Friday, January 23, 2026, in Oklahoma City, proved once again that Will Rogers knew his home state better than anyone. Growing up in the Sooner State, I heard his most dependable line many times: ”If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, wait a minute, and it’ll change.” And sure enough, it did.
Ten days earlier, my sister Anna sent me a text that made me smile. The forecasted temperature was expected to be a balmy sixty-six degrees, positively tropical for Oklahoma in January, when my plane was scheduled to touch down in OKC on Thursday, January 22. I approved. Friday—Thunder game day—was supposed to cool off to a crisp fifty-four. Still perfect, as far as I was concerned.
Three days before my departure, the forecast revised itself, as Oklahoma forecasts tend to do. Anna sent me a text that felt less cheerful. Thunder game day had dropped to thirty-six degrees, with a fifty-six percent chance of freezing rain. Saturday, the day I was scheduled to return to Idaho, looked worse: a high of sixteen, a low of six, and an eighty-nine percent chance of snow.
I hope I can get out Saturday, I texted back.
Curious—and mildly concerned—I Googled what all the fuss was about. The words “significant winter storm” popped up, the kind of wording meteorologists reserve for moments when they want to sound calm while implying you should act with an abundance of caution. The forecast warned of impacts across a large swath of the continental United States, with Canada possibly catching the edges. If it all came true, I was told to thank a wave in the upper atmosphere that had stretched the polar vortex southward. Normally, the vortex behaves itself and stays over northern Canada and Alaska, which is exactly where I prefer it.
There was no way I was canceling my trip. Sometimes a brother and a sister need a few days together in Bricktown. And besides, my date with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander—whom I will now simply call SGA—was already on the calendar. And Jeremiah don’t like calendar changes. It was clear skies into OKC. That’s all that mattered.
Around Thanksgiving time, I floated my grand idea past Anna. I’d fly in for a few days. We’d chill in Bricktown. We’d stay at one of the hotels that looks down into the ballpark where the Los Angeles Dodgers Triple-A affiliate plays. We’d catch a Thunder game. Then I’d head home. “It would be good to spend some time together—no kids, no schedules,” I said. “Just you and me.”
Anna said yes, and I booked my flight out of Idaho Falls Regional Airport.
A week or two later, my sister revealed a piece of critical information on the phone that made my ears perk up.
“You know SGA always signs before games.”
I paused. “Signs,” I said, carefully, as if testing the word. “Autographs?”
“Yeah. If you get there early.”
“How do you know this?”
“Facebook.”
I nodded, as if that explained everything. “Of course,” I said. “The most reliable news outlet we have.”
“There are posts with directions,” she continued. “And pictures. Jerseys. Basketballs. Smiling faces.”
I pictured them immediately. “Regular people?” I asked.
“Very regular.”
I let that sit. “So you’re saying this is a documented practice.”
“It happens all the time.”
“We gotta try.”
Our treasure map to SGA was surprisingly precise. Get in line thirty minutes before the doors open at the southwest entrance. Once inside, turn left at the first gate and keep going—straight down to courtside. Ticket location didn’t matter. Our seats were in the Upper Level in Section 303. According to the wisdom of the crowd, the Thunder and Paycom Center allow anyone, for a brief and magical moment, to roam the lower level and share some rare air space with NBA royalty.
The next question that came to mind: what, exactly, should I put in front of SGA to sign? This was not a decision to be made casually or, worse, based on whatever remnants I found in the Thunder Shop on game day. I’m a planner to the core, and planning well requires planning. Whatever object I chose needed to be intentional, portable, and worthy of the moment. It had to survive inside the only piece of luggage I was taking, my backpack filled to the brim. Long before I boarded the plane, the object had to be selected and acquired—because opportunities like this reward preparation, not improvisation.
I briefly entertained the February issue of Sports Illustrated, the one with SGA on the cover as 2025 Sportsperson of the Year. It felt tasteful. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found online.
For a moment, no more than that, I considered an official game ball. But at two hundred and twenty dollars, I said “ouch” and no thanks. There was also the matter of lugging the ball through the airport, having to guard it like former NFL center Jason Kelce does his Buffalo Wild Wings, and the horror that would follow if it made a fast break while I was taking a wee or looking the other way.
In the end, I settled on something more manageable: an 8×10 of SGA in motion, dribbling past a defender, the kind of photo that captures both his grace and skills. Practical, very slim, and still worthy of an autograph. I found it on eBay, sold by Maverick Sports World, and promptly claimed it as mine.
