- 13 minutes ago
Willard and Dibs open the show by reacting to the Valkyries winning the championship in year two of the franchise's existence. How did this happen?
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00:00Clearly, in listening to our station today, this is an emotional experience for many,
00:06but in a different way that we're used to.
00:09That's what's striking me.
00:10Like, I would love to know how this hit people.
00:14Because normally, for example, the first title, like the Niners were winning titles in the 80s
00:22when I was like a kid and a teenager, and that was wonderful, but it was so old hat.
00:26It was like I didn't know anything else.
00:29They won on my seventh birthday, and then they just kept winning for 10 years, and you're young.
00:35But the Giants in 2010, that was like the championship where I cried
00:41because it had been 35 years of waiting, and the city of San Francisco had never had it, right?
00:50And then the Warriors go from 1975 all the way until Steve Kerr's arrival and Steph Curry and all of
00:57that.
00:57There's all of these, like, oh, there's these hits that you take, and the disappointment, and the battle,
01:04and then you win a title, and it's an exaltation of the whole thing.
01:10But this team just started last year.
01:12Right.
01:13Year two, 15 months ago.
01:15There's no cynicism.
01:16There's no anger.
01:18There's no, like...
01:19There's no yearning.
01:20There's no wanting.
01:21No, no.
01:21So I'm like, this was so impressive.
01:25That's what I keep coming back to.
01:28It was so, it is, and was so impressive.
01:33But I really do, I wonder, and we would love to hear from you, 888-957-9570,
01:41how did this hit you, and what did the emotions feel like if you're a big Valkyries fan?
01:47Because I just, I don't know what to do with a championship that comes in year two.
01:51That's crazy.
01:52I mean, the joy is real, and the joy is going to be the joy no matter what it is
01:57and how many years you've been a fan.
01:58And so, if you were a day one Valkyries fan, and you're a season ticket holder,
02:03and you're somebody who goes to all the games, and you win in year two,
02:06yes, the joy is equal to any other joy that any other fan feels.
02:10But I kind of am interested by what you were talking about in the crossover,
02:14and it's just, like, where do you go from here?
02:17So now, like, next year, if you don't win, are you bummed?
02:21Because it's year two, and you're used to, like, okay, year one, you make the playoffs, and no one does
02:26that.
02:26And then year two, you win the whole thing.
02:28And so, going forward, are you expecting to have this over and over and over?
02:32And it's really hard because the euphoria of having a team that you love win the title, it is its
02:39peak.
02:40And so now, where do you go from the peak?
02:42You only go down, or you stay at the peak.
02:44I guess, but to me, the beauty of this fan base is it doesn't work that way.
02:50It just doesn't work that way.
02:51I don't think, first of all, I think everybody in this city who cares about the WNBA and Valkyries basketball,
03:00you're still just kind of basking in all of this.
03:02Like, you're not thinking about next year or the future or whatever.
03:05But the story I love to tell, the first time I ever went to a Valkyries game, they lost.
03:11They lost.
03:13And then they got a standing ovation because they were close in a game that they were supposed to lose.
03:19I think it was the Liberty.
03:21And the Liberty were really good.
03:22This was not this season.
03:23It was last season.
03:25But they gave it a game effort.
03:27And they lost.
03:28And they got a standing O.
03:29And I was looking around at Chase Center.
03:31I'm like, I've never seen anything like this before in professional sports in my life.
03:35What are you all doing?
03:36And everybody's standing out like, oh, awesome.
03:38Good try.
03:40I'm like, this is, it's kind of amazing.
03:44And that lack of cynicism, the beauty of what makes Valkyries basketball in this city what it is.
03:53And let's be real.
03:55It's a much more, I think, female-filled fan base because it is, in part, just celebrating women
04:03and celebrating women's basketball and you have a whole different set of sponsors
04:08and Sephora is there as opposed to whatever, you know, Rakuten or whatever's going on with the Warriors in the
04:15history.
04:15And it just, it's different.
04:17It is much more of a celebration.
04:20And now this fan base gets to keep on celebrating.
04:23And I don't think they're going to stop anytime soon.
04:26I guess this is a long way of saying it is a much more inherently positive environment.
04:33I don't know how long that lasts.
04:37But it's been there the whole time.
04:39And now when you win as well, it just, I think it overflows the well of positivity for everybody
04:46who has decided to experience this with the Valkyries.
04:50And I think it lasts for a long time, if not forever.
04:53And I'm just hearing you, the way you were laying that out, I was thinking about women's sports in general
04:57and like, you know, the other elite women's sports that we've been a part of,
05:00whether it's Stanford women's basketball and when, you know, Tara was at her peak in the 90s and the 00s,
05:06even when they would have a game that they would lose, you don't hear a lot of boos at that
05:11game or any women's sports.
05:13I do think that the women's sports vibe, maybe it's because there are more women who are fans.
05:18And, you know, the LGBTQ plus community, I think that they're more likely to, if things go bad,
05:25you're less likely to go out there and boo and be negative.
05:27So I think the positive vibes around the sport is inherent.
05:31I kind of dig it, to be honest with you.
05:33I don't like, you know, the milk and cookies of the world.
05:38I get that that's not, it's not realistic.
05:40But, but you know me, like I sit here and talk about, you know, okay, the 49ers haven't gotten over
05:47the top.
05:47Well, let's rip them.
05:48Super Bowl or try again is your thing.
05:50Yeah.
05:50Let's rip them because clearly like this football team and this regime are, they're lame.
05:57They're stupid.
05:59The substation, they get like, I wish there was a little bit more of this in all of the sports.
06:06Not always, if you want to San Francisco Giants me right now, we can have a conversation about what you're
06:12doing wrong.
