OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Isaiah Hartenstein was born in 1998, three years after Oklahoma City changed forever.<\/p>\n
It was April 19, 1995, when a truck bomb detonated<\/a> outside a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people in the deadliest homegrown attack on U.S. soil. Hartenstein didn\u2019t know much about the bombing when he joined the Oklahoma City Thunder last year.<\/p>\n And then \u2014 like everyone else who wears the Thunder logo \u2014 he had to learn.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it just helped me kind of understand what the city\u2019s been through,\u201d Hartenstein said. \u201cAnd from that, I learned how connective and supportive the city is.\u201d<\/p>\n The Thunder didn\u2019t even exist in Oklahoma City when the bombing happened; the franchise that had been known as the Seattle SuperSonics didn\u2019t relocate to America\u2019s heartland until more than a decade later. But it has been part of the steadfast commitment that the team shows the city; the bombing still resonates deeply here, and the Thunder have taken great pains to not ignore the impact it had, and has, on Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n That is why every newly acquired player, even those on tryout contracts or just training camp deals, and every person who gets a job with the organization, has to go to the memorial. They see the 168 chairs, one created for every person who died in that bombing. They see pictures, they hear stories, they see how Oklahoma City reacted in the immediate aftermath and the months and years that followed.<\/p>\n \u201cI was on that tour within a month of working here,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cThere\u2019s literally no one that has ever put a (Thunder) logo on their chest that has not been through there, because it\u2019s just such a big part of the story of the city. The kindness, the compassion that this city has, this community has, not only for the team but for one another … it\u2019s probably born out of that shared experience this community has had.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no NFL team in Oklahoma City, nor is there Major League Baseball (though the city does have a rich baseball history and streets named for all sorts of greats like Mickey Mantle, Joe Carter and Johnny Bench), or an NHL team. When it comes to the four major pro U.S. sports, the Thunder are the only game in town.<\/p>\n And the fans simply love their team. They come early, they leave late. The clapping is in rhythm, as are the \u201cO-K-C\u201d chants (which sometimes get replaced now by \u201cM-V-P\u201d chants for NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander).<\/p>\n