I dipped my paddle in the water and helped steer our raft toward the right-hand side of the channel. We reached the end of the man-made waterway and docked on a mat of interlocking rubber pieces in the center of a metal conveyor belt that began dragging us up toward the sky.
“It’s like the start of a roller coaster,” said David Holt, the mayor of Oklahoma City. He was seated to my left, legs folded into the front of the vessel, dark blue helmet tamping down his well-coiffed mayoral haircut. It occurred to me in that moment that he had provided perhaps the most obvious metaphor in the history of sports writing. An hour ago, we were standing in the finish line tower that overlooks the city’s internationally renowned flatwater rowing course. We had talked about the role of sports in the city’s recent ascent and how the Thunder’s NBA championship would elevate it even further.
