Paul Merrill, Peter Nussbaum and Rafael Calonzo (aka Chunkstyle) grew up together in Maple Valley, WA.
Their first basketball memories were watching the Sonics win the Championship in 1979. They were seven years old and got to stay up late on a school night to watch Brent Musberger call the game on tape delay. They remember Lenny, and Jack, and D.J., and The Wheedle. They all had “WORLD CHAMPS” t-shirts, and commemorative books, records and beer steins.
They stuck with the team in the 1980’s, while most of their friends (and most of the newspapers) jumped on the Seahawks bandwagon. They worshiped at the Church of Karl (with the holy trinity of Kemp, Payton, and Det) during the boom-time 90’s. In the 00’s, they’ve suffered through the dismantling of a near-championship team, a nasty strike, and a decade of some of the crappiest teams in franchise history. And, of course, they were heartbroken in 2008 when the team suddenly vanished.
So why do they still care? Why do they still watch old games on YouTube, study the boxscores, and bitch about Wally Walker? No one knows for sure, but it might have something to do with those little seven-year-olds in the Supersonics shirts, who got to stay up late on a school night.
Either that, or they're just gluttons for punishment.
One cool thing about growing up in Maple Valley: if you take Hwy 169 as you're headed to Maple Valley from Renton, there's an old railroad bridge visible from the highway that's had the following spray-painted at the top for as long as I can remember:
ReplyDeleteLETSALLMAKELOVEFORLEDZEPPELINANDTHESUPERSONICS
If anyone has a picture of that, or has any idea of the graffiti's origins, please send it along!
hey there!
ReplyDeletejust stumbled on this blog while searching for sonics pics (one can never have enough, man. :D) and all i wanna say is...THIS IS ONE FREAKING COOL SITE! :D much love to you three for making a cool blog for obsessive sonics fans like me. :D i will defintely bookmark this and visit every freaking day. :D you guys rock!
go sonics!
rex ^___^
Is it so crazy to consider bringing Lenny back one more time?
ReplyDeletehey...any idea where I could find some bit torrents of sonics games?? I'm stuck out here in the midwest, so the only time I get to see a sonics game is on the off chance that ESPN carries em or sometimes TNT.
ReplyDeleteI found a couple at torrentspy, but not much to be had...any ideas??
josh
jfrank6692@tds.net
boogiefingers.blogspot.com
The problem is not finding Sonics-torrents, it's that nobody's seeding them :-(
ReplyDeleteThe sonics without defense is the like Boeing airplanes without wings. So long goodbye auvidas ane...or whatever. If Ray Allen could play defense we wouldn't be worrying about them leaving.
ReplyDeleteHear hear RE: defense/lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteHey folks, dig yer site. I too want to see that bridge (has anybody seen the bridge? where is that confounded bridge?) so I'll have to take a trip down the 169 someday soon.
Been banned multiple times from the seattlepi.com forum, so I'm trolling around for another good place to spew my random thoughts on this team and other vagaries.
Cheers,
Speedcat
The words "one cool thing about growing up in Maple Valley" should never start a sentence.
ReplyDeleteI am a THS girl myself, although a couple of years behind you guys. I heart this site ... I think it's smarter than a decision to trade "up" for Olden Polynice.
When I was five years old my mother bought me a pack of NBA Hoops basketball cards. The first card was of Xavier McDaniel and that was enough for my five year old mind to decide I was a Sonics fan. I grew up in western Nebraska in a town of 244 people and when the Sonics visited the Nuggets my dad and I would travel to Denver. I just graduated from the University of Nebraska and I decided that if Bennet might actually move the team I had to move the Seattle area and support the Sonics. I'm glad to see other die hard fans. We may not be winning much this year, but we have a good core (not to mention young). It would be a tragedy to lose this team, especially to Oklahoma. I know live in Tacoma and wanted to introduce myself. I've been reading through and see some great stuff. Go Sonics!
ReplyDeleteHey...anybody know where to find on any clips of the old SuperSonics Commercials where the Glove and Reignman are SuperHeroes in comic format...great stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to find some 1979 NBA Finals footage...didn't see anything on you-tube, although I did see some footage from 1978 and the Marvin Webster-led club.
ReplyDeleteHey, fellas. I really love what you've done with this site. I've checked it--off and on--for the past several years but still need to really dig into the meat, here. I started a fan page for the 1979 Championship Team on Facebook, a while back. Take a peek, sometime, and feel free to post and nuggets you may have from '1978-'79.
ReplyDelete@Sweva, I've been able to find quite a bit of footage on youtube from the 1979 Finals. Maybe some of that has been posted since your comment, over two years ago . . .
One Love and Seattle Supersonics Forever!
www.facebook.com/79SonicsSeason