The Shocker Strikes Only Once

Monday’s Save Our Sonics rally was the roar of a little David determined to stand up to a rich, conniving Goliath. We enjoy this: There’s nothing sports fans like more than a good underdog story. It’s us against the owners, the league, and the world. A good scenario might entail cheering for a scrappy, undermanned squad for two years and hoping for a long-shot championship to keep the team here, or at least glorify our martyrdom. Is there any spectator experience more exhilarating than watching one’s favorite team--dismissed by all except its staunchest supporters--shock the world?

The problem is, the world can be shocked by that team only once. (Fool me once, the President might begin.) After that, the thrills diminish, and there’s no way to pack the pipe tight enough to match the first high. Or one is left with a variation of the madonna/whore complex, unable to support the team that no longer possesses the underdog purity that was its original draw. Worst of all, one can be so addicted to the thrill of underdog victory that one becomes what one previously hated: the obnoxious fan of the favorite who disingenuously claims disadvantage.

For me, this became clearest watching nominally amateur athletics in 2005, as the Nate Robinson-led Huskies initiated their improbable run as a Number 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. The team had been assembled from the talented flotsam of the local hoop circuit and played with an endearing defiance. But as I watched their loss to Louisville, in which legendary coach Rick Pitino seemed to command an untrammeled deference from the officials, I grew sad not just at the 2005 team’s loss, but at the forthcoming loss of the perceived moral high ground that made that season so fun. The next year would bring at least one McDonald’s All-American; future years even more. Even if not to the same degree, Lorenzo Romar would become like Pitino--an established coach who receives favorable treatment from the officials. How satisfying would a championship be when achieved through deferential calls and imported rent-a-stars who shatter the myths of amateurism and the homegrown team?

Look at Boston: America cheered them when they won their 2004 title, simultaneously shedding their “curse” and beating the hated Yankees. Now that the city is collecting championships like party favors, the backlash has begun. Boston fans, once our brothers and sisters, are now spoiled and insufferable. The Celtics have been a medicocre team for the last twenty years, but after their NBA Championship victory this week, I received this unsolicited e-mail from a friend: “I will never again allow anyone to use ‘long suffering’ and ‘Boston’ in the same sentence in my presence.”

Because of our almost total lack of championships (only the Sonics in 78, the Storm in 04, and the split title of the Huskies’ football team in ‘91), we Seattle fans like to wear the mantle of the long-suffering, noble devoted. But as the region grows larger and richer, the mantle fits less and less. The Mariners are an underachieving, overspending wonder, likely to pay more per win this year than any team in baseball. If they win, it’ll just mean money finally met competence, and they won’t have any silly legends to fool people into thinking otherwise. The Seahawks play in the salary-capped, revenue-sharing NFL, in one of the league’s nicest stadiums, jointly built by one of the league’s wealthiest cities and one of its wealthiest owners. Even if they were on the short end of a few Super Bowl whistles, they’re no David. The Storm roster reads like a who’s who of women’s basketball over the last 15 years, a little like this year’s Celtics. Husky sports aren’t short on funding, and even when they are, it’s only next to the even-bigger Goliaths of college sports. And unlike other nobly cursed cities such as Buffalo and Cleveland, whom the shift to a service and information economy has left behind, Seattle’s awash in money. We’re not so much rained on as we are making it rain.

One team holds the key to our underdog dreams. The Sonics have been robbed (I remain convinced that there’s no fix-job in modern professional sports that matches Game 7 of the 1993 Western Conference finals, when the Phoenix Suns shot 64 free throws to the Sonics’ 36 so that the NBA and NBC could get their dream Barkley-Jordan matchup), underfunded, mismanaged, and undermined by their ownership and league. They play in a low-end arena and sport a lovable roster of has-beens, will-bes, and never-weres. The ares aren’t there.

The us-against-the-world model is fool’s gold. On the whole, it’s much more enjoyable to follow the game as a connoisseur, appreciating the virtuosity that is the result of years of hard work and lucky genes, without vilifying a rival group of otherwise ordinary men and women. But the highs aren’t as high for the connoisseur; there’s no joy like that of the righteous.

So may the city win this trial, may Howard Schultz get a second chance to flip the team, and may the SuperSonics soon capture the unlikely title that will provide a deserving fan base a righteous, once-in-a-generation thrill. Let us have our moment; they can resent us later.