Culture
Can a reimagined Cobbs Creek fulfill its promise? Public golf is hoping so
Editor’s note: This article is part of The Changemakers series, focusing on the behind-the-scenes executives and people fueling the future growth of their sports.
PHILADELPHIA — From the eastern boundary of Merion Golf Club, water flows southeast along the property, cutting inward across the 12th hole, framing the famed 11th green, where Bobby Jones clinched the 1930 Grand Slam. Veins of tributaries shoot from the stream, slicing through the course. One sidles up to the fifth fairway, what some consider the best par 4 in the world. Everything about Merion is immaculate. Generations of wealth in this city have assured so. Shaping, reshaping. Renovating, restoring. Installing a multi-million dollar underground turf conditioning system.
The water moves on from Merion, meandering alongside estates with houses set far off the street. It flows out of Haverford toward Ardmore, along roadsides and lawns, into Penn Wynne, and cuts through Powder Mill Park in Wynnewood.
Then comes Township Line Road, the stretch of Route 1 that divides Philadelphia from its western suburbs. The water ripples underneath an overpass, entering the city, and flows past a shuttered driving range. A little further, it zigs and zags through the remains of a municipal golf course, past the site of an old clubhouse, one that burned down in 2016. Connected to the same creek as Merion, built by the same architect who designed Merion, once praised in the same breath as Merion, Cobbs Creek Golf Club is now a ghost. Overgrown and unrecognizable. Nature has reclaimed what history created and time neglected.
Two sides of the street, two versions of the same game, four miles apart.
Anywhere else, Cobbs, as it’s known, might’ve been left for dead years ago. The last time it was operational, dying trees, severe erosion and holes in various stages of disrepair made it not only unplayable, but borderline unsafe. Without a clubhouse, the course operated out of two double-wide trailers. It closed in October 2020.
But there had always been these rumors. Anyone familiar with municipal golf in a major city knows the kind. Chatter of some magnificent renovation, the kind that might bring Cobbs back to its original glory and give the public a place as nice as the private clubs. The buzz began what seems like forever ago, back in the early aughts. Word that a nonprofit group was working to save Cobbs. We talked about it while sitting around the old plastic tables in what was the clubhouse. And in the parking lot, where the old-timers sat around in folding chairs with cards in their hands and coolers in their trunks. And around the first tee box, where foursomes stacked up, being told which holes had temporary greens due to flooding, before being sent out five minutes apart for a five-hour round.
Everyone wondered the same thing. What if?
For all its issues, Cobbs Creek carried an unmistakable mystique, even in the end. You didn’t need to squint to see the quality of the design. The land is shaped by features money can’t buy — elevation, natural water flow, vistas, a rail system rolling past. The original 18 holes opened in 1916, immediately establishing Cobbs among the country’s premier public golf courses. A century later, that old layout is referred to only as “the bones.” They’re down there, somewhere.
When the course closed, the non-profit Cobbs Creek Foundation, comprised of local corporate executives and golf architecture enthusiasts, took over the facility in a private/public partnership. At first, the scope was confined to restoring the course and providing an educational program for young people in the surrounding neighborhood. Price tag: Roughly $20 million. Proposed opening date: June 2023.
Two years later, in 2022, that plan was no longer tenable. Work to lower the creek’s floodplain came with endless other hurdles. Between necessary approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, along with countless other state and federal organizations, the project grew exponentially. The Cobbs Creek Foundation signed a 70-year lease for $1 to take over the property and mapped a new plan. This one required rebuilding over 3 miles of creek and tributaries, creating dozens of acres of wetlands, fully renovating Cobbs’ original 18 holes, creating a new nine-hole course, a driving range and a short course, and building a youth education center. Price tag: Roughly $65 million. Proposed opening date: Sometime in 2024.
As it goes in Philadelphia, skepticism built and controversy grew. The clearing of several hundred trees drew outrage from environmental organizations and neighborhood groups. Improper campaign contributions from the foundation to a local councilman drew blowback. Multiple stages of project planning were stunted by denied permits, delaying steps until approved.
There was every reason to see Cobbs’ return as a pipe dream.
Except now, along Lansdowne Avenue, stands the framework of what will be a 30,000-square-foot building. It will be the country’s second TGR Learning Lab, an education center operated by Tiger Woods’ TGR Foundation, where over 4,500 local youth will receive year-round Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education and college readiness programs. In front of the building, bulldozers are kicking up dirt, building a nine-hole, par-3 short course. Both are expected to open spring 2025. Nearby, land is being prepped for a two-story driving range that will include a restaurant, pro shop, area for community events and a museum. That’s also where a junior putting green will be installed, courtesy of a $250,000 grant from Jordan Spieth’s family foundation.