06:13Like we can, we can be real about it.
06:17But take their, take their counterparts, take the Golden State Warriors.
06:21They're coming out of a dynasty and people are like, this Don Levy guy is just a banana head.
06:26And I'm like, is that, is that really?
06:30And so I look at what I see with the Valkyries and them winning a championship already and I'm overwhelmingly
06:38impressed.
06:39And yeah, there's that too.
06:41I kind of do wish there was just a little bit, a little bit of the vibe that the WNBA
06:48catches and send that over to some of the sports that have been here for a much longer period of
06:55time.
06:55You want to know why Valhalla is the loudest sports environment in the Bay Area right now?
07:01Because everybody's freaking happy.
07:03Right.
07:04Everybody's having a great time.
07:06That corporate cynicism hasn't taken all of the tickets and all of that stuff.
07:12I don't know, man.
07:13It's really, I mean, yeah, they won and that's incredible.
07:16But like, I think that's an even bigger part of the story.
07:19If you ask me.
07:20It's the fan base and it's the lack of cynicism.
07:23I think you're right and I do think that it is endemic on women's sports more so than it is
07:28in other traditional sports, quote unquote.
07:31And think about the Warriors themselves where they start 0-3 and everybody is, you know, fire Dunleavy and Kurzabom
07:37and this and that.
07:38And then they rattle off four straight wins.
07:39And all of a sudden now, even though you win without Steph Curry and your rookie goes out there and
07:44puts up another 30 burger, it's like, oh, maybe they actually aren't as bad as we thought.
07:48Yeah, exactly.
07:49So, and I want some stories.
07:51I know you do too.
07:52Let's get some stories, man.
07:53Where were y'all for game seven on Saturday night?
07:57Boo-holla, Halloween.
07:58What a night.
08:00I mean, everybody, like, I ended up at a restaurant, an Italian place that was packed and there were a
08:08bunch of people who didn't even know this thing were on.
08:11And then there were people in dinosaur outfits.
08:14It's like, you know, people are in snuggies and onesies and they're standing at a bar all of a sudden,
08:20you know, barking and high-fiving over women's basketball.
08:23I'm like, this is a vibe right now.
08:25I've never been, I don't know what to even do with all of this.
08:29So, a very energetic night.
08:32And I think we would love to hear, where were you for game seven and what did you observe?
08:37And that invitation goes to everyone.
08:40Are you all in on this?
08:42Is this brand new to you?
08:45Did you care a lot?
08:46Did you care a little?
08:47What did you see going on around you?
08:49What was your experience with the people around you?
08:52It's all on the table and it's all good.
08:54But, yeah, they did it.
08:56They won the whole freaking thing.
08:58They did.
08:58And, by the way, now that they won, can I just be, maybe not the first, but maybe the first
09:04to say, thank God they'd lost that game on Thursday.
09:07Thank God they lost that game on Thursday.
09:10Well, they lost that game, like, before I even had finished my breakfast.
09:14Good job by them.
09:15I went out to breakfast.
09:16I watched the first quarter and had, I had a little bit of a scrambled egg situation.
09:21And after the first quarter, I was like, you know what?
09:23We're done here.
09:24And I paid my tab and went home and listened to Kevin Dana, and that thing was over immediately.
09:30And thank God.
09:31And now that they won on Saturday, thank God they lost that game on Thursday.
09:35That would have been the stupidest way for this to all happen that I could ever imagine in my life.
09:40Well, especially when you look at all the celebration stuff and our social media team did such a good job
09:45of capturing all of it.
09:46And they're spilling champagne on the Chase Center floor.
09:48And you've got Caitlin Chen, like, diving into a mound of confetti.
09:52And they're doing TikToks.
09:54And, like, the celebration at home on a Saturday night was so perfect.
09:58So perfect.
09:58It's Halloween night.
10:00Instead, it could have been Thursday at lunchtime where Natalie was like, bleepity, bleepity, yeah.
10:06Yeah, bleepity, bleep.
10:07And it might have caught you a little more off guard.
10:09You're like, I haven't even had my turkey sandwich yet, Natalie.
10:12Like, can we calm it down?
10:14This was so much better.
10:17Ben in San Francisco, go ahead, lead us off.
10:19We're going to take all your calls today, 888-957-9570.
10:23What's up, Ben?
10:24What you doing?
10:26Hey, you know, I'm just here listening to you guys today.
10:30You're having a great show.
10:31You always have a great show.
10:32But today, I just want to give you some extra props because I'm enjoying everything I'm listening.
10:37I appreciate all the insights.
10:39It just mirrors a lot of what I think is primarily a Warriors fan.
10:44I have felt following this team, it's been incredibly special for it to feel this organic, for it to have
10:53this community feel to it.
10:55Warriors games have always been great when I'm able to let go with folks.
10:59And this is an experience that just builds on top of it for me.
11:03And so being there in person, you're right.
11:06Thank God it would have been during lunch on a Thursday and that it was actually, like, at home.
11:12We were here for this.
11:13And, like, Thrive City was packed when we got out.
11:16So it was just mayhem.
11:18And I can't believe that they did it.
11:22Despite having faith in them, I'm really excited to see where they go.
11:25I mean, to respond to a couple of things that you guys talked about.
11:28When you win this early, what do you do?
11:31It kind of reminds me of the quandary that the Warriors have been in.
11:34You know, winning so often, that's all you come to expect.
11:37So what do you even talk about when everything goes right?
11:41Right?
11:42And I'll also just add to finish up that, man, this has been such an experience.
11:52Oh, man.
11:53We lost Ben.
11:55Ben?
11:55Oh, well, okay.
11:56Yeah.
11:57He was going to say it's been such a great experience that, you know, he can't wait until next season.