It arrived seven days before my departure, well packaged, the glossy surface gleaming like a tiny window into the moment I had been imagining for almost two months. I held it up, studied it, and nodded to myself. Yes. This is it. This was the object that would accompany me to Oklahoma, that would survive my descent into what would later be billed as the Monster Storm, carry the story, and, with any luck, return home bearing the mark of the 2025 NBA Finals MVP.
Like I always am on trip days, I was wide awake at three in the morning, fully alert and entirely unhelped by the fact that my six-thirty departure was still hours away. I tossed and turned. Such is life. I landed on time in OKC, thankfully, and Anna whisked me away from Will Rogers International Airport in her GMC Yukon. I was still wearing my face mask to see if it would get a reaction.
“You going to be wearing that mask much longer?” she asked, pulling away from the curb.
“I just wanted to see what you were going to say,” I said, chuckling, removing it and tossing it into the corner of the dashboard.
She glanced over. “Are you planning to wear that thing to the game?”
She looked genuinely worried and bothered at the possibility I might do just that.
“Of course not,” I said. “I only wear it when I’m on airplanes.”
Planes, I’ve learned, are airborne petri dishes with seat assignments. My face mask rule came from experience, not principle. On my first international flight—to Paris, no less—I arrived armed with dreams of all the iconic sites and gluten-free boulangeries and pâtisseries. The thought of setting foot in such places and knowing I could eat anything from these colorful display cases had my mouth watering the moment I touched down. Unfortunately, I began to exhibit COVID-like symptoms less than 48 hours after putting my feet down on French soil. The virus did not care about my Paris itinerary. So now I wear a mask on all airplane rides.
Anna shook her head, amused. “You know something that puzzles me?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Those people you see driving alone with their masks on.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t get that either.”
For all my effort to keep COVID or any other infectious agents at bay on this trip, the illusion of control collapsed the moment we reached the checkout line at Walmart. Before the associate, a man of generous proportions, scanned my antibacterial soap, for my retainer, and my floss picks, he performed a thorough nose-blowing with a paper towel. In slow motion, right in front of me. It was unashamed. And when he finished, he did not sanitize his hands. There is no way in hell you just did that, I thought as he handled my floss.
I did what I thought Jesus would do: I said nothing. What I wanted to say was, “Where are your manners?” but I couldn’t coordinate my tongue’s movement with my lips and teeth to produce the words.
Anna looked at me with a big grin that instantly became a full smile. She knew my zany ways of avoiding germs at all costs—habits that stretch all the way back to childhood.
Go figure.
I could only shake my head. There are limits to vigilance, and Walmart, it turns out, is where they reveal themselves.
I was quickly humbled when the guy swiveled my bag around and told me to have a nice day in one of the meekest voices I’ve ever heard. I wasn’t expecting that. It was the gut check I needed for the disgust building up inside of me. I felt two inches tall by this point.
“I just hope he has allergies,” I said sheepishly to Anna as we walked out of the store.
She laughed.
On trips like this, I go out of my way to scout for Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives locations. That evening, we ate at Guyutes, a funky restaurant located in the Uptown 23rd District of Oklahoma City. Once inside, we were surrounded by numerous iconic tour posters on the walls. The co-owners are big fans of a band I had never heard of, Phish, which I learned about from their Triple D episode. The restaurant took its name from Phish’s song, “Guyute.”
The menu proved eclectic yet appetizing. Every item was named after a band or song—Pig Lips, Tequila Sunfryz, Peace in the Middle East, The Disco Biscuit—each one offering a small, deliberate rebellion against the idea of a standard menu. Familiar food, slightly rerouted.
I ordered the Guyute: braised pork belly with a chipotle honey glaze and finished with garlic-basil whipped cream on a fried wonton served with sautéed spinach and Yukon Gold potatoes. It sounded like a dare. It tasted heavenly.
When the check arrived, it came tucked inside a paperback edition of Silas Marner. Another touch of eclecticism. With standing instructions from Kathryn to bring her back a T-shirt, a request I dutifully honored, the evening qualified as a success on all counts.
As we walked to Anna’s SUV, it was hard to believe an arctic blast was coming to town in mere hours. The night was calm, with a temp in the high forties.
“Maybe they have it wrong,” I said, looking skyward.
“Maybe,” Anna answered back.
Well, it turns out the meteorologists hadn’t gotten it wrong this time, and Will Rogers was right once again. The State Emergency Operations Center was activated at seven the next morning on Friday. The temperature sat at thirty-one degrees when we woke up, but with a twenty-three-mile-per-hour wind cutting through it, the morning felt closer to eighteen. It was official. Oklahoma City was becoming Rexburg and Rexburg was becoming Oklahoma City. Go figure.