Seeing this in person is mind-bending to anyone who came up playing Cobbs. Knowing what’s coming next is even more so. The course renovation and wetland installation is scheduled to begin next summer. An additional new 9-hole course will follow.
New price tag: $150 million, of which $100 million has been raised. Final completion date: 2027.
In the end, if this works, Cobbs Creek will operate as a financially self-sustaining nonprofit that funnels educational opportunities into the community, offers local residents affordable play, and will perhaps bring a PGA Tour event to the city. It all makes one wonder, if a game so long-tied to barriers can be co-opted by those who want it to be something different, and if land that’s tied to one story can suddenly tell another — if that kind of change is possible, then what isn’t? And where else can public golf be reimagined?
In the early 1990s, as Cobbs slipped into an escalated decline, about to be passed around by various management companies for the next three decades, Merion weighed a heavy decision. The club was set to host the 1994 Women’s U.S. Open but was rattled by a new USGA policy stating all clubs chosen to host national championships must feature inclusive membership policies. Merion hired a consulting firm to survey its all-White membership, asking if the club should consider integration. The membership couldn’t commit to having minority members by tournament time and Merion withdrew as host of the national championship.
Shocking, yes. Surprising, no. Aronimink Golf Club, another elite private club in the Philadelphia suburbs, withdrew from hosting the 1993 PGA Championship because of an all-White, all-male membership. Pine Valley, the top-ranked golf course in the U.S., about 20 miles outside Philly, did not open its door to women until 2021.
Policies aside, these courses, along with plenty other elite clubs dotting the tri-state area, are products of a merry band of early-20th-century golf course architects known as “The Philadelphia School.” They worked with and occasionally for each other. A.W. Tillinghast, George Crump, George Thomas and Hugh Wilson, along with Boston transplant William Flynn, all helped shape much of the Golden Era of course design in the United States.
But today almost all their courses come with high hedges. Places you can’t see into. Places the membership doesn’t necessarily want to see out of.
Cobbs is the exception. In 1914, when the Golf Association of Philadelphia pegged Wilson to lay out the city’s much-needed public course, the 35-year-old was fresh off designing 36 holes at Merion, including the acclaimed east course. His work was a product of both natural genius and thorough study. Wilson, a product of Philadelphia high society and a Princeton education, began his design career traveling across Great Britain to research the game’s greatest layouts — St. Andrews, Prestwick, Muirfield, North Berwick, Hoylake. On and on. According to family lore, he was originally ticketed to return to the U.S. in the spring of 1912 aboard the Titanic but missed departure.
Wilson’s design of Cobbs Creek was both classic and imaginative. He tabbed Flynn, who later created the likes of Shinnecock Hills, Cherry Hills and Lancaster Country Club, to personally build every green and every bunker. From Day 1, the course was heralded as a triumph of public golf. It was open to juniors, first-timers, working-class players, women and minorities.
When some wonder why Cobbs is worth saving, the answer is not only its design, but its place in the history of a sport so steeped in exclusion.
In 1940, Charlie Sifford, then a 17-year-old caddie in Charlotte and 21 years away from being the first Black man to gain membership to join the PGA Tour, jumped town after an encounter with a drunken White store owner who levied threats and racial slurs at him. In his 1992 biography, “Just Let Me Play,” Sifford recounted smashing a Coke bottle across the man’s face and knowing he’d never get a fair trial in Jim Crow South. He instead hopped a train to Philadelphia, where he heard the jobs were available and the golf was good.
Sifford moved in with an uncle in North Philadelphia, not far from what’s now Temple University, and landed a job as a shipping clerk at the Nabisco plant. One weekend, with a fresh paycheck, Sifford spent a long night playing poker, emerging early on a Sunday morning to find a rising sun. Outside, he saw a man catching a street car with a golf bag slung on his shoulder. From “Just Let Me Play”:
“Say, where you going with them clubs,” I called out to him.
“I’m going to Cobbs Creek,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s all the way out to the end of the Market Street trolley.”
Sifford joined the man and made his way to Cobbs. He later wrote: “The course was intended for everyone to use, and I was both surprised and delighted to see both black and whites playing side by side there. I’d never seen anything like that in North Carolina.”
