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Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
WCWS' mad carnival meets an NBA Finals stunner: Two days in Oklahoma City's sports vortex
OKLAHOMA CITY — To begin with, the Church of Thunder is not a church. There are a dozen pews, yes, but they were found on Facebook Marketplace. There is reverence, but it is aimed at the basketball game on a projector screen anchored to pallets of beer. This is why the people gather in a warehouse on Thursday. The biblical rains have passed. Time to praise and, with any luck, celebrate the local professional basketball franchise as it starts the NBA Finals about a mile away. Shai's will be done. Or something like that. Advertisement 'The little things we do have to cheer, we're going to cheer as loud as we can for them,' says Nick Williams, the co-owner of Lively Beerworks and founder of this ad hoc place of worship. At almost the same time, not even 15 minutes away, another event creates its own gravitational pull. The Women's College World Series championship round has a one-night head start and some complications from being an outdoor sport played after a deluge, but it, too, has thousands of people pushing through the gates to watch. A city that didn't exist a century and a half ago, a town off the major-sport grid when century started, is the latest magnetic north for sports. But seeing it is believing it. Two days, one city, two championship events separated by 7 miles and juxtaposed in scope and spirit. The people here might insist the local ethos threads them together. To an extent, this is true. But the Women's College World Series feels intimate, very much of this place even as the sport swells in popularity. The NBA Finals? That's an everywhere phenomenon, as hard as anyone tries to rope it in. And the local basketball club increasingly belongs to those far beyond city limits. The tension is kind of cool. There's ambition and audacity all over a big place that's big, but also isn't. By area, Oklahoma City is the 10th-largest city in the country. By population, it's 20th, and rising. 'The Modern Frontier' is the slogan on the digital billboard next to the Amtrak station, for visitors who need to know the gist. A town birthed by a high-noon land rush now has a light-rail loop and lovely botanical gardens with a THUNDER UP sign at the southeast corner. Also, there's an American Banjo Museum and a civic issues forum on the website OKC Talk that, as of June 4, was topped by a thread titled 'Urban Chickens.' Advertisement Put another way: In one of our nation's swiftest-growing cities, it's still not uncommon to hit a downtown crosswalk button and have your request granted instantly. And on the morning of the day everything starts happening, nothing much is happening. Fairly, eight tornados touching ground around here on Tuesday night might have stubbed some momentum. (The Pacers' team plane, as was widely noted, diverted to Tulsa for refueling after circling Will Rogers International Airport while a virile storm cell passed through.) In any case, this confluence of championship events officially begins with a Wednesday that's little more than an overcast Wednesday. There's 'Downtown OKC Day' festivities in a small green space across from the Chamber of Commerce building, but it's effectively two and a half hours of food trucks, music over loudspeakers and free swag around lunchtime. A few blocks away, on the park lawn where a pregame fan extravaganza will take place before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, people play Wiffle ball. The soundtrack is train horns and hedge trimmers. A vibe, it is not. Yet. Advertisement Then again, being here on these two days requires a little recalibration on what it means for something to happen. The Women's College World Series, or the championship round anyway, is not a rager. Not on this weekday. The mostly empty parking lot three hours before first pitch makes that clear. Cars arrive steadily, but there appear to be exactly two patches of tailgaters. Had Oklahoma earned a spot for the fifth consecutive season, the scene could be different. As it is, for a long while late Wednesday afternoon, the scene is a weekend travel softball tournament with a nicer stadium. And this is the point. This is the soul of the thing. No one goes to a state fair to hang out in the lot. You go in and do all the things. So it is at Devon Park, the softball capital of the world. The fans show up to wait — for the gates to open, for a chance to browse the official merchandise tent, in a line to meet some relatively famous local. In this case, the local is former Oklahoma All-American catcher Kinzie Hansen, a member of the Team USA softball roster. (No, Texas Tech alum, superfan and most famous quarterback alive Patrick Mahomes is not on hand.) The queue to meet Hansen snakes through the softball Hall of Fame well before the appointed 5:30 p.m. start time. LIMIT TO 1 ITEM PER PERSON, per the sign at the head of the line. Efficiency is paramount when people of all ages and allegiances fill and refill the space; a Texas fan even gets Hansen to smile and flash a 'Horns Down' sign in a picture for posterity. Advertisement 'Perfect,' Hansen says, and it's on to the next neon yellow orb to inscribe. Across the parking lot, there's less of a wait for a different kind of special guest: The Larry O'Brien Trophy, soon to be awarded to a new NBA champ, sits inside a small tent and is available for still-life picture-taking. (As long as patrons download the NBA app first, naturally.) Inside the park, along the third-base concourse, it's a bacchanal of artery-cloggers: a booth for funnel cakes and corn dogs, another for hand-popped kettle corn delivered in bags as big as a toddler, another for Big O's Pork barbecue fare. Red and black and burnt orange everywhere, broken up by more than a few club softball jersey color schemes. Some 12,000-plus, shoulder to shoulder, happily waiting to consume whatever's next. Is Texas Tech stretching an hour before the game something? Anything? Here, yes, apparently, as Red Raiders faithful line the first-base wall to watch. 