That morning, we braved the elements and traveled to Rally House, where Anna purchased a New Era OKC Orange NBA Statement 9Fifty Snapback Hat for SGA to sign. Flat bill. High crown. Legit and perfect for display in a shadow box.
By the time we started our thirteen-minute walk to the Paycom Center to watch the Thunder play the Indiana Pacers, a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals, it was twenty-five degrees, and the wind was still blowing the same.
We walked quickly to hopefully land us a spot at the front of the line. Gleefully, we took one of the first spots, but that excitement wore off in less than five minutes. Huddled near the entrance, shifting our weight from one foot to the other, the cold found every weak point. We waited. We stomped. My thighs went first. This, I reminded myself, was the price I had to pay for SGA’s autograph.
The key to getting SGA’s signature, as we understood it, was to be in the first row anywhere along one baseline to the tunnel opposite the Thunder’s bench. We needed to hold our first-in-line position in the sub-zero conditions until the doors opened, giving us the best chance of staking a claim.
Through the glass doors, we could see bodies: a few ticket takers. Smiling. Laughing. Unhurried. They stood just inside the entrance with carefree expressions, like this was just another ordinary night at the Paycom Center. They looked oblivious to the fact that an Arctic blast had blown into town or that we were standing outside looking like frozen popsicles.
“Look at them,” I said.
“They look warm,” Anna said.
“It’s heartless of them to watch us freeze,” I added.
As quickly as I said that, I knew it wasn’t true. Deep down inside, Oklahomans are good people, but for that split second, I doubted it. My lapse in good judgment surely was due to a loss of circulation.
SGA looked warm, too. Above us, perched over the entrance doors, were the oversized images of him and his World Champion teammates, frozen mid-confidence and mid-stride, looking down on us like they were Greek gods. Comfortable, composed, and immune to weather.
In the photograph, SGA wore his jersey and headband like a man who hadn’t felt today’s twenty-three-mile-per-hour wind. He was bare-armed. I was bundled in four layers. I pictured him inside, warming up on the court, body loose, muscles awake, untroubled by the Arctic blast. The contrast felt personal.
After about forty-five minutes in the cold, and me looking up at SGA like 45 times already, my thoughts turned inward and dark. I could no longer feel my toes, which was alarming. Was this frostbite? Or just the early chapters of frostbite? Would it be caught in time, or would this require an ambulance ride, a blanket, and a brief but serious conversation with a medical professional? And if it came to that, would he save the toes? Or would he speak in calm, efficient sentences that suggested the toes had already made other plans?
More troubling still was the final possibility: would I endure all of this only to miss my one clean shot at meeting SGA? It seemed like a cruel ending—losing my toes and destiny in the same evening. In total, we stood in line for nearly an hour and a half.
At around 5:25 p.m., I came to my senses when the entrance filled with an army of ticket takers, each taking position behind a self-scanning pedestal. They stood evenly spaced, as if summoned by a leader’s command through their earpieces.
One team member stepped forward and performed the first small ritual—a twist of the wrist, practiced and methodical. A door unlocked. Then another. And another. Fourteen times, one by one, the same motion repeated down the line. Twist. Click. Pause. Twist. Click. Pause.
I watched each movement with growing attention. By the final wrist turn, anticipation had replaced cold entirely. The doors, at long last, were no longer an obstacle. They were an invitation.
Then a greeter lifted a hand and waved us in at 5:32 p.m. That was all it took. The line surged forward with renewed purpose, and we moved in like cheetahs on a savannah. My near frostbitten feet found new motivation. My frozen thighs found a second wind.
We rushed to the door, pulled by heat, light, and the promise that circulation would soon return. Warm air met us like a benediction. Behind us, Antarctica lost its grip. Ahead, the night finally began.
We moved briskly toward the entrance that led straight down to the hoop. Just inside, a greeter met us with a kind of friendliness that felt unforced and therefore rare. When we asked about getting an SGA autograph, her face brightened.
“Straight down,” she said, pointing the way, smiling.
It was a simple exchange, but it landed. Being treated kindly, even enthusiastically, felt like a reward for the cold, the waiting, and the faith we’d placed in the treasure map. Everything was working exactly as advertised. The Thunder family had rolled out the red carpet for us.
After we planted ourselves in the first row behind the hoop, we found SGA on the opposite end of the court, in a plain white tank top and black shorts. No spectacle. No hurry. Just work.
He caught the ball, rose, and let it go. Swish.
Another pass. Another rise. Swish.
Different spot. Same result.
The shots stacked up, one after another, like letters landing clean in a verse. No rim. The ball snapped the net. He moved with an ease that looked casual until you noticed nothing was wasted in his mechanics.