At the time, Cobbs was already well-established as a haven for Black golfers. Howard Wheeler and others called the course home well before Sifford. The United Golf Association (UGA), founded in the mid-1920s to provide minority golfers with an opportunity to compete on an organized tour, hosted its national championship at Cobbs in 1936, 1947 and 1956. Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis played at Cobbs. So did trailblazers Lee Elder and Ted Rhodes. In 1961, the Philadelphia NAACP hosted a tournament at Cobbs Creek to raise funds for the Freedom Riders jailed in Mississippi that summer.
The relationship between Tiger Woods, left, and Charlie Sifford drove Woods to be a part of what is happening at Cobbs Creek.
Cobbs meant so much to so many, and served so many different needs to so many different backgrounds, but, like any municipal course, was vulnerable. Heavy play exceeded reasonable usage. Conditions slipped. For years, it was also used as a cross-country course. Those hills punished generations of runners.
Around 1952, in the throes of the Cold War, the U.S. Army scouted multiple sites around Philadelphia to install anti-aircraft batteries. The location chosen? The 13th green of Cobbs Creek. Massive silos were dug and the course was rerouted around the installations. Six years later, the Army filled in the silos and left a vacant expanse behind. Cobbs’ routing was never returned to Wilson’s original design.
In time, a driving range and batting cage facility was built atop the old anti-aircraft installation. The City Line Sports Center, controlled by the same various management companies as Philly’s public golf courses, would end up, in time, just as run-down as Cobbs.
By the turn of the century, Cobbs was little more than a portrait of neglect. Floodwaters washed away greens in the spring. The sun baked out fairways and tee boxes in the summer. The Karakung Course, a second 18 built on the property in 1927 by Abner “Ab” Smith, was somehow worse. A string of superintendents did with it what they could, but no effort could overcome a staggering deficit of resources. The property deteriorated. Vandalism went ignored. Occasional abandoned cars were dumped here and there.
In time, what once was faded from view.
A few weeks ago, on a Monday morning in Philadelphia, Enrique Hervada and Don Dissinger sat in a far booth inside the Llanerch Diner on Township Line Road. The two are current proxies for reams and reams of people who’ve taken on the Sisyphean group effort to complete Cobbs Creek’s reclamation.
Hervada, COO of the Cobbs Creek Foundation, is one of seven full-time staff members. He’s among those trying to raise the final $50 million of what’s ballooned to a price tag three times that number. At least $30 million will be spent fortifying the creek and creating wetlands to prevent flooding both on the course and in the surrounding neighborhoods.
“It might kill us by the time we’re done,” Hervada said over breakfast. “It’s just — it’s a massive project cost-wise and permitting-wise.”
Hearing this, Dissinger put his fork down. “You have no idea,” he said. The 70-year-old quasi-retired architect and engineer was overseeing the construction of two high-rises in Miami when the foundation called him in December 2022. Having helped in the restoration of Merion Golf Club in 2014, Dissinger was an ad hoc member of the Cobbs restoration committee. But the foundation needed more.
A former partner at the design firm EwingCole, Dissinger built Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. His career has been one of municipal red tape, zoning laws, and state and federal licenses. But with a property covering 350 acres, and touching three counties (Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware), he’s never seen anything quite like the project at Cobbs Creek.
“The number of permits I have on this exceeds the number of permits I had between those stadiums — combined,” Dissinger said.
(Courtesy Cobbs Creek Foundation)
This all began years ago, around 2007, with a few hobbyists digging into archives, retracing Cobbs’ history and comparing notes online. These early archivists, notably Dr. Joseph Bausch, a chemistry professor at Villanova University, and Mike Cirba, an Information Management Executive, planted the seeds of what became the Friends of Cobbs Creek. Two idealistic outsiders (Bausch from Indiana, Cirba from Northeast Pennsylvania), they became, as Cirba puts it, “obsessed with what it was and what it could be.” The two began compiling information into a book. Today it is up to 400 pages long, in its 12th volume, and is the source material for everything written about Cobbs Creek, including much of this article.
In those early days, Bausch and Cirba thought it was obvious what needed to happen. Then they met Philadelphians.
“And there was always a sense that this can’t happen here. It was a pervasive negativity,” Cirba says. “I think we came into it with a certain level of naiveté, but that was probably a good thing.”
Bausch and Cirba held the earliest meetings with City of Philadelphia officials about saving and renovating the course. They were told, great idea, but where’s the money?
A board was formed. Interest grew from powerful, connected local businesspeople, including Cobbs Creek Foundation founding CEO Chris Lange and president Jeff Shanahan, along with Chris Maguire and the Maguire Foundation. The group grew larger and ideas got bigger.
