Doug Loudenback
11-06-2005, 05:15 PM
To see the post there (the following link), you'll need to subscribe after clicking the following link if you have not done so already: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/13091102.htm
But here's the article:
On the NBA | Oklahoma City should remain Hornets' nest
By David Aldridge
Inquirer Staff Writer
Russ Granik, the NBA's deputy commissioner, recalled the phone call from Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina's making landfall in New Orleans in September.
"We've had tragedy here," Granik recalled Cornett as saying. "We see what's happening in New Orleans. We can help."
And so it came to pass that the Hornets temporarily moved lock, stock and barrel to Oklahoma City, the nation's 45th-largest television market - and a place that knows from tragedy, having gone through the domestic terrorist attack of April 19, 1995, that killed 168 people.
And you know what?
The Hornets should stay there - permanently.
A sports team provides a diversion from reality. In the specific case of New Orleans, it represents a connection to what used to be, providing some semblance of normalcy for a city that has been turned upside down. Surely, the citizens of the city need the team now more than ever.
But what happened in New Orleans trumps standard operating procedure. We are not talking about people who need to take a load off after a hard day's work; we are talking about people without work - and without homes, without schools, and without much hope.
The infrastructure of a city - a tax base, corporate dollars, public transportation, basic emergency services, a middle class with discretionary income - is something New Orleans is currently not capable of providing.
In New Orleans, people have better - and more important - things to do with their time and money than go to games.
Oklahoma City's powerful are trying to do everything not to be viewed as taking advantage of New Orleans.
"Certainly, we're respectful of the series of events that led to the relocation," Cornett said Tuesday, when a sellout crowd of 19,163 filled the Ford Center for Hornets' improbable 93-67 rout of the Sacramento Kings in their regular-season opener.
"But from Oklahoma City's standpoint, this is an opportunity to prove that we're a major-league city. We're excited about it. At the end of this year, the sports world's going to have an opinion. Can Oklahoma City support a major-league franchise? We intend for that answer to be a solid yes."
Support has come from all economic sectors of the city, which is stocked with big companies in the oil and energy businesses as well as such companies as Lopez Foods, one of the country's largest Latino-owned firms. The Hornets have already sold more than 10,000 season tickets in Oklahoma City, putting them in the top 10 league-wide.
"We view it as the ultimate real-time test," said local businessman Clay Bennett, one of the movers and shakers who coalesced the local business community around the Hornets.
"The one great thing about this process was that it didn't require a sales pitch," he said.
The truth of the matter is that it was a tough go for the Hornets in New Orleans before the hurricane. Like Sacramento, Calif.; San Antonio, Texas; and Memphis - and Oklahoma City, for that matter - New Orleans might be too small to support two major-league teams. The more established Saints have four decades of history in New Orleans, and the benefits to a city of having an NFL team, frankly, are greater than those of having an NBA team.
(Along those lines, shouldn't the NFL dip into its stadium building fund and publicly commit to helping build a new football stadium in New Orleans that would assure that the Saints remain there? The league has made untold millions hosting Super Bowls in the Big Easy over the years. It's time to repay that debt.)
No city will support a team with an 18-64 record - the one the Hornets had last season - for long, and Oklahoma City is surely no different. The Hornets are going to continue to be bad for a lot longer than this season. But geographically and financially, it makes sense to leave them in Oklahoma City. Equally important, people in the city are uniquely capable of understanding the pain of loss and shared suffering.
"They were sympathetic because of what they went through," Hornets owner George Shinn said last week. "They understood, and they stepped up. They made it clear to the NBA when they called that [they were not] trying to steal the team. They just want [the Hornets] to have a safe place to land."
And any notion that Oklahoma City isn't a major-league town evaporates the moment you reach the corner of 5th and Robinson.
That's where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building used to be, before Timothy McVeigh's act of madness reduced much of it to rubble.
Now a wondrous memorial to the dead - and the living - has risen from the ashes. And there is a nearby museum that details every second of that horrible day and many of the seconds that have come and gone since. There also is a serene outdoor mall with a reflecting pool that connects one end of the memorial to the other. There are 168 chairs lined up on one side of the memorial, one for each person killed in the explosion.
And on each wall these words are engraved:
We Come Here To Remember Those Who Were Killed, Those Who Survived, And Those Changed Forever. May All Who Leave Here Know The Impact Of Violence. May This Memorial Offer Comfort, Strength, Peace, Hope And Serenity.