He makes it look so easy, I thought to myself.
That was the trick. It always does when someone has done it thousands of times. He reset, pulled again. Swish.
Anna and I stood there, warmed up, circulation returned, admiring a man rehearsing excellence.
“Where do you think he’s going to start? I asked Anna.
“Probably over there,” she said, pointing to section 116, behind the Thunder bench. That area and along the railing next to the Thunder’s tunnel filled up before we even reached our spots. Taking in the spectacle, fans were now flanked down one half of the court, then all along the baseline to the tunnel opposite the Thunder’s bench.
“He’s coming,” someone near me said.
Then he appeared.
SGA walked behind the bench and began moving down the line, fist-bumping every outstretched hand in his path. He didn’t rush. He didn’t skip anyone. He worked the entire length—past us, all the way to the opposite tunnel—turning the moment into shared air space.
Anna and I looked at each other in utter disbelief.
“Did that just happen?” I asked.
“It sure did.”
For a moment, it felt like a comet had just passed us—brilliant, close enough to feel, and gone before the mind could catch up. A blur of motion. A sudden rush. He was there, then already somewhere else, leaving behind a trail of lifted hands and stunned faces, as if we’d all just watched a solar eclipse—brief, undeniable, and over before anyone could explain it.
Then he turned around.
That’s when the signing started.
He worked his way back toward us with a steady pace. His eyes were laser-focused on each object in front of him, Sharpie moving, head nodding, one fan at a time. A Thunder security staffer and a police officer stood in front and behind him. The crowd leaned forward. I felt it then—the shift from hope to possibility, from watching to waiting. He was coming back. He was heading our way.
Anna stood to my left, already poised. When he reached her, she handed over her snapback. No pause. The Sharpie flashed, his wrist flicked, and just like that, it was done. Efficient. Professional.
Then he was in front of me.
I held out the 8×10, and before I could fully register the moment, the Sharpie was moving again. One smooth motion. It took less time than it had taken me to imagine it. SGA with a Sharpie, it turns out, is as fast as SGA with a basketball. I looked down. The perfect signature, along with the number 2, his jersey number. Classy.
And then he was gone—already moving down the line, already onto the next fan, continuing until he disappeared from view, leaving behind a row of stunned people holding evidence that it had actually happened.
It’s reported that SGA will write on everything within reach, signing between 250 and 275 items per home game. That’s exactly what I saw. When you do the math, that’s equivalent to about 10,000 to 12,000 autographs per season. Does that make SGA the leader in NBA autograph signing as well as scoring? I have to think so.
One has to wonder why the NBA’s MVP signs as much as he does. I read a 2025 SGA quote in the Oklahoman that provides the answer: “I used to be a kid and wanted autographs,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after a February home game. “I just think if I had a chance to get Kobe Bryant’s autograph, for example, as a kid I’d do anything for it. So I try to take a few minutes to make some kid’s dream come true.”
Well, I’m here to tell you this big kid’s dream did come true.
Anna and I stood there a moment longer, just smiling. Delighted, we turned around and began the walk back up toward the main concourse. Hunger arrived right on cue. After wandering a bit and weighing our options, Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Club appeared like a sensible next chapter. We sat, ordered, and let the moment settle as the noise of the arena rose around us, as if the night were only just getting started.
Dinner did its job. We finished, took one more sip of our beverages, and folded ourselves back into the moving current of the arena. An escalator carried us upward until we reached the upper level. Our seats in Section 303 came into view just in time. We settled in, coats off, eyes forward. The arena lights dimmed, and the home crowd’s hum turned to a roar. Tip-off was close.
Every fan inside the Paycom Center knew the storyline: the Thunder were 37–9 with the league’s best record, the Pacers were struggling at 11–35 (dead last in the Eastern Conference), and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the engine for the Thunder.
From the opening tip, the game carried an electric charge. The Pacers came out strong, building a 39-28 lead after one quarter. SGA, who had led his team to the Thunder’s first championship the year before, took over like a man possessed, knocking down shots with the type of rhythm that made me unconsciously lean forward. In the box score, he finished with 47 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists.
Watching SGA in person—the way he attacks the rim, the way he pushes forward down the left lane line into one of his patented baseline jumpers, the way he spins back to a middy near the free throw line—had that familiar electric feeling I get watching Jordan highlight reels. A single SGA possession can change the momentum; a few in a row can make you believe the Thunder will regain control, no matter how far behind they trail.
But this night belonged to Indiana as much as it did to SGA. Andrew Nembhard and Jarace Walker showed up and showed out as the Pacers refused to cede the script.