Cobbs and the TGR Foundation came together. Since 2006, Woods’ charitable arm has operated a year-round learning lab in Anaheim, Calif., offering over 30 classes and workshops for 5th-12th grade students. According to TGR, 98 percent of its scholars graduated from high school and enrolled in college, 91 percent of whom were first-generation college students. Woods, himself, was familiar with Cobbs Creek even before the partnership. Charlie Sifford, he has said, was like a grandfather to him. Woods named his only son after Sifford.
Somehow, now, the thought of restoring 18 holes feels almost peripheral. The foundation hopes to serve 4,500 local students a year. The property is now referred to in two parts — as a course and as a campus.
Sitting in his office at Villanova all these years later, Bausch can only shake his head. “I always thought that this was going to be an incredible project,” he says, “but it has far exceeded anything I could ever imagine.”
There is, though, the matter of that golf course.
Appropriately, two locals are handling what comes next. Hanse Design — the renowned golf architecture firm of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner — is based in Malvern, about 15 miles from Cobbs.
Wagner grew up nearby, playing Cobbs as a high school golfer at Cardinal O’Hara. Hanse is a transplant, but knows the territory. Before his firm handled high-profile restorations like Merion, Aronimink, Oakmont and Winged Foots, Hanse developed a soft spot for the West Philly course. A little-known architect at the time, he rebuilt Cobbs’ third and fourth greens in the early 2000s after extensive flood damage. He did it for free.
That pro bono work will now continue in 2025 through 2026. Hanse and Wagner will not only rebuild Cobbs Creek Golf Club to Hugh Wilson’s original design, but will also lay out the new nine-hole course on the old Karakung land.
The scale of the project is immense.
On my recent visit, I stood near the old 12th tee box, scanning an area that once included the 11th green, the 13th green and crowded and long views of tree-lined fairways. If I didn’t personally know what had been there, I wouldn’t believe it. Anyone imagining a “restoration” is misguided. The original Cobbs Creek is gone, reclaimed by the land.
What remains of the view from the 12th tee box at Cobbs Creek. (Brendan Quinn / The Athletic)
“You can’t put it back,” Wagner said. “It’s impossible to put it back to what it once was because so much has changed in the environment. Mother Nature came in and moved things around.”
But you can return the intention and objective of what the golf course was meant to be. At last, that’s happening. Something bigger than anyone in Philly ever imagined. Something just as nice as all those private courses, except open for all.
Today, this ground is in Philadelphia. But if a successful model is created at Cobbs Creek, combining golf and STEM education under a non-profit, self-supporting model, other cities might have to sit up and take notice. Chicago. Detroit. St. Louis. Los Angeles. Houston. Maybe they’ll see the municipal course that time has forgotten and see something different. Maybe times can change.
The Changemakers series is part of a partnership with Acura.
The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Courtesy Cobbs Creek Foundation, Brendan Quinn / The Athletic)
FAU football, which rose to national relevance under Lane Kiffin, has backslid over the last five seasons under Willie Taggart and the recently fired Tom Herman. The Owls’ new coaching search, though, might be the most interesting one of this year’s coaching carousel.
And it got a little more interesting this week, as Miami great Ray Lewis has made it known that he really wants to be the Owls’ next coach, a source briefed on Lewis’ thinking said Wednesday.
The 49-year-old Lewis, a 13-time Pro Bowl linebacker, has observed the model of what Deion Sanders has done transforming Colorado football in the past two years and is expected to present a plan to the Owls’ leadership in the next week for how he’d do something similar at FAU.
Lewis’ old buddy, fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer Cris Carter, is the Owls’ executive director of player engagement and is expected to be a good resource for Lewis. A big hurdle for Lewis is, unlike Sanders, he doesn’t have any previous college coaching experience.
“Ray wants it bad,” the source briefed on Lewis’ thinking said. Lewis lives five minutes from the FAU campus. “He really wants it.”
Lewis, however, is not considered a serious candidate at this point, according to a source involved in the coaching search.
The frontrunner for the FAU vacancy, according to multiple sources involved in the search, is Ole Miss offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. The 31-year-old son of former Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, who lives a half-hour from Boca Raton, is the play caller at a hot Rebels program and runs the nation’s No. 2 offense, putting up 7.58 yards per play.
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The younger Weis was Kiffin’s former offensive coordinator at FAU and knows the program well. He has a lot of support from some key FAU people, according to sources involved in the search. Kiffin has strong influence back at FAU and will push Weis for the job, those sources said. Financially, Weis — who makes $1.65 million at Ole Miss — might have to take a pay cut to go back to FAU but a source briefed on the matter said he doubted that would stop Weis from wanting this job.
