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The Tower is 17 feet taller than the Space needle, I...learned something today.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.
By Greg Bishop
Seattle Times staff reporter
Folks in San Antonio still approach Sean Elliott with the express purpose of telling him where they were on Memorial Day in 1999. He could be eating at a restaurant, making a deposit at the bank or driving through downtown, and they walk up and wrap their arms around him in a bear hug.
"Sean, there's something I have to tell you."
Spurs fans will never forget the day Elliott drilled a three-pointer late in the fourth quarter to give San Antonio a 2-0 lead over Portland in the Western Conference finals. Since christened the Memorial Day Miracle, that shot remains one of the indelible images from the Spurs' championship in 1999.
Every fan who approaches Elliott remembers where they were that day. At their father-in-law's house. At the hospital while their wife gave birth. At a bar on the city's famous Riverwalk, hugging someone they never met before.
"I liken it to when people say, 'Where were you when the president got shot?' " Elliott said before the Sonics and Spurs tipped off Game 4. "As far as fan loyalty is concerned, I haven't seen a city like San Antonio. It's a one-horse town, and people live and die with their team there.
"The way the team plays can affect the at ude of the entire city."
The Spurs are the defining symbol of San Antonio — more so than the Riverwalk, more so than The Alamo, more than anything, and nothing else comes close. The Spurs are not just the biggest game in town. They are the only game that matters.
Elliott played college basketball at Arizona, and he remembers riding in a convertible during a parade to celebrate the Wildcats' 1988 Final Four run. Well, they say everything is bigger in Texas. And the Spurs' championship parade along the Riverwalk in 1999 drew more than 300,000 people.
"It becomes an iden y thing," said Buck Harvey, a prominent sports columnist at the San Antonio Express-News. "You take that away from San Antonio, and you would lose a very clear, common denominator.
"The Spurs are the city's. If San Antonio can have a symbol of what it is, it's David Robinson, Tim Duncan and what the Spurs have done."
What the Spurs have done is win games at a greater rate than any team in all of professional sports since drafting Duncan in 1997. And somewhere along the way, a city's love became something more than that, something closer to obsession, something bordering on fanatical.
When the Spurs host the Sonics in Game 5 tonight, you can see that obsession in the ticket-broker offices that line the road leading to the SBC Center. You can see it in the silver-and-black flags flapping in the breeze, hanging from every office with a flagpole. You can see it in the former Spurs who decide never to leave town.
And you can hear it in the voice of a maid at the Marriott Riverwalk last week when she claimed to be the only person in San Antonio who wasn't a Spurs fan.
"I truly think the city feels like they're a part of the organization," said Danny Ferry, former Spur and the team's current director of basketball operations.
San Antonio is provincial that way. The Spurs are the only major professional sports team that calls the city home. Thus, fans relate to the Spurs, identify with the Spurs, talk about the Spurs and outfit their children in Spurs clothing.
Families are spurred to the airport at 4:30 in the morning, Ferry said, "just to greet us and wave to [backup center] Rasho Nesterovic as he drives in his car home." And while other cities [see: Seattle] build excitement through division les and runs deep into the playoffs, Spurs fever never ceases. Not even in the middle of August.
"You have true fans in San Antonio, win-lose-or-draw fans," forward Glenn Robinson said. "Some places I've been, when you win, when you're hot, it's fine. But when you miss a couple shots or lose a few games, it's a totally different response.
"When you come back home, everybody praises you everywhere you go. When you go out to get something to eat, when you're getting gas, the response is great."
And constant. Just ask Harvey. Readers flood his e-mail in-box after Spurs columns, particularly critical ones. He says the only response that compares is columns he writes about the Dallas Cowboys, and "the Spurs even take that one step further.
"It's clearly the game in town."
Asked what to make of all this, veteran forward Robert Horry shakes his head. He joined the Spurs in 2003 after helping eliminate them from the playoffs in earlier years with the Los Angeles Lakers.
"You were a Spurs killer," people told Horry. "I used to hate you. I'm so happy you're with us now. I love you."
"That's how it is," Horry said. "It's a love-hate relationship."
Love the Spurs. Hate everybody else. And out of that relationship, a city's barometer emerges. When the Spurs are on a three-game losing streak, those that live there say the whole place feels bogged down, that doom and gloom hangs in the air.
But when the Spurs are winning division les, winning NBA championships or even winning a single game ...
"You just feel like the place is brighter and happier or something," Harvey said. "It's an amazing emotional tug that the Spurs have on San Antonio."
Tale of the tape
Battle cry
San Antonio: "Remember the Alamo!"
Seattle: "Who Let the Dogs Out?"
Edge: Anybody seen the Baja Men lately? The Alamo cry isn't quite as catchy, but the stakes were higher. Edge to San Antonio.
Major pro sports franchises
San Antonio: 1, Spurs.
Seattle: 3, Sonics, M's, Seahawks.
Edge: San Antonio does have two world les. Summer and fall months are a little slow, so edge to Seattle.
Mariners connection
San Antonio: Seattle's Class AA club, the Missions.
Seattle: Uh, the Mariners.
Edge: Depends who's pitching.
Body of water
San Antonio: The Riverwalk.
Seattle: Puget Sound.
Edge: The Riverwalk is home to excellent restaurants and shops — and, sorry to say, a river that looks more like a rain-swollen ditch. Edge, Seattle.
Sports hero
San Antonio: David Robinson could be elected mayor.
Seattle: Edgar Martinez has a street named after him.
Edge: Tiebreaker is best bobblehead, and that goes to The Admiral.
Pointy, high-rise landmark
San Antonio: Tower of the Americas.
Seattle: Space Needle.
Edge: By height, it's San Antonio's tower, by 17 feet (622 to 605), but once you get to the top, you're still looking at Texas. Edge, Seattle.
Rock star
San Antonio: Does Spurs guard Manu Ginobili count? With that hair?
Seattle: Take your pick. We'll go old school (and conveniently ignore the fact they're really from Bellevue), and say Heart.
Edge: Seattle, in a rout.
Great movie moment
San Antonio: Pee-wee Herman travels to the Alamo to search for his beloved bicycle, in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure." Sadly, Pee-wee learns there is no basement at the Alamo.
Seattle: Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament (with Matt Dillon) appear as the Seattle band Citizen in "Singles."
Edge: San Antonio, but "Singles" was the better movie.
Rejected marketing slogan
San Antonio: "Well, if you have to live in Texas ... "
Seattle: "Once we get this viaduct thing fixed ... "
Edge: San Antonio.
Bill Reader, Greg Bishop
Greg Bishop: 206-464-3191 or [email protected]
Last edited by alamo50; 05-17-2005 at 12:57 PM.
The Tower is 17 feet taller than the Space needle, I...learned something today.
Good stuff.
This city sounds crazy. Do I really live here?
Oh, and I'm pretty sure we have some famous rock stars. We're not that far from Austin...
That was actually pretty funny!
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