Scott Howard-Cooper wrote a very touching blog for nba.com in which he compares the resiliency of the OKC Thunder to that of the city to which it belongs. If you have not read it, click the link above and do so. Then read this letter I wrote to Scott in response.
Scott,
This is a short note to thank you for your wonderful piece about the the Thunder's conection to Oklahoma City on nba.com. I have lived in Oklahoma City most of my life and your article, I am not ashamed to say brought tears to my eyes.
My father is a retired OCPD Crime Scene Detective and my step father is an OKC firefighter. They both spent a full month after the bombing sifting through the wreckage to recover victims. Years later, they both carry the scars from that month. Indeed the entire city has grieved together all these years. We have hurt together and cried with one another as we attend memorials every year around the city and cry together with people we may have never met.
In light of this, your article is a wonderfully beautiful expression of the power of sports. Just as we have cried together so many years, with the arrival of the Thunder and with their surprising success this year, we have also been able to come together to CHEER about something. Your article brought to my mind images of the President's memorial service just after the bombing in a dilapidated old arena here in Oklahoma City. The idea that the same crowd that cried together in that arena now celebrates together in the Ford Center is moving and profound. What we needed in Oklahoma City was something to cheer about. Something that would allow us to show people how proud we are. I don't know that it is appropriate to say that the arrival of the Thunder has completed our healing, but it's not a stretch at all to say that it has helped.
Sports are not just frivilous pass-times. Rather, because they connect a community, because they give a community something to be proud of, and because they bring a community into one common goal and one common voice, sports are in fact profound, transformative and, as anyone in Oklahoma City can tell you, healing.
Again, thank you for your writing.
Sincerely,
Jeffery Spruill