Other expected candidates for the FAU job
Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner might make more sense for the Owls. The 43-year-old helped turn Tech from the ACC’s No. 11 offense to No. 3 last year. In 2022, the year before he was hired in Atlanta, Georgia Tech ranked last in the ACC in red zone offense. His offense is No. 2 in the ACC in red zone TD percentage.
Penn State assistant head coach/co-OC Ja’Juan Seider is a well-regarded coach with deep local ties and is expected to get some consideration. The 47-year-old Belle Glade, Fla., product was a star quarterback at Florida A&M and is well-connected around South Florida. Players really respond to him. He also has been a key assistant in Happy Valley, at Marshall and West Virginia.
UCF offensive coordinator Tim Harris Jr. has spent his whole coaching career in the state. He was a four-time NCAA All-American in track at Miami and then spent five years as a successful high school coach in South Florida at Miami’s Booker T. Washington High before spending seven seasons at FIU. Since then, he’s coached at Miami and UCF, where he has produced the Big 12’s most prolific offense at 6.76 yards per play.
UNLV offensive coordinator Brennan Marion, a former Miami Dolphins wideout who lived in Boynton Beach, not far from the Owls’ campus, might be an intriguing option. He has proven to be a terrific offensive coordinator in two stops at the FCS level before an excellent two-season run of transforming the Rebels into a winning program. Last year he led the Rebels to No. 6 in the country in third down offense and No. 8 in red zone offense despite his starting QB going down early and having to turn to an unproven freshman in Jayden Maiava, who went on to win Mountain West Freshman of the Year honors. This year, the Rebels, with Maiava having left for USC, are No. 6 in the nation in scoring at 39.9 points per game.
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FSU defensive backs coach Pat Surtain could be in play at his alma mater Southern Miss, but he also has strong ties here. He played a decade in the NFL before becoming a top high school coach in South Florida. The 48-year-old spent one season with the Miami Dolphins as an NFL assistant before joining FSU’s staff in 2023.
Georgia assistant head coach Todd Hartley, 39, spent three years coaching in South Florida on the Canes’ staff. He is someone Kirby Smart has leaned on in elevating the program since Hartley’s return to Athens in 2019. Southern Miss also has a lot of interest in Hartley for its head coaching vacancy.
Duke defensive coordinator Jonathan Patke, a Manny Diaz protege who was on the staff at Miami, is a rising star at defensive coordinator. He’s had a strong debut season in Durham and also could be in play.
Miami defensive ends coach Jason Taylor. The Pro Football Hall of Famer, who had been a high school assistant for five seasons at powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas, is a legendary figure around South Florida. In 2007, Taylor won the NFL’s prestigious Walter Payton Man of the Year honors and has been an excellent addition to the Canes staff the past two seasons.
— Chris Vannini contributed to this report
Required reading
(Photo: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
SEATTLE — When the SuperSonics left here in 2008, Brent Barry felt it in his gut. There was an emptiness, a sadness so pronounced that he was moved to put pen to paper.
At the time, Barry was preparing for training camp with the San Antonio Spurs, but part of his heart was still in Seattle, a bond forged through his five seasons as a wing with the Sonics. Now the team was no more thanks to an abrupt transaction that uprooted the franchise to Oklahoma City.
Barry’s mind was numbed with a blur of memories he captured in his poem, “When It Rains.”
“… and here I sit in my office space and think of my career
And what to say to my two sons, did the team just disappear?
I played in KeyArena, I live on Queen Anne Hill
I played pinball at Shorty’s after games, and ate burgers at both Red Mills
I would have some chowder down at Dukes, and watch Sea Planes take their flight
And find myself in Fremont if I needed a beer that night
I saw Star Wars at Cinerama, tossed a pitch at Safeco Field,
Drove all the way to Bellingham to see Pearl Jam and Yield …”
Sixteen years later, a collection of Sonics jerseys extends wall-to-wall inside the Simply Seattle store downtown. From Detlef Schrempf to Gary Payton to Ray Allen to Kevin Durant, the jerseys of Sonics legends are still a hot commodity.
“We get people from New Zealand, London, from all over,” store manager Kate Wansley said. “The Sonics are a big thing, and now everyone is excited about what could happen.”
What could happen has many in this Northwest metropolis tense with anticipation. In September, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league would address NBA expansion at some point this season, which prompted an already simmering movement in Seattle to bubble over.
Since 2008, Seattle has been waiting, expecting a franchise to return. And now, with overtures of the NBA’s first expansion since 2004, there is an overriding sentiment that Seattle is due.