Oh, Oklahoma City is big-league, all right.
Is this too cool, or what?
But here's the article:
On the NBA | Oklahoma City should remain Hornets' nest
By David Aldridge
Inquirer Staff Writer
Russ Granik, the NBA's deputy commissioner, recalled the phone call from Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina's making landfall in New Orleans in September.
"We've had tragedy here," Granik recalled Cornett as saying. "We see what's happening in New Orleans. We can help."
And so it came to pass that the Hornets temporarily moved lock, stock and barrel to Oklahoma City, the nation's 45th-largest television market - and a place that knows from tragedy, having gone through the domestic terrorist attack of April 19, 1995, that killed 168 people.
And you know what?
The Hornets should stay there - permanently.
A sports team provides a diversion from reality. In the specific case of New Orleans, it represents a connection to what used to be, providing some semblance of normalcy for a city that has been turned upside down. Surely, the citizens of the city need the team now more than ever.
But what happened in New Orleans trumps standard operating procedure. We are not talking about people who need to take a load off after a hard day's work; we are talking about people without work - and without homes, without schools, and without much hope.
The infrastructure of a city - a tax base, corporate dollars, public transportation, basic emergency services, a middle class with discretionary income - is something New Orleans is currently not capable of providing.
In New Orleans, people have better - and more important - things to do with their time and money than go to games.
Oklahoma City's powerful are trying to do everything not to be viewed as taking advantage of New Orleans.
"Certainly, we're respectful of the series of events that led to the relocation," Cornett said Tuesday, when a sellout crowd of 19,163 filled the Ford Center for Hornets' improbable 93-67 rout of the Sacramento Kings in their regular-season opener.
"But from Oklahoma City's standpoint, this is an opportunity to prove that we're a major-league city. We're excited about it. At the end of this year, the sports world's going to have an opinion. Can Oklahoma City support a major-league franchise? We intend for that answer to be a solid yes."
Support has come from all economic sectors of the city, which is stocked with big companies in the oil and energy businesses as well as such companies as Lopez Foods, one of the country's largest Latino-owned firms. The Hornets have already sold more than 10,000 season tickets in Oklahoma City, putting them in the top 10 league-wide.
"We view it as the ultimate real-time test," said local businessman Clay Bennett, one of the movers and shakers who coalesced the local business community around the Hornets.
"The one great thing about this process was that it didn't require a sales pitch," he said.
The truth of the matter is that it was a tough go for the Hornets in New Orleans before the hurricane. Like Sacramento, Calif.; San Antonio, Texas; and Memphis - and Oklahoma City, for that matter - New Orleans might be too small to support two major-league teams. The more established Saints have four decades of history in New Orleans, and the benefits to a city of having an NFL team, frankly, are greater than those of having an NBA team.
(Along those lines, shouldn't the NFL dip into its stadium building fund and publicly commit to helping build a new football stadium in New Orleans that would assure that the Saints remain there? The league has made untold millions hosting Super Bowls in the Big Easy over the years. It's time to repay that debt.)
No city will support a team with an 18-64 record - the one the Hornets had last season - for long, and Oklahoma City is surely no different. The Hornets are going to continue to be bad for a lot longer than this season. But geographically and financially, it makes sense to leave them in Oklahoma City. Equally important, people in the city are uniquely capable of understanding the pain of loss and shared suffering.
"They were sympathetic because of what they went through," Hornets owner George Shinn said last week. "They understood, and they stepped up. They made it clear to the NBA when they called that [they were not] trying to steal the team. They just want [the Hornets] to have a safe place to land."
And any notion that Oklahoma City isn't a major-league town evaporates the moment you reach the corner of 5th and Robinson.
That's where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building used to be, before Timothy McVeigh's act of madness reduced much of it to rubble.
Now a wondrous memorial to the dead - and the living - has risen from the ashes. And there is a nearby museum that details every second of that horrible day and many of the seconds that have come and gone since. There also is a serene outdoor mall with a reflecting pool that connects one end of the memorial to the other. There are 168 chairs lined up on one side of the memorial, one for each person killed in the explosion.
And on each wall these words are engraved:
We Come Here To Remember Those Who Were Killed, Those Who Survived, And Those Changed Forever. May All Who Leave Here Know The Impact Of Violence. May This Memorial Offer Comfort, Strength, Peace, Hope And Serenity.
Oh, Oklahoma City is big-league, all right.
Is this too cool, or what?