Warriors will welcome 105-year-old superfan ‘Sweetie’ to Game 1, free of charge
Midway through the Western Conference finals, Mashable sports reporter Sam Laird introduced the basketball-loving world to “Sweetie,” a 105-year-old Bay Area resident and Golden State Warriors fan who watches every game at home with her cat, Coco Chanel:
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“Every time I holler at the team, she just looks up at me,” Sweetie, still sprightly and spunky well over a century after her birth, told Mashable on a recent afternoon while wearing a bright yellow Warriors shirt. “And I holler at them a lot. I tell them: ‘Go get that ball!'” […]
Sweetie’s 106th birthday is on June 12, which falls smack-dab in the middle of the NBA Finals — one she fully expects the Warriors to win.
“I want them to win when I can see it!” she said. “And they’re gonna win. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.”
That story led to increased attention from local media — to the point that Sweetie’s daughter asked outlets not to print her mother’s full name or address — and, after the Warriors finished off the Houston Rockets in five games to win the Western Conference and advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in 40 years, a shoutout from Golden State head coach Steve Kerr.
“There was a great story the other day that [Warriors vice president of communications] Raymond [Ridder] sent me about a woman who is 105 years old, and she goes by the name of Sweetie, and she’s been following the Warriors forever and loves the Warriors,” Kerr said during his post-Game 5 press conference. “It was a wonderful story about how much joy she gets watching our games and following our team. You know, you think a lot about people like that who have been following the team for a long time and how they’re feeling.
“I’m happy for all of our fans — and especially Sweetie, if you’re watching out there,” Kerr added with a smile. “Congrats.”
With the Warriors bound for a matchup against LeBron James and the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers, Doug Oakley of the Bay Area News Group caught up with Sweetie to get her perspective on the Finals:
Asked if she would go to one of the championship games if someone — say a head coach — could get her a ticket, Sweetie didn’t waste any time in answering.
“I would love to see that game in person,” she said.
The Warriors, evidently, were all too eager to oblige with a free ticket in a suite at Oracle Arena for Thursday’s Game 1, according to Oakley’s follow-up:
“Well, they heard what I asked for,” said Sweetie, whose daughter Lily Toney of Oakland asked this paper not to reveal Sweetie’s real name or address because she lives alone. […]
Toney, 75, said a team representative called her shortly after this newspaper printed an online article Friday about Sweetie’s age and decades-long love for the Warriors.
“She’s excited, and I get to be her press secretary,” Toney said. “It’s all fun. The Warriors are stressing it’s a big thing for them too, but they want to make sure she enjoys the game and doesn’t have a lot of distractions.”
It’s pretty cool that, with all of the other preparations and arrangements that have to be made prior to hosting an NBA Finals, the Warriors have made a special effort to reach out to a fan who’s been supporting the club for decades. (Though not as long as you might think; as she noted to Laird, she and her late husband “didn’t become Warriors fans in earnest until the early 1990s,” when Don Nelson and Run TMC had the Oakland Coliseum rocking.)
But just because the Warriors have extended their hands, don’t think Sweetie’s going to stop hollering at the boys in white, blue and gold.
“I loved [the Game 5 win vs. Houston], but it made me kind of angry because I wanted to slap them boys for playing so sloppy in the first half,” Sweetie told Oakley.
Yipes. Better be careful with the ball, Steph.
Hat-tip to Mark Hinog of SB Nation.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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