“There’s just too much karma that says put a team back in Seattle,” says George Karl, who coached the Sonics from 1992-98, leading them to an NBA Finals appearance in 1996. “I don’t know more than anybody else, but my feeling is … that it can happen. It should happen.”
Karl is sipping iced tea and soaking in a picturesque view of Seattle’s Elliott Bay on a sun-splashed Thursday. He lives in Denver but is in town to help promote, support and encourage Seattle’s candidacy should Silver and the NBA Board of Governors decide to proceed with expansion.
As the Seahawks played host to the San Francisco 49ers at Lumen Field, Karl and former Sonics players Dale Ellis and Rashard Lewis attended a social event on the 75th floor of the Columbia Tower that included Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, Seattle Sports Commission president and CEO Beth Knox and several business leaders.
“It’s a lot of anticipation; I feel like we are hanging on the edge of our seats, waiting,” Knox said. “We are ready.”
The event was important enough for Harrell that he postponed plans for his 66th birthday (he was quick to note he shared his birthday with Sonics legend Gus Williams) so he could spread what he calls “the buzz” about Seattle’s viability for expansion.
“We need to make sure the decision-makers — the NBA commissioner, the administration and co-owners — realize this is a very attractive market, and we have the fan base,” Harrell said. “They sort of know it, but this was 2008 when we lost the team, and we have a whole new generation of people in town, so we need to assure them we have that kind of spirit.”
Climate Pledge Arena has hosted NBA exhibition games each of the last two seasons. (Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
In September, Silver tempered expectations when he said the league “is not quite ready” to discuss expansion before adding that eventually it will be broached. “What we’ve told interested parties is: ‘Thank you for your interest, we will get back to you,’ ” Silver said. “That’s certainly the case in Seattle.”
Still, hopes haven’t been this high here since 2013, when a bid to relocate the Sacramento Kings to Seattle reached a vote of NBA governors but was turned down 22-8 after Sacramento came up with new ownership.
Ellis, who played for seven NBA teams, said the city’s diversity, food and fan base kept him in Seattle for 20 years after his career ended. The 41-year history of the franchise, which includes the 1979 NBA title, is why he believes so passionately that the league should return. It’s why he flew to Seattle to support Thursday’s movement, a movement that he says stands more than a chance of landing a return of the Sonics.
“Chance? No, it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen,” Ellis said. “They just haven’t made the announcement yet. There will be two franchises, one here in Seattle, and one in Las Vegas.”
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Like so many former Sonics players and coaches, Barry felt he didn’t just play in Seattle, he felt he was part of Seattle. So losing the Sonics felt like losing part of himself.
It is that player-community connection that has made this movement to revive the Sonics unique. Other cities have lost NBA franchises — Vancouver, San Diego, Kansas City — but none have had former players and coaches campaigning for a return like Seattle.
Lewis, who played his first nine NBA seasons with the Sonics, flew into Seattle from Houston motivated by two factors: the history and the fans.
“Seattle has a part of me; I became a man here,” Lewis said. “And the fans … I still remember Big Lo (super fan Lorin Sandretzky), and fans pulling up to the airport when we arrived. There’s history, so much history here, and that’s why they have to have a team here.”
The 1990s in particular were a magical time for Seattle. Microsoft was booming. Bands from Seattle — Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden — were leading the grunge explosion. “Singles” and “Sleepless in Seattle” hit movie screens. Ken Griffey Jr. was a superstar. And Payton, Kemp and the fiery Karl were headlining SportsCenter highlights.
“It all had this mystical essence to it,” Barry said. “Because nobody wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest. It was so far away, the weather was bad … but there was a lot of cool stuff happening in and around that place. So it had this mystical quality to it.”
Added Karl: “The city was blossoming, the music was blossoming, the city was growing, the Mariners were good … everything was just in rhythm. There was a rhythm that Seattle was cool. Pearl Jam, Starbucks, (Microsoft’s Steve) Ballmer … and (the Sonics) were good.
“Unfortunately, Michael (Jordan) was in the league.”
The electricity between the Sonics and the Seattle scene made for lasting bonds. For fans and the players.
“Spilling out from KeyArena after a game meant that you were in the bloodstream of the city,” said Barry, now an assistant coach with Phoenix. “You got out of the arena and you could walk across the street to Lazy J’s (Jalisco’s) and do karaoke with a bunch of fans who were just at the game. You could go to First Street and hop into a steakhouse and have a meal with fans who just left the game.
“To lose all that … it was a gut punch to a city that loved basketball, loved its team and had a relationship with the team that was unique.”
