Why College Sports are Better: The Sonics Situation

I have lived in North Georgia my entire life and I have been in the metropolitan Atlanta area throughout the periods in which I was not in Athens getting an education.

My hometown baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, used to be the Milwaukee Braves and, before that, the Boston Braves. What was Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium is now a parking lot, having been replaced by Turner Field.

My hometown basketball team, the Atlanta Hawks, has gone through a messy change of ownership. The Omni is now gone, having been replaced by Philips Arena.

My hometown football team, the Atlanta Falcons, stayed put after the owner made threats to relocate the team but remained only because the Georgia Dome was built. (In retrospect, we should have let the Falcons go, built the Dome as soon as the moving vans cleared the horizon, and asked the N.F.L. for an expansion franchise, so we could be rooting for the Atlanta Panthers or the Atlanta Jaguars today, but that’s another subject.)

The hometown hockey team I grew up with, the Atlanta Flames, moved to Calgary.

Meanwhile, the Georgia Bulldogs remain the Georgia Bulldogs. The helmets they wear today are virtually identical to the helmets they wore in 1964. They play in Sanford Stadium, where they have played since 1929.

If I moved somewhere else--which I wouldn’t, although, theoretically, I could—the Atlanta professional teams would cease to be my “hometown” teams, but, wherever I went, there would always be two University of Georgia degrees framed and hanging on my wall.

The stadiums and arenas in which Atlanta’s N.F.L., N.B.A., N.H.L., and major league baseball teams were playing when I was my son’s age literally no longer exist, but I still can take my son to Athens and show him the Arch, the building in which I met his mother (Phi Kappa Hall, built in 1836), and the building in which I married his mother (The Chapel, built in 1832).

Dave is right. College sports are the real deal, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and always.

Have a happy Independence Day, everyone.

I feel like that this occurs mostly inside the NBA. Yes I know the Washington Nationals ans the Baltimore Ravens leaving cities to become a new team, but it seems every NBA owner says, “If the fans don’t build the stadium we are moving the team.” I am from outside Sacramento and I have heard this for the past five years about the Kings. The Maloofs have threatened to move the team to Vegas for years. Yes, I agree that Arco Arena needs to be updated but it does not need a whole brand new complex that the Maloofs had to get David Stern involved to help. I was watching PTI the other day and JA Adande, he was filling in for Wilbon, said look, ” why should fans pay for a new arena when places like the Staples Center and (there was another place but I forgot which one) were built from the owners’ pocket. Most of these owners are hundreds of millionaires if not billionaires. They can afford to pay for most of the expenses.

I feel bad for Seattle I really do but Howard Schultz should have never sold the team to Clay Bennett. As soon as the sale happened, everyone knew from the start that the Sonics were heading to Oklahoma City. I know Bennett said he would try his best to keep the Sonics in Seattle, but I saw no evidence in the past two years that he tried.

I am glad that Colleges and Universities can’t just leave and move to a new city.

Maybe it’s because we grew up without any professional teams except the Blazers but I have always been a much bigger college football fan than an NFL fan. I can enjoy the NFL, I got to be in New York City this year when the Giants won after all but college football seemed to have the more dedicated, more impassioned fans and what is football without diehard fans? I love that I grew up watching the Ducks and reveling in the Autzen energy on game day and that I have no doubts that my kids will get to enjoy the same experience some day.
I do feel horrible for Sonics fans though and could not dislike Clay Bennett more. The way he’s trying to claim they made a good faith effort to keep the team in Seattle when there is a considerable amount of evidence that shows that was never their intention is despicable. What are we all, stupid? How can he possibly expect us to believe that?! I would be devastated if the Blazers were taken away and infuriated if it was because Portland refused to replace an already fairly new arena.

the nba is dead to me