'The fans showed out,' Texas coach Mike White says after a Game 1 win, cinched by a two-run single from Longhorns catcher Reese Atwood on what was supposed to be an intentional walk from Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady. 'I've never had that happen to me,' Atwood says, not long after Canady could be heard sobbing in the hallway outside the interview room. Only in the throes of softball's mad carnival. Advertisement A slow burn removes the cloud cover the next day, putting some literal light on downtown visitors filling $10 pay lots and office-dwellers taking lunch breaks in Thunder gear. (It's not everyone. But it's enough to suggest a few peppy intra-office memos were sent this week.) For some, this will forever be an NBA franchise appropriated from elsewhere. For those who enjoy the team being here, however it got to the corner of Reno Avenue and Thunder Drive, it's likely motivation to double down on some parochiality: a metro area pulling a team close and shouting for more than 17 years. This return to the NBA Finals, though, might be loosening the grip. Everyone may have to learn to share. A young and energized group, led by the league's young and energized Most Valuable Player in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is not darling. They're closer to the next version of the Golden State Warriors, mesmerizing young fans coast-to-coast and burrowing into their bandwagons. You can imagine a generation chopping it up about 'OKC' without caring a whole lot about what the letters stand for. Maybe the actual OKC is OK with that. Not far from Paycom Center, there's a Flaming Lips Alley and a Kings of Leon Lane and a Mickey Mantle Drive. Entities grounded around here, one way or another, that became property of a much wider world. This seems to be a matter of acceptance, not resentment. 'I don't do a whole lot of traveling anymore,' says Andrew Smith, Duncan, Okla., native and the general manager at Fassler Hall in the city's Midtown neighborhood. 'But if I was out in Chicago or in New Jersey and I saw people in a Thunder jersey, I would think that was amazing. Because it's our team.' Advertisement Finding Fassler Hall isn't entirely intuitive — it's off the street, with an arrow pointing you up some stairs in the same direction of an orthodontic arts office — thus the rebranding. Massive white Gothic lettering on the back wall of the building, in fact: Thunder Hall. The same logo adorns the black T-shirt worn by staffers, too. A German-inspired beer hall all-in on the local pro basketball outfit since wintertime, when the Thunder contacted some of the larger local venues and floated the idea of establishing official watch party spots. Thus the soccer-style team and playoff banners hanging from the ceiling on the inside. To be part of this is good business, of course, but also something more. 'We get a lot of pride out of how well the Thunder does,' Smith says. 'It shows we can be a top-tier city and a top-tier state.' By 3 p.m. on game day, there's already one dude with a stein and an orange Gilgeous-Alexander jersey at a picnic table on the massive patio, with a clear view of the outdoor big screen past the pingpong tables. What's a small trickle of patrons at this hour is expected to multiply into a capacity crowd, just as it did for each of the Western Conference finals games. First, a most appropriate prelude. The skies darken. The wind picks up. A cell of thunder, lighting and heavy rain consumes the area, as if literal forces of nature wished to remind everyone what sort of city claims the Oklahoma City Thunder, no matter how many people claim it elsewhere. It's a suboptimal outcome for the home team's standard pregame outdoor fan experience at Scissortail Park, which is forced into its own holding pattern while the weather blasts the grounds. It's still nothing quite like the line that spit out those tornados on the eve of the NCAA softball championship round. So, as Texas Tech and Texas prepare for Game 2 a few miles away, there might be some worries about long delays and a longer night. But there's a roof on the Paycom Center. And one over the headquarters of Lively Beerworks, a.k.a. the Church of Thunder, and all the local laic worship spots like it. Advertisement The show rolls on here. And everywhere. As with most good ideas revolving around sports and adult beverages, the Church of Thunder was born out of the desire to have a fun time watching basketball — and the lack of available bleachers to rent. 