Portland Trail Blazers play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, who announced Sonics games for 22 years, said fans still ask him regularly if and when the Sonics will return, which is attributed to the connection formed during those memorable years in the 1990s.
“You had this great amalgam of cutting-edge technology with the internet coming to life and this great music scene and the Sonics bursting at the seams,” Calabro said. “And it all came together on winter nights at The Barn, as we used to call KeyArena. Jeff Ament (Pearl Jam bassist) was down in the baseline seats all the time, Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam singer) was around, Screaming Trees … all these bands would show up.
“And when George Karl took over, it just lit a fire. There were so many great characters … and they were all involved with the community. You could feel them, touch them, see them at the clubs, hang with them. It was special.”
Wansley, the store manager who hangs the Sonics jerseys from wall to wall, is a lifelong Seattle resident. She said her deepest bonds are with the Sonics because she experienced them in everyday life. She saw Nate McMillan and Sam Perkins at Bellevue Square, Kemp and Gary in the store, Dana Barros here, Schrempf there.
“It was something that just connects you to them,” Wansley said. “You would go to the game, then see them out … and I don’t know how it is in other cities, but they were just out in the community so much. It would be like, ‘Hey, I just saw you play …’ ”
Seattle has been down this road of anticipation before. The 2013 bid to relocate the Kings to Seattle was so close to happening — and so ugly in its particulars — that its downfall left some scars.
But the overall sentiment today is that Seattle is well positioned, if not a leader when expansion becomes a reality. Much of the optimism stems from Climate Pledge Arena, the refurbished KeyArena, which now houses the NHL’s Seattle Kraken.
“There literally hasn’t been a week where I haven’t been asked about the Sonics or the NBA or how we got screwed,” said Bob Whitsitt, who was president and general manager of the Sonics from 1986-94. “And for years, I said to them — right or wrong — that Seattle was not in a position to even be considered for a team until they have an NBA-ready facility.
“And that giant hurdle has now been cleared with Climate Pledge Arena. As a city, we know we have a facility that works. That doesn’t guarantee you a team, but you can be guaranteed not to get a team by not having a facility. So, the biggest thing has been taken off the board.”
Whitsitt still lives in Seattle and said he is encouraged by a potential ownership group led by Kraken owners David Bonderman and his daughter, Samantha Holloway. Bonderman also is a minority owner of the Boston Celtics.
“My support is behind them,” Whitsitt said. “They are the right ones. They are the perfect people to lead the thing. And the Seattle market is not only great, it is ready.”
Last month, more than 18,000 sold out the LA Clippers and Trail Blazers exhibition game at Climate Pledge Arena, which more than caught the eye of coaches Chauncey Billups of the Blazers and Tyronn Lue of the Clippers.
“I mean, everybody talks about it,” Billups said. “This is obviously a desired city, a market that people love … it makes the most sense. It’s already been very successful, the market has, so it makes a lot of sense. We just have to wait on it.”
Added Lue: “It’s a great environment, a great place to play … they’ve done a great job with this arena.”
Brian Robinson, a Seattle real estate investor, heads Seattle NBA Fans, the group that hosted the event with Karl, Lewis, Ellis and the mayor. He has 250 community leaders and 50 CEOs behind his movement. He also headed a 2010 group that tried to find an arena solution to lure the Sonics back. He said then, it was difficult to get business leaders and companies behind him.
“Now, no one ever says no,” said Robinson, 51. “People see the change in tone from the commissioner and they see a path. Everyone wants to be a part of it. I just feel like the people of Seattle are over the negativity and they are ready to have this journey be something meaningful.”
Mayor Harrell and Knox, the CEO of the Seattle Sports Commission, are envisioning a future where Sonics players become role models and inspire youth to not only participate in basketball, but dream. Seattle has a long history of producing NBA talent, including Brandon Roy, Jason Terry, Jamal Crawford, Paolo Banchero and Dejounte Murray. Barry thinks the Sonics can help inspire others.
“How do you dream bigger if you don’t see it in front of you?” Barry asked. “I was thinking if I never went to Golden State games as a kid to watch Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond, how much of my devotion and love of the game would have been depleted by not having the touch, the autograph, the memories? The impact can’t be overstated.
“There’s almost 20 years of kids in Seattle who never saw one game in their city of LeBron James, one of the greatest players who ever played. Twenty years of kids, and parents for that matter, who haven’t had that community, that environment, that experience. It hurts.”
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Last month, Barry thought back to the day when he penned the “When It Rains” poem. He rifled through his files and found it.
