Who should be on the Mount Rushmore of Oakland sports?

When contemplating Oakland’s biggest sports activities figures, so many names come to thoughts. There are historic giants like baseball’s Rickey Henderson and the NBA’s Bill Russell. There are modern stars like Warriors level guard Stephen Curry and determine skating Olympic champion Alysa Liu.

“Bandage this MF up”

On a summer season day in 2015, then-Mayor Libby Schaaf dropped her children off at camp and determined to go for a jog. As destiny would have it, she tripped, fell and broke her hand. At the hospital, she was informed she wanted to have surgical procedure the following day. 

“If there is one day that I cannot miss in my life,” she says she informed them, “it is tomorrow. Bandage this MF up and I will come back any other day.” 

That is how badly Oakland’s mayor wished to be at the Golden State Warriors’ championship parade the subsequent day. And it was value it as a result of, as she later famous, “That parade is without question one of the very best days of my life.”

The hospital gave her a Warriors blue-and-yellow solid and a few Tylenol and despatched her on her means. There was only one drawback: she was speculated to journey a fire-breathing snail art car in the parade, and her employees anxious that with out the use of her proper hand, she would be too unsteady on it to journey alone. Unsure who to ask to journey with the mayor, one employees member had an concept. It was an extended shot, however he had a mobile phone quantity for somebody who cherished Oakland sports activities as a lot as she did. At 10 p.m., Schaaf bought a textual content message that former Oakland A’s bat boy MC Hammer, somebody she had by no means met, would be accompanying her at the parade the subsequent day. After that, it turned their factor. When the Warriors received the championship once more in 2017 and 2018, they rode the snail automobile in the parade collectively once more.

So of course, the Warrior who was the driving force behind these three Oakland championships, Steph Curry, is on Schaaf’s Mount Rushmore. 

In reality, Curry is on loads of individuals’s lists, regardless of the proven fact that he isn’t from Oakland and now not performs right here, since the Warriors moved to Chase Center in San Francisco in 2019. Such is the love for his championships and his dedication to Oakland by way of the Eat.Learn.Play Foundation, which he co-founded along with his spouse, entrepreneur, chef, and actor Ayesha Curry.

“Man of Steal”

Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Rickey Henderson was on the record of practically all of the individuals we interviewed for this story, and was often the first particular person talked about (the leadoff, if you’ll). Two individuals referenced baseball statistician Bill James’s well-known quote about Henderson: “If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.” Maybe for those who might cut up him in 4, you’ll be executed with the Oakland sports activities Mount Rushmore, and it will simply be 4 Rickeys. 

What makes Henderson so compelling of an Oakland sports activities determine is that he suits each standards. The Oakland Tech grad was from Oakland, and he additionally performed for, and received a championship with, the Oakland A’s. Paul Freedman, co-founder of the reigning champion Oakland Ballers, put Henderson at the high of three completely different Mt. Rushmore lists he provided for this story.

As the all-time runs and stolen base chief in main league historical past, Henderson is clearly one of the biggest to ever play. As Monte Poole, NBC Sports Bay Area Warriors and NBA insider, put it, there’s “not much that everyone agrees on” however everybody agrees that Henderson was “absolutely the best leadoff hitter in history.” 

When we requested him for his four-person record of all-time biggest Oakland athletes, Poole unsurprisingly included Henderson. 

It has been a bit over a yr since Henderson handed away. Longtime broadcaster and East Bay native Brodie Brazil believes that “one of the biggest shames is that Oakland never got a Rickey Henderson statue while he was alive. He deserves that.”

Pioneers and document breakers

Oakland has had greater than its share of sports activities path blazers and once more, it’s laborious to choose simply few as standouts.

Don Budge, for instance, was the first tennis participant, male or feminine, to win the Grand Slam (Wimbledon, U.S. Open, French Open, and Australian Open) in a single yr, 1938, and he nonetheless holds the document for Grand Slam occasion wins in a row, with six. 

McClymonds alum Jim Hines was the first sprinter to interrupt the 10 second barrier in the 100 meter sprint. He received particular person and relay gold medals at the 1968 Olympics and held the 100m document for 15 years.  

Glenn Burke, who was raised in Oakland and later performed for the Oakland A’s, truly has two completely different legacies. In 1977, he raised his hand to offer Dusty Baker the first recorded high-five. Five years later, in 1982, a retired Burke turned the first Major League baseball participant to return out as homosexual. 

