The Autograph Collection: Thunder fans treasure the opportunity for pregame sightings and signings
Photography by Michael Kinney
Chris Zoski tries to get the same spot every time: the front row of section 116. Even though it’s not always possible to be in the same position for each Oklahoma City Thunder game, the 39-year-old is usually somewhere in the vicinity with a paper and marker in hand.
NBA league MVP hopeful Shai Gilgeous-Alexander signs a young fan’s OKC Thunder jersey.
For the past 16 years, Zoski has been a Thunder season ticket holder. And for just as long, he has been collecting autographs from his favorite players. The Oklahoma City native has built up quite a collection of signatures and collectibles over that time — so much so that he had to find a special place for them.
“I’ve got several tubs of autographs locked away,” Zoski said before a game in February. “I just kind of keep them and eventually I may give them out to people. I don’t know yet.”
Zoski is one of many Thunder and NBA fans who flock to the Paycom Center to catch more than just the action on the court. They are on the hunt for autographs.
“I think one of the things that it shows is that there’s a new fan here,” Thunder Vice-President Brian Byrnes says. “There are new fans, there’s new families, there’s new kids, and they’re excited about the team. They’re excited about being here, being in the arena, and they want to connect to the team. So seeking autographs, getting here early — those kinds of things are, I think, a reflection on how the fans are connecting to this team.”
The fans seeking signatures are a varied mix. On the day 8-year-old Jonah Bodine was there with his father and siblings, he was just a few spots away from an elderly woman holding a jersey.
Bodine has collected more than 40 autographs from members of the Thunder and 77 from across the sports world. He said he plans to keep them forever … but in his next breath said he’ll give one of his nine Shai Gilgeous-Alexander autographs to his friend Brett.
The reason the autograph area has become such a valuable property this year is largely due to Gilgeous-Alexander, who has made it his nightly ritual to walk along the sections before games and sign almost anything and everything put in front of him. That includes basketball trading cards, NBA jerseys, photos and even scraps of paper that just happened to be in someone’s pocket.
This has been a part of the Thunder culture from the very early years. Former Thunder player and fan favorite Steven Adams was also big on going through Autograph Row and meeting fans.
“My favorite autograph ever has been Steven Adams,” Zoski says. “He always stuck out to me because he’d always make people say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ before giving him the autographs. Chet (Holmgren) and (Russell) Westbrook are another one that never signed for me. I’ve almost tripped down the stairs a couple of times trying to get to him to sign, and he just never did.”
For many fans the autograph is only a small part of what they can get out of the brief 5- to 10-second encounter.
“Honestly, I just like getting closer to the players,” says 27-year-old Brian Lafferty. “Having the experience of having a small conversation or getting to congratulate a player on something personal. A lot of times people congratulate them if they just had a baby or something like that, or got married, which is just a cool little personal experience you get to have with a player that you don’t get from watching up in the seats or even watching on TV.”
Lafferty, who is from Norman, has been a season ticket holder for the past two seasons. But he’s been a sports fan collector since the age of 11 when he and his father would use it as a way to bond.
“It’s something that me and my father used to do together, so it’s something that I like to continue to do so I can remember him a little bit,” Lafferty says. “Other than that, just honestly having a bunch of things that have been touched by professional athletes in my room kind of seems cool. So I have a bunch of balls signed by the Thunder players, jerseys, cards, hats, shoes, literally everything I could imagine to get signed by a person, and just slowly but surely added to them. Once I got the first one, it felt so cool. And so just kind of steamrolled from there.”
Sadie Ryder patiently awaits an autograph from Jalen Williams.
While some are dedicated fans like Lafferty, who are at every game rain or shine, others are in town just visiting and hope to be lucky enough to be in the right position to catch a brief encounter with an NBA player.
In December, 18-year-old Felix Yang said he traveled 20 hours and 14,000 miles from Hong Kong just to see Shai. He was able to catch the attention of one of the team’s security personnel who pointed him out to Gilgeous-Alexander. After his pregame shoot-around, SGA went over to Yang and signed a pair of sneakers and other items before taking a photo with the very excited fan.
“It was a dream come true,” Yang says. “And those signed items were all worn by Shai on the court. I’m definitely going to keep them forever.”
Sadie Ryder didn’t have to come as far as Yang: The 10-year-old from Yukon has been coming to Thunder games since she was 4 years old and said the first autograph she ever received was Russell Westbrook’s. But now, with this new crop of players, Ryder and her family have stepped up their game. They have started bringing digital paintings of the players and having them signed. When she got Jalen Williams to sign the artwork of himself, it was the fourth autographed painting that she’s been able to collect.
The one-of-a-kind autographed memorabilia, like the paintings and jerseys, tends to draw the biggest interest when it comes to the open market. It is not uncommon to see adults in the middle of section 116 handing multiple items down to kids in the front row. As of early March, a quick search on eBay found 154 Gilgeous-Alexander jerseys, 717 basketballs and nearly 50 photos purportedly autographed by the Thunder star.
According to one arena usher, the reason Westbrook stopped signing autographs before games was due to an overzealous fan, who was known to sell signed memorabilia online, pushing kids out of the way and exchanging terse words with Westbrook.
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lu Dort signing memorabilia for young fans
Lafferty, who carries around a thick notebook full of signatures, said that’s not why he shows up to each game, and has collected a stack of autographed jerseys from each of his favorite players.
“I think it’s just a great experience, especially for people who can’t ever get this close to the court [themselves], getting to see the players up close and personal, getting to watch them work out for the game,” says Lafferty. “It’s definitely an experience, for sure, that I think everybody should take advantage of.”
That is what 19-year-old Timothy Aadland thinks, too. The native of Florence, Italy, and Oral Roberts University student was at his second-ever Thunder game when get was able to get Gilgeous-Alexander to sign the shirt he was wearing.
“I’m a Thunder fan. Basketball has been a dream. Being in the NBA, it’s just something that doesn’t really happen for Italian boys,” Aadland says. “Coming here and seeing a dream come true, seeing Shai signing my T-shirt, it was really cool. I think I’m just going to keep it just for memories. One day tell my kids about it and let them experience it.”