I grew up a Houston Rockets fan. A fan of the Oilers and Astros, too. These were my hometown teams. Throughout my high school and college days the Rockets and Spurs seemed to always be battling it out. I knew who all the Rockets players were and stayed up in to wee hours of overtime play-off games cheering them on.
During an overlapping time period, in the era of three of the Cowboys Super Bowl wins, I had moved to Big D and as much as I wanted to still hate the Cowboys I couldn’t. America’s team became my team. I knew all of their players and cheered them on.
The story shifts again. This time to the Oklahoma City Thunder. It’s impossible to live here and not get caught up in the energy of the team. The fan base is amazing and although we are the third smallest NBA market the Thunder produced the largest television viewing audience this season. Again, we all know who the players are and cheer them on like they are family.
So am I traitor?
I think not. I like to think of it this way… as we grow, the places and people we are identified with change and mold us.
Since I grew up a Big City girl, moving to the smaller Texas town I called home for eight years was a drastic change and way of life. (This is when the Baylor Bears eclipsed my own alma mater- the SMU ponies!) But what I found in my time there is that smaller communities have a lot of wonderful benefits. In fact, many even outweighed the aminities of a big city.
Big city or smaller town I will always be a Texas girl. But I can’t deny that the place where the wind comes sweeping down the plains has seeped in to me. It’s now part of who I am; part of my story.
What I’ve discovered along the way is that it’s good to embrace what I might have once snubbed my nose at. In fact, moving has actually allowed me to identify better with different types of people, eliminating some of that pride.
So who can blame me for staying up cheering for the orange and blue Thunder over by former favorite Rockets?!
(Even our Thunder coach used to be a Rocket!)
Now if I’m not careful, I may one day even be yelling “Go Sooners” :)… For the time being though, I still say “Hook ‘Em”!
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Welcome to Oklahoma!!