On the day Cleveland celebrated the Cavaliers bringing home a championship for the first time in half a century, I stood at the windows on the third floor of the Cleveland Public Library and watched the crowds swarm. There in the library’s Special Collections department, where I was working that day, I had a clear view of the rally. I could hear the cheers, could feel the energy coursing through the city. It had been a struggle to get downtown for work that morning, and it would be even worse when I tried to leave at the end of the day—the unprecedented number of fans converging upon downtown had overwhelmed the city’s public transportation system, and forget parking or driving anywhere in the downtown vicinity—but for the duration of my shift in the library, I watched as history was made in my adopted city.
I’m not a sports fan. Admitting that as a Clevelander after this historic championship is not going to win me any popularity contests, but I can’t fake it. Since I moved to Cleveland in late 2004, I’ve attended a few Cavs, Indians, and Browns games, and I always maintained vague support for the city’s sports teams, but I never pinned my dreams on a championship.
If anything, I embraced the city’s decades-long failure. That constant striving for a win, the fans’ enduring hope despite loss after loss, and the grit required for a city of such die-hard sports fans to gather the energy to look forward to “next year” yet again was part of the city’s very identity. It struck me as poetic, this sports-loving city cursed to continually lose that which it most desired. In fact, the longer we went without a championship, the more brilliant it seemed, as though not winning for long enough was its own perverse accomplishment. Over the years, I came to believe that the lack of a championship was a burden our residents were meant to bear. It was a story of a particular brand of heartbreak that belonged wholly to Cleveland. It was ours.
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I moved to Cleveland after a stint working and living in Washington, D.C., a move that bewildered many. (“Why would you leave D.C. for Cleveland?”) But I liked Cleveland, right from the start. From the gritty Flats to the lake access to the excellent (and free) art museum and more, I found plenty to appreciate in this city—not to mention its affordability. Case in point: When I moved to Ohio, my first apartment cost $450 a month, heat included, and was in a safe area a short walk from Lake Erie. And while it did take some time, I found a solid writing community, too.
When my two closest writing friends in town—who originally hailed from opposite coasts, places generally considered much more palatable than Cleveland—were compelled to relocate their families for work, they were distraught. Few people in their lives understood why they were so torn up about moving away from Cleveland, but I did. We saw what Cleveland had to offer. We were happy here, sports failures and all.
But as the clock ticked down in the final moments of Game 7—yes, even I watched this game—I understood that the city’s narrative of failure would change. No more would Cleveland be a city marked by loss, though I wasn’t sure how that would look. In fact, I couldn’t comprehend it until the Wednesday after the NBA win, when over a million people showed up to celebrate the Cavs in downtown Cleveland.
I was working in the library that day (helping guide patrons toward the Shakespeare First Folio, in fact, which clearly proves that Cleveland really does have everything), but I was also a part of the festivities. I greeted the stunned-looking Cavs fans who trickled into the library throughout the day, searching for a respite from the heat and the crowds. Every time the crowd outside cheered, I jumped up from my desk and turned to the windows to see what was happening. I followed reports of the delayed parade route that couldn’t make its way through the throngs of fans spilling into the streets. Later, when I left work and pressed through the crowds trying to get home, I’d walk on a blanket of confetti.
It’s just a game, a single championship some city or another wins every year. This is easy for a non-fan like me to put into perspective. And yet I allow that it’s more. I had embraced failure in Cleveland for so long, but it was time to let that go.
It appears I’m not alone. Throughout the weeks following that win, I noticed how many out-of-towners stumbled into the library with looks of wonder on their faces. “This library is beautiful,” they told me. “And the downtown area is so clean and lovely. We had no idea Cleveland was like this.”
They said it like a confession. Like Cleveland was a secret. Like it was a place that had struggled for an eternity but deserved, in the end, to rise up and win.