I live in Colorado currently.
It’s beautiful. There are mountains. The air is thin. The lattes and homes are wildly overpriced for a reason.
And I can’t tell you how many times someone has smirked at me after I say I’m from Oklahoma.
“You don’t seem like you’re from Oklahoma,” they remark.“You’re actually…smart!”“Did you marry your cousin?”“Do you even HAVE a Trader Joe’s?”
If I had a dollar for every time someone implied I was a backwoods idiot because I grew up in a state chock full of tornado drills and cattle crossings, I could’ve bought courtside Finals tickets and still had money left over to fix the roads. (Okay…actually, let’s be real. Not enough to fix the roads.)
So when the OKC Thunder won the NBA Finals last night, it wasn’t a win only for the players. It was a beautiful, cathartic, deeply Okie-style moment of:
“We may not be your coastal elite darlings, but we’re here, we’re loud, and we just beat every team out there.”
Perhaps that’s why last night, when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander cradled that hard-fought trophy, I wiped tears off my face and hoped my Colorado friends didn’t notice. I felt so ridiculous. These players don’t even know I exist. This wasn’t my win.
But maybe it was, just a little?
This championship was for the underdogs
The Thunder built their superstars. Brick by brick. Pick by pick (looking at you, Sam Presti), from a small market with a big heart and a budget that wouldn’t cover half of LA’s Botox.
And we fans have shown up in our boots and ball caps, not Balenciaga. We embody blue collar basketball. This wasn’t Hollywood, this was the heartland.
Along with all overlooked states between coasts (shout out to Indiana!), Oklahoma is the punchline until we’re the headline. And now?
Now, the national media is scrambling to pronounce “Hartenstein” correctly and wondering how a ragtag bunch of 20-somethings from a flyover state just took the Finals in six.
We Okies have been called hicks, yokels, backwards Bible-thumpers, and uneducated nobodies. But what we are, always, is loyal. To our teams, to our people, to the land that raised us.
And when one of ours rises, we tend to rise with them.
This one’s for every Okie who’s ever been laughed at
To the ones who had to explain that we do have universities, and some of them are pretty dang good.
To the ones who moved away and got tired of being someone’s “you’re not like the rest of them” compliment.
To the ones who speak with a drawl and still know more than the guy making fun of them.
To the ones who grew up watching Durant leave, Russ get traded, and still vowed, “Next year, we’ll be back.”
Well, we’re back.
I can speak for many Thunder fans when I say this isn’t just a championship, it’s a cultural touchstone. It’s a moment in which much of the country is forced to stop pretending we’re invisible.
This win is so much bigger than basketball. It’s about what happens when a place full of grit and generosity decides it’s done being overlooked.
It’s about small towns watching the big city win year after year, and daring to hope that maybe ― just maybe ― the world is finally seeing what we’ve known all along:
Oklahoma is full of magic. Teeming with heart. Hospitality. Hustle.
And now, Oklahoma is full of champions, too.
We aren’t just flyover country anymore. We’re parade route territory. And we’re just getting started.
Laura Albritton is a writer now living in Colorado who is originally from Oklahoma.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: The Thunder’s victory says something about all of us Okies | Opinion