Another pioneer is a literal Pioneer, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Anna Johnson. She was the first skilled girls’s basketball participant from Oakland, with the San Francisco Pioneers of the Women’s Professional Basketball League in 1979. Known as the WBL, the league folded in 1981. Johnson went on to a distinguished teaching profession at Oakland Tech, her alma mater, as nicely at AAU camps and native clinics for a few years. As a consequence, she has crossed paths with practically everybody in Oakland basketball from the Seventies by way of as we speak. For instance, a 12-year-old Damian Lillard labored out at a camp Johnson ran with coach Pico Wilburn. Speaking of Wilburn, he and coach Leroy Hurt, earlier than they led Oakland Tech ladies basketball to a mixed 5 state championships, have been gamers Johnson coached on the follow squad that scrimmaged towards her Oakland Tech ladies groups. 

In the phrases of present Oakland Tech Athletic Director, Alexis Gray-Lawson, Johnson “is the GOAT [Greatest Of All Time] because she coached all the GOATs.”

“You can’t have a Mount Rushmore in Oakland without a woman”

Oakland City Councilmember Rowena Brown, the resident “sports nut” on Council who performed working again for the Bay Area Bandits and celebrated many of her birthdays by tailgating at the Coliseum, went as far as to order a future house on her Mount Rushmore for a lady to be named later, maybe from the Golden State Valkyries whose follow facility is in Oakland.

“You can’t have a Mount Rushmore in Oakland without a woman,” mentioned Marcus Thompson II, who’s an Oakland Tech alumnus in addition to a columnist for The Athletic. Thompson bemoaned the lack of opportunities for female athletes in Oakland, particularly previous to the passage of Title IX in the Seventies. 

Brekke-Miesner says that even after Title IX’s passage, Oakland colleges didn’t actually have the amenities to assist ladies sports activities till the Eighties, so Oakland’s early feminine sports activities heroes have been outliers like Oakland High alum Zoe Ann Olsen, a diver who received Olympic medals in 1948 and 1952, and who had the profit of a mom who was a swim trainer. (Bonus reality: Olsen was twice married to 1958 AL MVP and fellow Oakland High alum, Jackie Jensen.)  

This yr has seen the emergence of the most internationally completed feminine athlete in the Town’s historical past, Oakland School of the Arts alum Alysa Liu, who developed her determine skating abilities at the Oakland Ice Center.  After changing into an Olympian as a teen in 2022, Liu took a two year hiatus from competitors. Upon her return to the sport, Liu emerged as World Champion in 2025.  She then won two gold medals, staff and particular person,  in the current Winter Olympics, representing the USA but additionally the Town, in her words, bringing “Oakland to Milan.” In addition to her place on Mayor Barbara Lee’s hypothetical Oakland’s sports activities Mount Rushmore, Liu has an actual mural painted in her honor in the Temescal neighborhood. 

And circling again to the “GOAT of GOATs” Anna Johnson, once we requested her to create a Mount Rushmore of Oakland sports activities, she delivered an inventory that was all girls, and all basketball gamers. It included two-time highschool state champion, Cal legend and WNBA participant Gray-Lawson; Rehema Stephens, whom Johnson coached at Oakland Tech in the 1980’s earlier than she performed at UCLA and in the WNBA; and Diane Blackwell and Denise Gazaway, Fremont High School teammates in the 1970’s who made the Tournament of Champions all-star squad.

Beast Mode and The Glove

Another athlete on loads of individuals’s lists is five-time Pro Bowl working again and Super Bowl champion, Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch. 

Many pointed to a selected “Oakland swagger” as one of Lynch’s key attributes, one thing akin to Rickey Henderson’s fashion. As Ahmed Alibob, native Oaklander and previous chair of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, put it, “Oakland recognizes its own when we see it.” 

Like Henderson, “Beast Mode” combines being from Oakland with enjoying for an Oakland staff, the Raiders. The Oakland Roots, who now play soccer in that very same Coliseum the place Lynch performed soccer, use “Oakland” by Vell as their objective music in homage to the dance that Lynch did on the sidelines when he heard the music there. Lynch additionally will get Oakland cred for doing neighborhood work by way of his Fam 1st Foundation alongside fellow Oakland native NFL stars, Josh Johnson and Marcus Peters.

The third athlete that folks described as having Oakland swagger is Skyline High legend Gary Payton. “The Glove” is an NBA champion and Hall of Famer identified for his tenacious protection, flooring management and trash talk. Lesser identified however equally essential, mentioned the followers we spoke with, is how Payton stays native and offers again by way of teaching at the College of Alameda and supporting efforts like the current refurbishment of Mosswood Park.

Sports journalist Matt Steinmetz, who has lived in Oakland over 25 years, mentioned Henderson, Lynch and Payton “all resonate a pride in Oakland. It’s probably part of the reason why they are so loved. They send a positive — and accurate — message about what happens here.”

