In San Antonio, “Go Spurs Go” is a ubiquitous phrase. It often feels like everyone knows of and loves the city’s beloved basketball team and enters each season knowing this is the year we become NBA champions again.
Living in San Antonio, it may be easy to forget that not everyone in the U.S. mourned the retirement of Tim Duncan or that most schools do not have a giant “GO SPURS GO” banner that hangs in the center of their campus during NBA playoff season (although they definitely should). The Spurs have permeated most aspects of San Antonio life, and their logo can be seen at HEB, on running singlets and on bumper stickers everywhere. But what do the Spurs mean to a student who is not from San Antonio?
In a lot of cases, not much. With a total of 30 teams, the NBA is a large organization, and loyalties seem to be mostly regionally decided. Thinking of it from that sense, it’s much more likely that a non-San Antonio native student would be a bigger fan of the Mavs, the Heat, or even the Houston Rockets. Each region seems to have its own team, which can even lead to some inner-student rivalry over whose team is supreme.
“I think the Spurs are a fine team. I respect them and they are obviously great basketball players, but I guess I did not grow up with them so I do not feel a strong sense of loyalty to them,” said junior and Michigan native Nicole Jozefiak. “I think the atmosphere surrounding San Antonio’s love of the Spurs is really fun, and I will occasionally even say “˜Go Spurs Go’ myself because I do not personally have any strong team loyalties, but I have never really felt interested in going to a game or really following them.”
“I will say,” Jozefiak added. “The Pistons are much better.”
While out-of-state students likely have little interest in the Spurs, oftentimes Texas natives who grew up outside of San Antonio will still feel like they are fans, even if they did not grow up here. For many of these people, they learned through their parents, or became fans once they came to school.
“Growing up my parents were really big Spurs fans, so I kinda guess I ended up become a fan through them,” senior and Waco native Natalie Belew said. “I also followed the Mavs growing up, but the Spurs were always my top team. Growing up I had a singlet that I would run in that had their logo on the front, so even up north it affected me.”
Some Trinity students did not start as Spurs fans, but rather evolved into one through experiences at Trinity such as Trinity Night. Trinity night is an event that occurs twice a year and is sponsored by Residential life. Trinity students can be bussed over to the AT&T center to watch the Spurs play and cheer them on. At only $10, the tickets are cheap, and the experience can be the making of a new fan.
“I was never really into the Spurs before I attended Trinity Night mostly because I just really do not follow sports,” junior Rachel Hanes said. “However, it was a lot of fun, and I would recommend the experience to anyone who is even slightly interested in seeing what the hype is about.”
In truth, mixed opinions of the Spurs do exist, even in the heart of San Antonio. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but that doesn’t make it a good one.
