Little bit of heaven falls on Sonic fan

By Berry Tramel

Published: July 4, 2008

Anthony Francisco calls himself Sonic Sooner on the radio airwaves, which he frequents to talk sports and hail his beloved teams (guess who?) and trash the Texas Longhorns and Compton Aqueducts (Lakers) at every opportunity.

Francisco watched his Oklahoma football team from up close, surrounded by a million Sooner zealots, and his Seattle basketball team from afar, maybe the lone SuperSonic fan in the seven-county region.

Life can throw you some curveballs. Sometimes, it throws you a pitch so fat, you can't help but pinch yourself and hit it out of the park.

Oklahoma City was not even a blip on the major-league radar three years ago. Now Sonic Sooner's beloved team has landed in his lap.

Through a series of events that can only be described as amazing, from a hurricane to an oil boom, OKC has joined the list of America's major-league metros, 41 in all.

A lot of us wondered what it would be like to live in a major-league market and figured we'd have to move to find out. But the mountain came to Mohammed.

"I'm the eternal optimist,” said OKC mayor Mick Cornett, who grew up a sports junkie on the northwest side of town in the 1970s. "I think I found myself on the side that said never say never.”

But even Mayor Mick admits the majors weren't realistic.

Then Oklahoma City passed the MAPS vote, and the NHL gave us a look, and the Ford Center opened, and Katrina swamped New Orleans, and Chesapeake Energy went flush with money, and Clay Bennett and his buddies bought the Sonics, and next thing you know, Sonic Sooner needs a new name.

Bennett is leaving the Sonics brand behind, and that's OK with Francisco.

"I can live with giving up the name Sonics,” Francisco said. He hoped they would be the Oklahoma City Sonics but said he would take the team two years early in exchange for the name.

"It is the team I've been following since '92,” Francisco said. That's the year he moved to Seattle, a U.S. Grant High School and OU grad, and got a jump on that major-league living.

Always an NBA fan, Francisco adopted the Sonics and jumped aboard quite a ride, with those Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp teams that went to the Western Conference Finals in 1993 and the NBA Finals in 1996.

He would stand at KeyArena and cheer a Hersey Hawkins 3-pointer or scream at the refs, and many a Sonic fan looked at him like he was crazy, because fervor is the exception in Seattle.

"Most people go to just sit there, even in the glory days,” Francisco said. "I was looked at like I was crazy.”

The name will change in Oklahoma City, but Sonic Sooner says the history won't.

"Same team, always will be,” Francisco said. "This is the Jack Sikmas and Downtown Freddie Browns coming to Oklahoma City, as far as I'm concerned.”

Francisco returned to Oklahoma a few years ago and now is finance director for the city of Norman.

He has loads of friends still in Seattle, many of them Sonic fans in understandable mourning. But Francisco says they've been supportive, calling to congratulate him on this miracle manna.

And he has no mixed feelings. "My emotions are 100 percent joy,” Francisco said.

For the longest, Sonic Sooner wouldn't allow himself to dream this impossible dream. Not even after Bennett bought the Sonics. "I still went a year thinking they would get a deal done,” Francisco said.

When the Washington legislature rejected arena funding in spring 2007, Francisco dared to believe, and Wednesday, his team hit town.

"It's been kind of hard to focus at work the last day or two,” he said. "It's a dream. It's surreal.”

All of Oklahoma City knows the feeling.

Comments