'We had the space, and I was like, why not?' Williams says. The team becoming one of the best in the world turned it into a genius business plan. For Game 1 on Thursday, the extra chairs stationed at the end of the dozen pews aren't enough. Out come more white folding chairs, creating six additional rows of seating. It's still not sufficient. Late-comers stand on the side and scramble for slivers of space. So it goes with services on a holiday. The first bucket for the home team is met with cheers and a thudding chorus of inflatable Thunderstix. So is the second. Briefly, the signal goes out and the screens go black. Everyone boos. Seconds later the signal reboots. Everyone cheers. A 3-pointer from Gilgeous-Alexander follows and the place is up for grabs as much as a smallish warehouse can be. Advertisement A single basket or quarter or half or game isn't worth living and dying over. The entire history of the NBA proves that. It's not terribly different up the road at the softball championships, where even the most consequential sequence can be upended by a bit of ridiculousness no one has seen before. And yet, over two nights, the sports-goers in this city are dead and resurrected a lot. By the end of Thursday night, with Mahomes indeed in attendance at Devon Park, Canady finds redemption in the circle and Texas Tech hangs on by a half a fingernail to win 4-3 and force a decisive Game 3 against Texas. The Thunder, in some ways bearing expectations that are more than a hundred years old, collapse under it. Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton's go-ahead shot with 0.3 seconds remaining foists a 111-110 Pacers win upon an expectant city. Postgame lamentations fill the streets for a minute. But the night gets much quieter, much quicker, than anyone here might have hoped. This is Oklahoma City. The truth of this place is a torment and a refuge. Anything can happen now. Advertisement The Athletic This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Oklahoma City Thunder, NBA, Culture, College Sports, 2025 NBA playoffs, A1: Must-Read Stories, Women's College Sports 2025 The Athletic Media Company
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
American Banjo Museum offers free admission to Timberwolves fans after Minnesota article
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — You may have seen an article floating around from a local Minnesota newspaper that states NBA players don't like to spend a lot of time in Oklahoma City and the attractions aren't enticing unless they would like to visit the American Banjo Museum multiple times. Now, the museum is offering free admission to Timberwolves fans. 'It's obvious the author hasn't really seen Oklahoma City himself,' said Johnny Baier, a banjo icon and the Executive Director of the American Banjo Museum. Baier read the article in the Minnesota Star Tribune. It states, 'Visiting NBA teams don't like to spend a lot of time in Oklahoma not a city their friends and family may visit with them, and the attractions don't really entice them, unless somebody would really like to visit the American Banjo Museum multiple times.' OKC Mayor David Holt also read the story. 'If you're some lazy sportswriter and you don't want to leave your your room at the Omni and you just want to pop off about the Banjo Museum, you know, it makes good copy, but it's not reality,' said Mayor Holt. It's true, the American Banjo Museum is a good time and it's famous. Celebrities often visit. Just last Friday, Thomas Lennon, who played Lt. Jim Dangle on Reno 911, stopped by to play and visit. 'Eric Clapton was here,' said Baier. 'Tim Blake Nelson from O' Brother Where Art Thou?' Also, the elusive Steve Martin is very involved in the museum. 'He's become an ambassador for the museum donating instruments and loaning us things,' said Baier. Kermit the Frog has also visited multiple times. His video plays on loop. 'You know, I've been playing banjo since I was a tadpole, but I have never seen anything like this!' Mr. Green said during the video. OKC Stores preparing to sell new items pending Thunder victory Now, because of the article, the museum is opening up it's doors to Timberwolves fans for free. 'And if an Oklahoma City Fan comes and wants to get free admission saying they're a Minnesota fan, the karma train is coming!' said Baier. While the American Banjo Museum is a staple downtown, there's more to offer. 'I'd love to think the American Banjo Museum is the only thing that somebody would want to do, multiple times, but in reality there's a lot of stuff to do here,' said Baier. Chad Huntington, the CEO of the Bricktown Water Taxi, said in the later rounds of the playoffs he starts to see more visitors coming from other cities. 'You can stay busy for a week here,' said Huntington. He would know. His team tells tourists all about the city while sailing along the Bricktown Canal. 'There's also food scene, there is nightlife, believe it or not, which NBA players do find,' said Huntington. He also mentions theme parks, like the classic Frontier City and Hurricane Harbor, along with the new beach and waterslides along I-40 at Okana. Not to mention, white water rafting at Riversport OKC. 'I mean, we're bringing the Olympics to Oklahoma City via Riversport,' said Huntington. Huntington also mentions the plentiful museums, like the Oklahoma Museum of Art, Science Museum Oklahoma, First Americans Museum, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and of course the OKC National Memorial & Museum. 'If you come here with open eyes – you're going to walk away having a great experience,' said Baier. After the article, Baier sent in a response which the Minnesota Star Tribune published. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
