A unique moment: NBA arena offers a special treat to kids seeking memories
Judging by the smiles on the floor and in the stands — and the intensity in the arena — it was easy to tell it has been two full years since local high school basketball players took the floor at Golden 1 Center, playing the Sac-Joaquin Section championships hours after the Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings shared the same floor the night prior.
“We’ve wanted this moment for so long,” Liberty Ranch basketball coach Brian Chavez said after his team claimed the Division IV section title with a win over Venture Academy. “Every practice, if we were up early, or after a game … every day that we walked up to the gym, every day was about being here right now and in this moment.”
Chavez’s sentiment was shared by many players and coaches who came out of the games champions in their respective divisions. It was a dream for those involved to play in the section championships on the same floor the best basketball players in the world. It wasn’t lost on those participating that Nikola Jokic, the reigning NBA MVP, helped his team to a victory on the same hardwood less than 24 hours earlier.
There were 12 games on Friday and Saturday at the glistening arena in Downtown Commons, spanning six divisions in girls’ and boys’ basketball, serving as the season highlight for the sport while representing nearly 200 schools in the region.
It was particularly notable given the pandemic wiped out the event in 2021, with the last one happening in February 2020 just before COVID began spreading the world over. Many high school seniors last year had their high school swan songs wiped out entirely or limited to a handful of less meaningful games in the spring.
“It really feels great to be back, and at the same time a little surreal,” said Will DeBoard, the assistant commissioner of the Sac-Joakin section. “You still see people out there wearing masks. There’s still COVID out there, so you do have to be cautious. I don’t think we’re totally normal yet, but I think we’re on the road to normal.”
The games represented another step toward normalcy as California continues to loosen mask mandates and COVID-19 restrictions. The California Department of Public Health earlier this month said fully vaccinated individuals are no longer required to wear masks indoors, which Sacramento County followed when the mask mandate expired Feb. 16. Though anyone attending the basketball games Friday and Saturday were required to have proof of vaccination or a recent negative test and encouraged to wear masks.
The upper deck in Golden 1 Center was curtained off with first-come, first-serve seating allowed in the lower bowl. Section officials declined to disclose the details of the financial agreement with the Kings to host the games, though DeBoard said the Kings view the event as a community service. The state championships will be held in the same venue March 11 and 12. Golden 1 Center has picked up the section and state championships that were held in ARCO Arena dating back to the 1980s.
“The kids come here, and they are treated like a professional team and there’s nothing like it,” DeBoard said. “To see the kids walk into the arena for the first time, and just look around. Golden 1 Center is an impressive place. It really yes. Yeah, you see some jitters now and then, and the 3-point shooters don’t necessarily love coming here, because there’s that big gap behind the basket. But ultimately, the kids, you don’t hear anybody complaining about coming here, that’s for sure. They love it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
The main event Friday night featured two Division II teams, Granite Bay, the No. 8 seed, and No. 3 seed Grant, making a consecutive finals appearance.
Granite Bay had its typically boisterous student section that’s become known locally during football games. Grant, meanwhile, had a drum line and equally loud student section, though it appeared to be half the size. When Grant star guard Rishod Brown tossed the ball into the air as time expired, with Grant sealing its 65-58 victory, the building erupted in a fashion not far off from when the Kings pull off an elusive win.
It was an emotional scene in the press conference afterwards from Grant’s head coach Deonard Wilson, who lost his mother and sister to COVID.
“It just gave our community something to rally behind and something to call our own,” Wilson said. “And so often people talk about us being a football school, they just don’t know Grant tradition. We’ve always been an all-sport school. So the whole football school-basketball school thing, no, we’re a community school.”
Indeed, emotions were high and smiles were wide for the teams that came away with the 12 section championships. The emotions ran similarly deep in the other direction for the teams that came up short. Because the reality is for many high school athletes, their final game of their senior seasons is often the last of their athletic career before moving on to the next steps in their lives.
“We don’t have a lot of kids from our section who have gone on to be professionals or anything like that,” DeBoard said. “This (often) isn’t a career. It’s like, this is just a nice respite on their way to real life. And this is really a unique place and these championships are a pretty unique experience.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2022 at 4:28 AM.
