Red Beta Fishes & Nightmares: The Whole Story of Leaving the OKC Thunder

A brief story of my time spent working for the Okc Thunder orgnanization

A couple of weeks ago, it was about 9:20 at night and my two year-old daughter Kyndall was freaking out. I mean, legitimate freak out. Crocodile tears that could fill the Nile streaming down her flushed face. The incessant whining of “Daddy! Daddy! Mommy! Mommy! Pleeease!” over and over again. This"would continue for another 10 to 15 minutes before she would finally give up her relentless fight and let her petite, 24-pound body sink into her sheets. Let her stuffed Tigger softly rub against her face, and drift off into another night of sleep. That day was her birthday too. And oh yeah, my wife Kaylea was about 37 weeks pregnant with our first born son at the time. And it’s crazy how fast time flies when you have a kid. Disclaimer: I say that knowing full well the generic, stereotypical nature of such a comment. Before I became a father other parents would often offer unsolicited advice that sounded something along the lines of “Don’t blink! It flies by faster than you think! Just don’t blink, man!” And I can remember thinking “well, yeah…but that’s life though”. However, now that I am a couple of years into it, and I have this horrible tendency of falling deeper and deeper in love with my little girl day after day after day, all I can think is “CRAP! I think I blinked! I think I missed something.” 

After a long day of work that day and an even longer night of mundane adult things that no one ever warned me about when I was younger, I found myself at Wal-Mart, at 8:45pm (already past my daughter’s bedtime) picking my whining two year-old up off the disgusting floor covered with dirt and tire marks from those motorized carts, carrying her to the pet section (which surprisingly still exists) and spending $50 on a fish tank, fish tank supplies, fish food, and finally a male red Beta fish named “Dorothy”. This was all in the plan. While I worked my full-time day job at Mustang High School teaching snot-nosed, over privileged and rude 10th graders, I thought about this moment all day. I thought about the fact that I knew I would dress her in public-appropriate attire and she would refuse to leave the house without her rainbow tutu and her Frozen microphone. I thought about seeing her eyes light up as she stood in front of the eye-level fish tanks marveling at the hundreds of tiny, ill-fated swimmers. I thought about her standing, face pressed to the glass of the tanks, nearly shattering the glass with her squeals of “FISHIE!!! FISHIE!!!”. I thought about all those things.

I did not however, think for one second about how I much I wished I would be missing all of these things to be in front of 20,000 screaming fans, watching the Thunder play the Memphis Grizzlies in their preseason opener. 

Full disclosure: If you know the full story (or don’t care to know) feel free to go ahead and skip to the end.

Six years ago, in November of 2008 I was Twenty-one years old. I had been attending Frontline Church for about two years and had made a handful of friends from around the city. I was not married. There was no girlfriend in sight. No children, no degree, and I did not even have a full-time job. So when a group of friends asked me to come help them toss out t-shirts at the new OKC Thunder games, I was delighted. Over the moon, in fact. Shortly after I started there, the group of friends I was working with told me that they had all planned on quitting together. When this happened, my boss and Game Night Manager asked me if I planned on quitting too? I will never forget what he said when I told him no. He said “Well, do you have any friends that want to work for the NBA?” The next day I called somewhere around twenty-five of my friends that I thought might be great for that kind of job, and asked them if they would be interested. About fourteen of them said yes and about eleven of them started work with me on the next game. So, by December, me and eleven of my closest friends were working for the Thunder for the entire first season. From this group, about four stayed on through auditions during season two and two stayed with the Thunder through seasons three and four. One still works for the NBA however, he has journeyed back to his hometown of Houston to work full-time for the Rocket’s organization. 

Before the second season started, the Thunder held open auditions for what they had rebranded as the StormChasers, an interactive squad for the fans in the arena. I remember the day of the audition was August 20, 2009. I remember because I walked into the audition and my eyes caught the glowing face of a nineteen year-old beauty. After I so smoothly tossed a foam basketball at her head (“trying” to hit a friend sitting close by) I strolled over and introduced myself to her. One thing led to another and we started dating about five months later. Ten months after that we married and the rest is history. 

Before the third season I had an opportunity to audition to be the new On-Court Emcee for the Thunder. In mid July I walked into a completely empty arena and auditioned with a microphone, standing on two planks of the court and a spoke to some guy holding a Sony Handicam. I had no idea how I had done and when it was over, I had my doubts that I would get the job. In fact, I never heard back from the guys at the Thunder office regarding my audition, so I went ahead with my plans and I showed up for season three StormChaser auditions, made the team for a third year in a row and eventually arrived for my first pre-season game of the year in 2010. When I walked in the door the Game Night Assistant Manager Tyler handed me a microphone and said “You’re doing half-time tonight, we would of told you earlier but we thought you’d s*** your pants”. And thus began the greatest job that I have ever had. To be completely honest, I was decent, at best, at it. Not nearly as good as some of the other Emcee’s in the league or even some of the people who had the job before me, but I learned quickly and learned to love what I did. 

