What the Oklahoma City Thunder Really Mean to Oklahomans [View all]

Oklahoma is the home of the world's first parking meter. I know this because a billboard about an hour north of the Texas-Oklahoma border apparently wants me to know this. Having grown up in Oklahoma, though, I'm fully aware that a little history nugget like being the first to charge people for a 300 square-foot parking space is kind of a big deal in the Sooner State. Right up there with (at one point) housing the largest free-standing McDonald's and sicking Hanson on you.
But now there's the Oklahoma City Thunder, which in four years since coming over from Seattle has become the state's signature point of relevance. A team that, more than anything, serves as validation for all those years Oklahomans begged for a professional sports team--imploring anyone who would listen to just give us a chance, and we'd prove it would work.
And great Harden's beard, it's working. So well, in fact, that Oklahoma is forging a national reputation as the loudest, most supportive fan base in the NBA.
When OKC eliminated the Lakers from the playoffs, Bricktown wasn't the entertainment hotspot I frequented to escape an Orwellian college that tried to convince me instruments in religious music were evil. No, this was Radiohead at Bonnaroo. About ten thousand fans watched the game outside Chesapeake Energy Arena -- for a second-round playoff game, no less. That doesn't happen in Oklahoma, not even for a free Carrie Underwood-Blake Shelton concert (both born in Oklahoma, by the way).

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