spurschick
05-21-2006, 09:38 AM
We won't have to worry about a loss any time soon, but I thought it was a cute article. :fro
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/stories/MYSA052106.2H.Anglin.2105f4a5.html
Web Posted: 05/21/2006 12:00 AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
When you're at the top of your league, everyone expects the magic to come easily.
The big shots are expected to drop quickly and often, the teardrops are supposed to flow fast, and slashing your way to the hoop is supposed to be as simple as buttering your breakfast toast.
It's not that fans don't respect the work and talent playoff victories require. We do. Most folks watch in amazement when NBA giants work their magic on the court. The closest most of us will get is a solitary self-cheer when we manage to chunk a dead Styrofoam cup into a garbage can six feet away.
It's just that once the little people have seen the giants deliver in a big way, it becomes expected. After all, they've done it before. Three times.
People invest a lot in you when you're dominating. The hard-core fans plan their lives — work schedules, wardrobes, backyard barbecues, midnight snacks — around your next game. The not-until-the-playoffs fans have no problem running out and impulsively dishing out $75-plus for a jersey with your name on it; a small price to pay for a little of that playoff fever.
Veterans dig out the caps with the old fiesta-colors logo, ladies slip on jewelry delicately shaped like the streamline silver logo, the Ginobili and Parker girls turn up the adoration, and babies normally decked in pastel onesies start suiting up in miniature jerseys and black and silver bibs.
Corporations want a piece of the action too, so they order banners the size of a tract home to show their support. Businesses sponsor commemorative cups, bobbleheads and coins in your honor, and people scramble to get every last one. When you win, there's free coffee for everybody!:elephant
And when you don't, the cheers go from Go, Spurs, Go! to &*%$#!@ Spurs. $#@!. $#@!! $#@!!!!!
The hard-core fans recoil in disbelief, stay up half the night deconstructing every questionable call or muttering about *&%$# Duncan or &*%$# Pop or the *&%$ refs, sometimes in two languages. The impulse-buy jerseys join old concert T-shirts and holiday wear in the farthest reaches of the closet. The miniature jerseys give way to adverwear for the next Pixar masterpiece, Ginobili and Parker seem a little less sexy (not really :makeout) , and nobody gets free coffee.
And those days in '99, when school kids spelled out "Spurs" with lively Styrofoam cups on stretches of cyclone fencing, seem so long ago.
Remember when every other car sported a Spurs flag? Remember the days when talk of an NBA official conspiracy against a small-market contender was dismissed with an eye roll?
Truth is, fans are part of the team. Some are fair-weather, some are bandwagon, some are teenybopper, and some are over the top, but together they create a force that rocks San Antonio. We all share in victorious celebration, and a loss is as much ours as it is theirs.
Fans are as big a part of the magic as the superstar who is lionized on a good day and cursed on a bad one. The difference is that at the end of the day, the superstars are doing a job for which they get paid millions.
The fans, however, miss out on the payoff they've grown to love — the bumper-to-bumper celebration, car horns singing in victory; the excitement that sends crowds out in force to be the first to buy a championship T-shirt that will always remind us of that triumphant high; the barge parade that's uniquely San Antonio — that electricity that fills the air when the Spurs win big.
That's what feeling the Spurs have brought us before. It's what professional sports teams bring to their cities. Economics aside, there's something larger than life going on when the guy at the gas station, or the dry cleaners or the grocer's deli, sends you on your way with a friendly and hopeful, "Go, Spurs, Go."
That's why we love our Spurs. That's why we curse their losses. And that's why, every season, we pull out those T-shirts to show our support.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/stories/MYSA052106.2H.Anglin.2105f4a5.html
Web Posted: 05/21/2006 12:00 AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
When you're at the top of your league, everyone expects the magic to come easily.
The big shots are expected to drop quickly and often, the teardrops are supposed to flow fast, and slashing your way to the hoop is supposed to be as simple as buttering your breakfast toast.
It's not that fans don't respect the work and talent playoff victories require. We do. Most folks watch in amazement when NBA giants work their magic on the court. The closest most of us will get is a solitary self-cheer when we manage to chunk a dead Styrofoam cup into a garbage can six feet away.
It's just that once the little people have seen the giants deliver in a big way, it becomes expected. After all, they've done it before. Three times.
People invest a lot in you when you're dominating. The hard-core fans plan their lives — work schedules, wardrobes, backyard barbecues, midnight snacks — around your next game. The not-until-the-playoffs fans have no problem running out and impulsively dishing out $75-plus for a jersey with your name on it; a small price to pay for a little of that playoff fever.
Veterans dig out the caps with the old fiesta-colors logo, ladies slip on jewelry delicately shaped like the streamline silver logo, the Ginobili and Parker girls turn up the adoration, and babies normally decked in pastel onesies start suiting up in miniature jerseys and black and silver bibs.
Corporations want a piece of the action too, so they order banners the size of a tract home to show their support. Businesses sponsor commemorative cups, bobbleheads and coins in your honor, and people scramble to get every last one. When you win, there's free coffee for everybody!:elephant
And when you don't, the cheers go from Go, Spurs, Go! to &*%$#!@ Spurs. $#@!. $#@!! $#@!!!!!
The hard-core fans recoil in disbelief, stay up half the night deconstructing every questionable call or muttering about *&%$# Duncan or &*%$# Pop or the *&%$ refs, sometimes in two languages. The impulse-buy jerseys join old concert T-shirts and holiday wear in the farthest reaches of the closet. The miniature jerseys give way to adverwear for the next Pixar masterpiece, Ginobili and Parker seem a little less sexy (not really :makeout) , and nobody gets free coffee.
And those days in '99, when school kids spelled out "Spurs" with lively Styrofoam cups on stretches of cyclone fencing, seem so long ago.
Remember when every other car sported a Spurs flag? Remember the days when talk of an NBA official conspiracy against a small-market contender was dismissed with an eye roll?
Truth is, fans are part of the team. Some are fair-weather, some are bandwagon, some are teenybopper, and some are over the top, but together they create a force that rocks San Antonio. We all share in victorious celebration, and a loss is as much ours as it is theirs.
Fans are as big a part of the magic as the superstar who is lionized on a good day and cursed on a bad one. The difference is that at the end of the day, the superstars are doing a job for which they get paid millions.
The fans, however, miss out on the payoff they've grown to love — the bumper-to-bumper celebration, car horns singing in victory; the excitement that sends crowds out in force to be the first to buy a championship T-shirt that will always remind us of that triumphant high; the barge parade that's uniquely San Antonio — that electricity that fills the air when the Spurs win big.
That's what feeling the Spurs have brought us before. It's what professional sports teams bring to their cities. Economics aside, there's something larger than life going on when the guy at the gas station, or the dry cleaners or the grocer's deli, sends you on your way with a friendly and hopeful, "Go, Spurs, Go."
That's why we love our Spurs. That's why we curse their losses. And that's why, every season, we pull out those T-shirts to show our support.