“Even reading it again, I was like, ‘Man, I still feel this way. It sucks,” Barry said. “I was sad. Legitimately sad. But right now, I don’t think there has ever been more sentiment or momentum than right now. And I hope it’s not another carrot in front of the rabbit situation. I hope this momentum is true and honest and there is potential for the green and gold to be back there.”
It was the same thought he had 16 years ago, in San Antonio as he closed his poem.
“… A chapter left unwritten, a generation with a gap,
Forty-one years of NBA action and now no one can clap
But here is a silver lining … above every cloud’s a sun
And the possibility is something we hold on to even if slim to none
For faith and hope and love are tenants
Of the days as one grows old
And for all at stake, those clouds will break
And we will see the green and gold.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Steph Chambers, Tim DeFrisco, Otto Greule Jr, Andy Hayt, Jeff Reinking, Terrence Vaccaro / Getty Images)
There doesn’t have to be a milestone moment or viral play for an NHL player’s phone to be flooded with notifications in the wake of a game. Maybe there’s a text from a parent, a reminder from a partner, a few messages of congratulations or condolences. Not to mention the usual spate of emails and push alerts that inevitably pile up when you’ve been away from your phone for a few hours.
But these days, as sports betting becomes more and more prevalent in the hockey world, there’s a new app jockeying for space atop players’ home screens.
“I’ve been sent Venmo requests before,” one NHL player surveyed in The Athletic’s player poll said. “Like, ‘Hey, I bet on you guys to win and you blew it. So give me back my 50 bucks.’”
That player said he found it “comical.”
“I think I paid one guy back once,” he said with a laugh. “Sent him like 20 bucks.”
Of course, the Internet being what it is, it’s not always terribly funny. Almost one-third of the 161 players polled said they’ve been getting more harassing messages from fans since sports betting has become legal in more states.
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“Oh, almost every day,” one goaltender said. “Honestly, I’d say 75 percent of them are them being mad about something. ‘How did you let in that late goal? I had the under. Thanks a lot. You f—ing suck.’ Things like that constantly. I feel like, as a goalie, we’re a little bit more exposed to it, too.”
“Together with a couple death threats and a few other things,” another player added.
Perhaps the biggest revelation from The Athletic’s anonymous player poll was how common the Venmo requests are.
“They’re demands, not requests,” one player clarified. “’You owe me $200 because you were on the ice when …’ and it’s insane. It’s really bad when you play against Toronto because it seems like everybody is betting on Leafs games. But that’s Toronto for you.”
Apparently, NHL players need to do a better job of masking their identities on cash apps.
“Yeah, that’s real,” another player said. “When you ruin a guy’s parlay or something? Hundred percent, that’s real. I got one last game where some guy bet on my number of shots or something and then he’s DM’ing me: ‘You f—ed my parlay!’ Pardon my language, but that’s what he said.”
“Yeah, 100 percent,” said another player. “I’ve gotten plenty of them show up in my inbox before. Like I kept them from hitting some parlay or something or, ‘Here’s my Venmo. Send me $100.’”
“Oh, yeah,” one player said. “People on social media are way crazier now because they have more skin in the game. I think that’s for all sports.”
“I get messages all the time, and these are people probably betting $1.50,” said another.
Some such requests are obvious gags. But other messages carry a more sinister tone.
“Not here, but to be honest, mostly in Russia,” one player said. “Like it’s getting crazy. You’re up 2-0 and lose, you get messages, like, ‘You f—ing asshole, I’m gonna f—ing kill you.’”
One player said he gets at least one or two such messages every day from gamblers. But two-thirds of the players who responded said they don’t get any. It could depend on how high-profile a player is. Not a lot of fans are betting on fourth-liners and third-pairing defensemen. As one player joked, “I don’t think I’m the betting favorite.”
Unsurprisingly, many players have done their best to unplug entirely. That also could explain the two-thirds who said they don’t get such messages.
“I used to know that I got harassing messages,” one player said. “Now I don’t know. Who would read these f—ing idiots? I don’t anymore.”
“That’s why I turned everything off,” another said. “You get some scary messages out there.”
Another: “Good thing I’m not on social media.”
Another: “No one can find me, so I don’t know.”
Death threats and profanity-laced tirades aside, sometimes the players feel the bettors’ pain.
“Sometimes they bet on me to score and I don’t and they want me to give them money,” one player said. “I’m like, ‘I want to score, too!’”
(Graphic: Meech Robinson / The Athletic, with photos from Gary A. Vasquez, Katherine Gawlik and Andre Ringuette / Getty Images)
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