When you're on vacation with your future wife, you're not necessarily supposed to be eyeing other women. But there was something about those ladies in the Lone Star State that I just found so ... captivating.
I'm not talking about those Texas honky tonk honeys that look like they just came from Coyote Ugly junior varsity practice; the ones with the Jessica Simpson country girl wardrobe, but with none of the intellectual charm. I didn't see many of them; since we were staying in Austin, most of the women either looked like they were from Haight-Ashbury or just walked out of a Dashboard Confessional concert.
I'm talking about a different kind of woman.
One who cheers loudly, and carries big ThunderStix.
And I found her in San Antonio.
We traveled there for a game between the Spurs and the visiting Dallas Mavericks, who had won something like their last dozen in a row. Naturally, we began our trip with a visit to The Alamo, which honestly I expected to be larger. Here's a fort where one of American history's greatest sieges occurred, and the main facility is about half the size of a bingo parlor. Not to mention I never even found the basement.
We also visited a Texas Rangers museum, which was cool in the sense that they had antique guns with antique bullets that were used to shoot antique cars, but not-so-cool in the sense that I expected to see a lot more stuff about Nolan Ryan and Bobby Witt.
After a quick stop for a bacon cheeseburger from a Texas burger stand — which I can't recommend enough, and would gladly eat twice a day for the rest of my life if it weren't for the fact that it would only last for about 72 hours — we were off to the AT&T Center, the amazing home of the three-time NBA champion Spurs.
Amazing arena ... horrific surrounding area. I'm not one to impugn a region based on a single street — Lord knows I've had to read the "New Jersey isn't just the Turnpike" riot act to enough people — but the neighborhood surrounding the road that leads to the arena looks like the more inviting areas of downtown Fallujah. Seriously, I've seen bars on widows before, but one of these houses had a CAGE ON ITS FRONT DOOR; like the kind Jacques Cousteau used to film in underwater. I didn't even know San Antonio had a problem with roving gangs of tiger sharks and moray eels...
Again, the arena itself is glorious, outside of the fact that its concourse hallways are medievally dark in some stretches. Great sight lines, good energy. I love the fact that the Spurs and the Rampage, the minor league hockey team in San Antonio, have this giant activities area above one of the end zone sections in the upper deck. Kids taking free throws and slap shots, playing video games — it's like going to a Chuck E. Cheese's without having to watch those creepy animatronic figures that usually never move ... well, save for when Matt Bonner comes off the bench for the Spurs.
But the best thing about the arena in San Antonio?
The women.
As I mentioned in a previous column, there's been a trend at NBA games where many of the female fans who show up are — how to put this? — dressed like they should be dancing in a Lil' Jon video. (You know which one I'm talking about. The one with the pimp cup.) Or they're dressed like a really great bucket of KFC: lots of leg, lots of thigh, lots of ... well, let's just say I've seen necklines at NBA games that were lower than the ratings for MTV's "Twentyfourseven."
But at a Spurs game, it's not like that. At all. Judging from the crowd I witnessed, the majority of the San Antonio fan base is comprised of women between the ages of 30-to-55 who proudly buck the female hoop fan wardrobe trend. They approach home games like a high-school football mother might approach her son's Friday Night Lights — with pride, and more than a little spirit.
They are passionate, they are relentless, and they are fiercely supportive of their Spurs. There was a woman sitting three rows in front of me in a Manu Ginobili jersey that, frankly, scared the living shit out of me and my lady. First of all, I'm pretty sure she brought her own ThunderStix, which is insane. And whenever Ginobili would score, she wouldn't just cheer; she vibrated, like a kid in a Japanese cartoon who is about to release a cosmic fireball at his enemy. She would put her arms in the air to her sides like she was flexing her biceps and begin to "Hulk up," allowing the Mystical Powers of the Manu to course through her veins. If Ginobili had hit a game-winning bucket or scored a four-point play, I'm pretty sure this woman would have exploded like a soggy pumpkin with an M-80 inside of it.
Why, in a world of 10,000 reality television shows about quirky people and their quirky lives, has this superfan's existence not been explored? Why hasn't someone sat down and chronicled what she believes channeling the Mystical Powers of the Manu provide her? Why hasn't someone entered her bedroom with a camera to record, for history's sake, the largest collection of Ginobili this side of Argentina?
The rest of the female contingent of Spurs Nation were no less enthusiastic. They were decked out in black-and-silver gear, and many of them added their own style to the ensemble. Like these little LED pins that would scroll a pro-Spurs message. Or several layers of Marti Gras beads. Or festive hats. They had style, they had class — and unlike some of the female Dallas fans in attendance, they didn't act like an ass.
The Mavs maidens in the upper deck were much younger and rowdier. Not at first — Dallas got down big early, before rallying in the second half to win. But during the comeback, these young Dallas darlings were saltier than a sailor. This one girl in a bright green Mavs t-shirt walked down the stairs to grab another beer from the concession stand during the fourth quarter, screaming at the rest of the section that "The Spurs SUUUUUUUUUCK! SUUUUUUUUCK!" Later, after Dallas had defeated San Antonio, she and a gaggle of other like-minded girls profanely taunted the departing home fans, as they danced and celebrated. It was completely disrespectful, callous, and inconsiderate behavior; the hockey fan in me was very impressed.
If their actions weren't pathetically attention-grabbing enough, one of the Mavs fans brought her own ESPN sign to the game; you know, the ones that feature some nonsensical four-word phrase, incorporating the letters of the network's name, in the hopes that a stray camera will catch it during a stoppage in play? Something silly like, "Everyone Salutes Popular Nowitzki!" It's the fan equivalent of flashing the crowd at a rock show...
Looking back on it, the entire night's behavior makes perfect sense within the context of the respective teams. What are the Spurs if not the personification of class? The team of David Robinson and Tim Duncan and model citizens coming together for a common good — well, save for that Dennis Rodman thing a few years back.
And what are the Mavericks if not ... well, "maverick," from Mark Cuban's unending insurgence to the fact that Dirk Nowitzki looks like he just staggered in from a Phish show (even if he prefers to listen to Hasselhoff)?
To you ladies of the Lone Star State: thank you for your passion, for your cheers — loud in both cases, though slightly slurred for the Dallas side. You made that night one of the most electric, dramatic, and entertaining arena experiences I've had as a basketball fan in quite some time.
And you gave me the second most memorable sports moment of our trip, eclipsed only by Tony Romo's botched field-goal hold one night later, which sent scores of Austin-based Cowboys fans out from the bars and into the streets, wailing in the night air with pained exclamations of frustration and anguish, sounding like mourners at an Italian funeral.
If only they would allow the Mystical Powers of the Manu to ease their pain.
Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book is "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History." His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].
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