next stop...Sixers bench

The worse the world gets, the more I devote myself to following basketball. As the NBA opens its '25-'26 season tonight I've been thinking about my lifelong Sixers fandom. For better or worse, I've been a 76ers fan for as long as I can remember. I love how my friend Jon Forstein summarized my professional and personal identity when I spoke to his video production class earlier this year.

One of my first Sixers fan memories was falling asleep to a game on the radio and crying when I woke up and my dad told me they lost. I cried a lot as a kid. In the 80's you could only fill your media diet with so much basketball content, but today I listen regularly to no fewer than four basketball-focused podcasts. That's a lot of time that might be spent listening to The Daily or other current events that would leave me feeling hopeless and anxiety ridden. For me, focusing on basketball is a great escape. And now that I've joined the WNBA bandwagon, there's basketball all year round, what a time to be alive!

The other thing I appreciate about being a basketball fan is the sense of connection that comes along with it. For me and my dad, it's been a lifelong bond and I was happy to find this Sixers cardigan to get him for his 76th birthday. From what I hear, it's been a big hit when he walks around Rittenhouse Square.

I've tried to get my wife Lynn into basketball for almost our entire relationship (28 years) but it hasn't worked yet, and that's fine. It's good to have separate passions. I did take her to a Sparks game recently and she was smitten...with the mascot Sparky. My latest attempt is trying to get her to watch this season of Starting Five with me. Speaking of which, it's absolute malpractice if Netflix and the Obamas don't make a WNBA version next season.

I also convinced Lynn to name our first dog Julius, after Dr. J. As you can see here, he's thrilled to be dressed up in Sixers gear.

For decades now I've been an ex-pat Philly Sports fan, living in Los Angeles. It goes without saying that I never switched allegiance to the Lakers, despite my embrace of the Sparks. But that's only because Philly's WNBA team won't begin for another 5 years. One of the highlights of my fandom the past few years is going to Sixers games when they're in town, often attending their away games against both the Lakers and Clippers. I was lucky enough to work alongside a fellow insane person when it comes to the Sixers-- Joe Wengert, heard here on The Thrill of Defeat podcast discussing the roots and evolution of his Philly sports mania. Not only did Joe, his wife Holly Prazoff, and I go see the Sixers at Staples on March 1, 2020 with the full knowledge that a contagious virus was spreading unchecked throughout the state, but the Sixers stars weren't even playing. It did end up being the Shake Milton game though, so totally worth spending the afternoon yelling and high fiving other sixers fans in, may i remind you, March of 2020.

Joe and I also went to see the Sixers play the Clippers on, wait for it, the day after election day 2024. Possibly one of the top 5 most depressing days of my life. But again, basketball was a nice distraction from how awful the rest of the world felt that day. I was really grateful to be out in the world, and there was something comforting about being out amongst other people that day. And as much as basketball is a great distraction for me from the truly distressing events of the day, it's also inextricably tied to everything else going on in society. Ten days after we went to see the Sixers play the Clippers, the NBA was the first major institution to shut down due to covid. For me the start of the pandemic will always be linked to fucking Rudy Gobert wiping his hands all over the microphones (very stereotypically french sense of humor btw) then testing positive a day later.

And while my Sixers fandom started as a bond between me and my dad, it's also become a part of my mom's activist work in Philadelphia. I'm very proud of my mom for spending her spare time doing activism instead of listening to four separate podcasts about basketball like some other members of the family.

My mom also happens to be extremely supportive of all my pursuits (too supportive?) which makes this childhood photo of me even more amusing thanks to the caption she wrote in the little speech bubble sticker, "next stop... Sixers bench" I appreciate the encouragement mom, and will be cheering for the Sixers this year as if I truly were riding the Sixers bench. I've pinned all of my future happiness on VJ Edgecombe, it's gonna be great.