I’ve been trying for a long time to think of the words to describe what it feels like to stand in front of 20,000 people, with spotlights and a camera on you, and a producer talking (sometimes screaming) in your ear, and to say the lines that you’ve been rehearsing off stage for the last two hours, but there are simply no words that work in that way. There are a couple that come close: exhilarating, breath-taking, terrifying. But even those are lacking something. Soon, being out on the court became second nature to me. My feet planted on the court felt more like home than any other place. But through this, I also learned some dark things about myself. I learned that if I was arguing and fighting with my wife, or feeling like I was failing to receive love, adoration or admiration from her, I knew that I could go stand in front of 20,000 fans and get those things from them. Please, let me say that I am not under any kind of grand illusions that they were cheering for me, or even for what I was saying, but the feeling that one gets in a moment like that fills you up with this intoxication that is simply second to none. 

In October of 2012 my daughter Kyndall was born. And my job just kind of changed at the Thunder. By this time I had started a side business in providing music entertainment for weddings and parties and there would be days when I when go to school all morning, pursuing a degree in English, go to work all afternoon at some part-time job, then either head to a Thunder game or to a gig and not return home until after midnight or later. 

In 2013, I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Culture and started a career teaching for Mustang Public Schools. This was a breath of fresh air, but really, it just led to more busyness. Soon I came to realize that I was going three, four or sometimes five days in a row without seeing my wife and daughter, while being in the same house as them. 

Let me take this second to say this: Some families are built to operate in this way. I just know that mine is not one of them. 

Over time, working for the Thunder started to prove to be a hard-sell for my family. For myself, it was incredible. The perks of being the guy with a microphone in the middle of the court of one of the hottest teams in the entire NBA and doing so while they were winning more and more and getting better and better every single season, were unreal. But deep down I could feel the tension stretching between my wife and I. Going for days on end without holding my daughter and kissing and loving on her. Putting her down for bed or playing with her at the park after school. Often I would stand at a mundane game in the middle of the long season against Milwaukee or some other mediocre team that fans give their tickets away for, and wonder if she was having a nightmare. Wonder if my wife was the one sitting outside her door and listening to her scream and wail. And I would miss them fiercely. 

In early 2014 when my wife became pregnant with our son I knew that season seven would ultimately be my last season with the Thunder organization. This was an indescribable pain to me. I loved (and still very much love) that team more than any group of athletes in the world. The people that in that arena that work for the Thunder organization, the ushers, the season ticket members, those aren’t just people that watch the Thunder rise and fall with every victory and defeat, they have watched me grow, watched me find a wife, watched me start a business and finish a bachelor’s degree and even watched me have children and begin a career. People like Jason Quintero, my game-night manager. Tyler Cofer his assistant manager. Guys like my producer John Leach who taught me some of the greatest lessons I know in being not only an entertainer, but a husband and a father. Wonderful friends like Jaime Cuellar, Brett Kenega, Marcus White and Ade Amunda, who were my right hand most nights. Katie Kurtz who is just the most professional person I know. The greatest ushers and arena staff in the world like Teresa Winings, Bob, Steve and Don. Torrey and Michelle Purvery and every other usher who worked on the floor.  Amazing fans like Mary Myrick and Sammye Cravens who gave me a job when my family needed it desperately. Brian Husted, who was always willing to have a good conversation while sitting next to me. Staff members like Justin Geary and Mario Nanni and Josh Hunter and others who help run that show from the ceiling down. Guys like Royce Young, who has inspired me more times than he knew through his writing and kind-worded conversations with me. Co-workers like Jo Jo McNeal who has become my best friend in the world. 

There are a million people, from concession workers to players and player’s friends and family, that have meant the world to me over the last seven years. Some that don’t even know what their smile, or kind words did for me some nights. These people are not just friends, they are family. Weeks and months of the year between October and May, I would spend twice the amount of time with these people that I would spend with my own flesh and blood. 

But eventually, something had to give. When I began working for the Thunder I had no girlfriend, no wife, no children, no full-time job and really, no plan for life. The time commitment made sense for me. But over the years, when all of those things changed, the time commitment didn’t. Being stretched thinner and thinner with every single game that came and went. 

Today, the Thunder will tip off their eighth season home-opener. And they will do so for the second time without me. I’ll be sitting in my living room watching the game with my very pregnant wife, and my two-year old daughter. I’ll be praying that my wife goes into labor and my son can get here in time to see the Thunder crush the Nuggets with eight healthy players. I am not under some false pretense that I am severely missed in this organization. I think that everyone likes to believe that they will be missed, or irreplaceable, or somehow even revered in the history of those walls. The fact is through, even if it was the case tonight, and a handful of fans walk into that arena, sit in their seats and wonder “What happened to that guy who used to talk on the mic?”, they will quickly get over it and move on with their life as if nothing happened.    And really the fact is this: I don’t want to miss my daughter’s birthday for a pre-season game. I don’t want to miss picking out a male Beta fish named Dorothy way past her bedtime. I don’t want to miss holding my son in his first Thunder shirt and blanket and showing him the greatest team in the NBA. I don’t want to miss those things just to have some ridiculous form of recognition in this world. 

I just want to pick out Beta fishes, and dry the tears of another nightmare and hold my wife close, knowing that they will be all the spotlight I’ll ever need.