Oakland and this very discussion leaves every other city and town out of this celebration.
We’ve allowed the media with its lazy hack coverage to drive us deep into our immature egos and forget that our brother and sister cities don’t all have teams that directly represent them, but you know what they do have? The Golden State Warriors that DO directly represent them and there are die hard-rain or shine-ride or die-win lose or draw fans from Hercules, Richmond, Hayward, Vallejo, Pittsburg and beyond that wear the blue and yellow with pride and who howl and yell and scream at the top of their lung Waaarrrriiiioooorrrsss! How did we forget our family? As much as they show Coit Tower and Victorians, they need to show Lake Merritt and also downtown Martinez, San Ramon, Berkeley and San Rafael. Let’s not let poor reporting allow us to continue a conversation as useless as it is divisive because the beauty of representing The Golden State Warriors is the very fact that it doesn’t represent just SF or Oakland, but the entire Bay Area and WE embody the meaning of “Strength in Numbers”
GO WARRIORS!!!
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