By the fourth quarter, the game was a tug-of-war. The Thunder clawed back from a double-digit deficit, and with under three minutes left, SGA cut the lead to a single possession on a pair of free throws with 7.8 seconds left. But the finish belonged to Indiana: After Walker’s free throws in the final seconds and Isaiah Joe’s missed 3-pointer with seconds remaining, the Pacers came out on top with a 117-114 victory, an outcome we didn’t expect to see. It was a reminder that in the NBA, nothing is official until the final buzzer sounds, no matter who is at the top or bottom of the standings.
Disappointed, we sighed and joined the slow stream spilling out of the arena. Outside, the city had softened. Ice glazed the roads, and a fog hung low, muting the edges of buildings. At the top of the Devon Tower, the Thunder logo illuminated. Despite the loss, it brought a smile to my face. As the snow or graupel pelted our faces, we walked like penguins to the hotel. The waiting, the game, the cold—it all settled behind us as we slipped into the Hampton Inn.
The night I landed in OKC, I began receiving a flurry of text messages from United Airlines explaining that my flight back to Denver on Saturday had been canceled, rebooked, canceled, delayed, and so on. These updates continued through Saturday, when OKC was pretty much shut down that day except for the state capital, which we visited. There was only one commercial flight that departed on Sunday. Gratefully, there was a seat for me on Monday. Consequently, I seized the opportunity to attend another game on Sunday night. I’m amazed that the Toronto Raptors made it to OKC, as they were in Portland playing the Trail Blazers on Friday night. I’m guessing they arrived in the very early hours of Saturday morning.
Anna drove back home Sunday afternoon, and I took up residence for the night at the Courtyard by Marriott next to the Paycom Center. That evening, my seat was in Section 17, Row S, Seat 16—behind the Thunder bench. The discount on my ticket was absurd. The view was the best I’ve ever had. From there, I could practically see the individual molecules of concentration on the players’ faces.
The Thunder lost to the Raptors, 103–101, but I watched SGA from an entirely different vantage point. Everything I’d already noticed about the NBA’s MVP, scoring champion, and Finals MVP was still there—only closer, sharper, and amplified. Same player. Ten times the clarity.
My delayed return home offered one last surprise. At the boarding gate Monday morning, waiting for my flight to Denver, I found myself standing next to NBA referee Karl Lane. He’d worked both games. On the court, referees have a way of shrinking into the background, their presence felt more than seen. Up close, it was a different story. He was tall—undeniably so—the kind of tall that made me recalibrate my sense of scale.
I studied the ref and thought about his life. City to city. Always in motion, carrying the rules of the game like a second passport. I was stuck in the back of the plane, he was up front in first class. What a life.
Would I do the exact same trip, Arctic blast, and everything, all over again? Absolutely!
Word Count: 4,394
Here are six “writing” takeaways from this chapter:
The Beginning
1. Start Local. Start Specific. Start Grounded.
I didn’t begin with SGA. I began with weather, Will Rogers, and Oklahoma unpredictability. That grounding made the story human before it became heroic.
Try This: Open your memoir scene with something ordinary and specific (weather, a smell, a family phrase) before introducing the “big” event. Let readers enter through familiarity.
2. Build Stakes Before the Event Happens
Before you narrate a major moment, write about what it took to get there. Preparation, doubt, logistics — that’s where emotional investment is built.
Try This: Replace generalities (“I saved money”) with one vivid detail (“an envelope stuffed under my captain’s bed”).
The Middle
3. Use Humor to Reveal Character
My mask, Walmart, frostbite thoughts — the humor isn’t filler. It exposes vulnerability, ego, and self-awareness.
Try This: Look for places where you can gently laugh at yourself. Memoir becomes relatable when the narrator is honest about their quirks.
4. Slow Down the Big Moment
The door unlocking ritual. The wrist twists. The Sharpie moving. I slowed time right when it mattered most.
Try This: When you reach the scene readers are waiting for, decelerate. Short sentences. Specific actions. Sensory detail. Make the moment breathe.
The End
5. Let Meaning Emerge — Don’t Announce It
I didn’t preach about perseverance or dreams. Instead, the canceled flights, the second game, and the referee encounter quietly expanded the story’s meaning.
Try This: Resist summarizing the moral. Add one more lived moment that deepens the theme, and let readers connect the dots.
6. Echo the Beginning to Create Completion
The unpredictable weather that opened the story returns at the end — cancellations, delays, unexpected bonuses. The storm becomes metaphor without being labeled one.
Try This: Revisit an image, idea, or condition from your opening in your final paragraphs. Circular structure gives memoir a satisfying emotional landing.
