A Year of Silence: My First Year Without the Seattle Sonics

Groggily, I was lead through the winding hills of Magnolia this morning by my dog. Spent the entire week moving into a new house and today (Sunday) was the first day that I could have slept in, but of course the dog had to wake me up just at the crack of dawn to go for a walk.

As Dawkins drug me around, the leash tight and him exploring his new neighborhood, I still hadn’t had a thought in my head outside of how I didn’t really want to scoop dog poop off the sidewalk with the sun not quite over the Cascades yet.

Then I looked to the mountains, as the sun began to peak over them, I started to think about how we were one day into the NBA playoffs and how for the first time in 41 years (20 years for me watching) that there was not a basketball dribbled professionally in Seattle (I count the two Tacoma years as part of the history.)

I stopped and had to look at the sunrise over the mountains, how absolutely beautiful it was. I leaned against an evergreen tree, my dog right at my heel, seemingly watching the sunrise with me. I then began to think back to when I was seven-years-old.

My dad rushed home after work and grabbed a Pietro’s pizza, it was pepperoni and to me it was the best pizza in town (growing up in Aberdeen, didn’t have too many other options).

He sat on the floor, turned the channel and was partly through the first quarter of the Sonics-Rockets first round playoff battle.

I had no idea what was happening, I had never watched a basketball game before that day. I had no idea who Michael Cage was, no idea who Derrick McKey was, didn’t know that Dale Ellis was the best pure three point shooter in the game, nor did I know that a young Nate McMillan would later be called, Mr. Sonic.

I remember the game being immensely close the entire night, the Rockets fans were wild and blood thirsty, trying to will their team to a fifth game back in Seattle.

That day, the Sonics would not have it and dispatched the Rockets in four games and got a chance to try to unseat the Lakers as Western Conference champions.

That day was very important for me in my life for two reasons.

One, it made me become a diehard Sonics’ fan. Something that would grow inside me for many years. And ultimately culminated with me travelling everywhere I could to see them in their final year of existence (3x Los Angeles, 2x Oakland, 1x Denver, 2x Portland, 1x Phoenix, 1x Houston, 27x Seattle).

Two, my dad who is actually my step-dad, but I don’t refer to him as such, he raised me, he is my father. But the first couple of years were hard on both of us. We hadn’t found that common bond yet.

And game four of the first round of the NBA playoffs between the Sonics and Rockets started that bond. It helped us get over that first bump and grow our relationship.

I always had envisioned taking my son to games, like my dad did with me. Last year I was lucky enough to give big thanks back to him by getting us courtside tickets to a Sonics-Timberwolves game last season.

We had hope that the Sonics would have been saved and we’d be able to go to a game next year. We talked about how cool it would be that after I had a son, that we could get three generations of Nesgodas into the arena to watch our beloved Sonics.

The night ran high with emotions and it almost ended with me getting a technical foul and ejected from the building by Scott Foster (huge douche) who was calling one of the worst officiated games I had ever seen.

I shut up, the Sonics lost and we took our Chris Wilcox bobble heads and left the arena.

I hadn’t realized that I had tears on my cheeks until a passing jogger asked if I was alright, I said I was and I was just remembering the Sonics and how important they were to me and how I missed them.

He was older and told me about how the Sonics bridged a gap between he and his step-daughter a couple of years ago. She was rebellious and refused to acknowledge him and said he would never replace her father, which was understandable since her father lost the battle with cancer a few years previous.

So this man and his friend had tickets for game three of the Western Semis against the Spurs. His friend had a family emergency and couldn’t go. After some coaxing from her mother, the man’s step-daughter agreed to go to the game with him.

After a thrilling one point win, the girl leaped into the man’s arms and said “thank you, dad.”

He smiled, got a bit teary eyed ad jogged away after we exchanged good-byes.

I looked over toward the top of the Space Needle, which could be seen from over the top of Queen Ann Hill.

The Key was empty, not a basketball to dribbled on the floor which had created so many memories for so many people. Basketball fans throughout the upper Northwest left with no team to cheer for, no players to follow.

Some fans have traitorously become Blazer fans, I’ve tried, but I can’t do it. It just seemed so, very wrong. Others moved over to college basketball, most declared the NBA dead to them (amazingly Seattle still drew high numbers for nationally televised games).

I would try to turn games on, but I couldn’t watch—not a whole game at least.

At first I followed everything the former Sonics team did, read NewsOK.com, refrained from being an annoying guy who posts on other forums just to piss others off. It was very tempting, especially with how some Okies poked and prodded us Sonics fans.

The year progressed and the less interested I became and the more I talked about it, the more I talked about it, the more my girlfriend told me to shut up.

The ineptitude of our Governor during the situation forced me to vote republican for the first time ever. I knew Dino Rossi wouldn’t win the election, but I thought that a strong Democrat for years voting Republican was my silent protest against her.

This coming November I am voting for anyone else but Greg Nickels for mayor of Seattle.

After a long cold winter we’ve ended up at spring and things are warming up, the NBA season is winding down and will soon be over and then a few months later it will start up again.

Again the Key will remain silent.

Another year will go by without a team and another year of the NBA not seeing a dime from me and many of the people I know.

Washington State Bill 6116 just passed through the Ways and Means Committee and goes through the Senate and House votes later this week.

Earlier in the week Margarita Prentice (whom has to be in Clay Bennett’s pocket, I’m totally convinced of this) claimed that the bill wasn’t even being talked about and then the day after it makes it through. How many times can one person be wrong on a subject?

Basketball fans are one step closer to getting a basketball team back here in the Northwest.

Maybe a miracle will happen, who knows.

Rest assured, I’ll be holding my breath. I will die waiting for my new Sonics.