SEATTLE — At one point Sunday, after yet another overflowing tribute to Sue Bird, co-host Macklemore joked about the growing length of her jersey retirement ceremony. But then he shrugged.
"It happens when people love the person they're celebrating, " he said.
Above all else, the 2-hour-and-50-minute ceremony at Climate Pledge Arena — about 50 minutes longer than the game that preceded it, a 71-65 Storm loss to the Washington Mystics — was a monument of love. The love that virtually everyone brought up to speak has for Bird and felt compelled to detail, and, as Bird expressed in her own expansive, emotional and at times hilarious hour-and-32-minute speech, the love she has for them.
And so even though Bird seemed a little self-conscious about the length of her talk, in which she seemingly thanked everyone she had ever encountered in her career, she didn't apologize for it. At her news conference after the speech, Bird reiterated what her sister, Jennifer, told her when Sue asked afterward if she had gone on too long:
"You played here for 21 years. They can listen to you for an hour."
Added Bird: "I didn't anticipate it being that long, but the truth is, I don't know that I could have taken anything out. That's what this has meant to me. It was just so important for me to say names and to point people out and to tell them what they've meant.
"I'm already thinking of things I wish I would have said and that's just really what my career has been here. It really goes beyond the basketball court. It almost has nothing to do with basketball in so many ways. The connection I have with the city, with the fans of this franchise and what they've given me. I feel like a lot was made last year of what I have given them. ... I really just wanted to emphasize what all the people I named have given me and what I'll take."
When Bird finally took the microphone, she started by thanking her first basketball coach, Mr. McCarthy, who "taught me how to shoot," and went from there to hail the friends, family members, teammates, coaches, staff, executives, agents, trainers, business associates and fans who helped forge her career as a Seattle icon. Bird even became perhaps the first honoree ever to pay tribute to a body part.
"Shout out to my left knee. We did it! It was rough, but we did it. She still can't straighten or bend, but we did it."
Naturally, there was deeper emotional resonance when Bird spoke about her partner, Megan Rapinoe, who co-hosted with Macklemore.
"You've changed me, changed my life, how I see things," Bird said. "In reality, what you did is not change me; you brought it out of me. It was in there. I just didn't know how to get it. You saw it right away."
In speech after speech, from the likes of former teammate Swin Cash and former Storm coach Jenny Boucek, Bird was lauded not just for her basketball prowess but her role in advancing women's basketball, as well as her advocacy and social activism.
"Sue went from doing what was asked of her to doing what she believes is right," Storm co-owner Ginny Gilder said.
Said former teammate Lauren Jackson, who flew in from Australia with her son (who sat on her lap during the ceremony): "She's shown the world what courage and conviction and leadership looks like."
Rapinoe led a singalong of Tina Turner's "Simply The Best," and then declared: "This is you, Sue. This is how everyone feels about you. You're the best on the court, the best human anyone knows, and the best partner I could ever, ever imagine."
In saluting the Force 10 ownership group that bought the team in 2008 after the Sonics left for Oklahoma City, Bird said, "I 100% would not have gone to Oklahoma. Not only did you save the franchise, save the team, but I don't have this night if you didn't happen. I wouldn't have played my whole career for one team. I'm incredibly thankful."
Bird had words of high praise for each of the four coaches with whom she won a championship, and also Boucek, who presided over the Storm rebuild post-Jackson and pre-Breanna Stewart that paved the way for two more titles. Two moments saved her career, Bird said: When she hired Susan Borchardt as personal trainer, and when Stewart and Jewell Loyd joined the team.
"What gifts for this old point guard to play with these amazingly talented balls of dumb clay, and I got to mold you," she joked, before adding with emotion: "You guys probably helped me more than you realize. When I watch you guys play, I see a piece of myself out there."
Of course, the Bird-Jackson relationship is legendary, and each spoke of how much the other meant to their career and life. Now larger-than-life replicas of both their jerseys are hanging in the Climate Pledge Arena rafters.
"The one thing I really wish I would have said and it just kind of escaped me was how amazing it's going to be to be in the rafters, yes. But it's going to be even more amazing being next to her," Bird said at her news conference.
Bird, now 42, added that she is still pondering what direction to take her post-basketball life after 21 years in the WNBA.
"It's not really what do I want to do with my life? It's more the question that I'm starting to answer, which is what do I want my life to look like? Do I want to travel? Do I want to be home? First and foremost, that's the question I'm going to have to answer."
Bird pointedly didn't use "closure" to characterize Sunday's enshrinement of her No. 10 jersey, but she did acknowledge that it closed a chapter.
"I think that's why I wanted to make sure I thanked those that I want to thank, because this does feel like the last time — obviously, not the last time I'll be in the building or the last time I'll be around or anything like that. But the last time as a player. Now I will just be a former player."
A former player whose legacy will now live on forever.