Payton was the most regularly talked about member of Oakland’s wealthy historical past of homegrown level guards. This contains Brian Shaw, who made it to the NBA two years earlier than Payton; streetball legend Demetrius “Hook” Mitchell, who most likely should have made it to the NBA alongside Payton; NBA Champion Jason Kidd, whom Payton mentored; and present NBA All-Star (and recently crowned three-time All Star 3-Point Champion) Damian Lillard. Amazingly, Payton, Kidd and Lillard have been all named to the NBA’s 75^th Anniversary Team.

The Classmates Who Changed the World

The fourth Oaklander on the NBA’s 75^th Anniversary Team is the particular person, after Rickey Henderson, who was most regularly talked about as deserving of a spot on Mount Rushmore: heart Bill Russell. 

A five-time NBA MVP, Russell is the winningest participant in skilled staff sports activities, with 11 NBA championships. Some individuals we spoke with famous that whereas Russell was raised in Oakland, he’s extra typically related to Boston, the place he received NBA championships for the Celtics. In Oakland, he was truly cut from the McClymonds High junior varsity team. 

But Oakland sports activities followers we spoke with wished to acknowledge and have a good time him as a son of Oakland who made historical past not simply as a participant, however as the first Black coach in NBA historical past and as a civil rights activist whose combat for racial justice led to his recognition with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Incredibly, Russell’s highschool classmate, Frank Robinson, was additionally a extremely adorned athlete. People cited Robinson as worthy of Oakland sports activities’ Mount Rushmore not simply because of his Major League Baseball profession – which included successful two World Series, incomes All-Star recognition 14 occasions, and being the solely participant to win MVP in each the National and American Leagues – but additionally as a result of he was the first Black manager in Major League historical past.

And but, a extra essential historic determine could be Russell and Robinson’s classmate Curt Flood. His Major League career was glorious, successful two World Series and incomes three All-Star picks and 7 Gold Gloves as a centerfielder. Flood’s impression off the subject was much more important, famously difficult the reserve clause and suing for the proper to free company. 

“I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes,” he acknowledged in a 1969 letter to the league. Flood’s principled stand led to the finish of his enjoying profession and a barrage of hate mail and even loss of life threats. But it additionally led to alternative and riches for generations of gamers after him. An annual award for selflessness and devotion to gamers’ rights is bestowed in Flood’s name by the Major League Baseball Players Association.

The legacy of these McClymonds classmates — who by the way additionally performed alongside four-time All-Star centerfielder Vada Pinson — is exclusive. Said Brekke-Miesner, “If anybody knows of any high school in America who can claim to have three athletes at the same high school at the same time who changed the face of sports, let me know.”

“Oakland’s Coach”

Asked for her Mount Rushmore record, Mayor Barbara Lee felt that legendary football coach John Beam, whose death in November shook the community, deserves inclusion. 

Tommy Hodul, vice chairman of Oakland Roots and Soul, may be biased since Beam coached the soccer staff at Skyline High whereas Hodul was a scholar there. But Hodul mentioned Beam’s impression will be felt for generations, not simply because of soccer however as a result of of “the number of people who would say he is a second father.” He known as Beam “Oakland’s Coach.”

Before there was Coach Beam, the particular person you might need known as “Oakland’s Coach” was George Powles, who from 1946 to 1975 coached baseball, basketball and soccer in Oakland, influencing many of the Hall of Famers talked about on this story, together with the well-known McClymonds classmates of the 1950’s. Bill Russell insisted that he by no means would have performed basketball if not for Powles’s mentorship. Powles even coached an NFL MVP, former San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Tech quarterback John Brodie, who lately handed away. 

Another coach regularly cited was John Madden. A Super Bowl champion with the Oakland Raiders in 1977, Madden went on to affect a number of generations as a broadcaster and thru his eponymous online game.

A Bay Area native, Madden had a deep love for Oakland and understood what the Raiders meant to The Town. Shortly earlier than he died, Madden loved watching his grandson, Jesse Madden, play quarterback for the Bishop O’Dowd Dragons, generally texting with one of John Madden’s greatest followers, former mayor Schaaf, about his video games.

Silver and Black and Green and Gold

Despite the heartbreak of Oakland shedding its soccer staff twice, many individuals nonetheless maintain  love for the Raiders’ roster of star gamers, together with Marshawn Lynch, Bo Jackson, Gene Upshaw, Tim Brown, Jerry Rice, Kenny Stabler, Jim Plunkett, Jim Otto and John Matuscak, with an additional particular point out for Charles Woodson throwing up the O for Oakland and coming again to finish his profession right here. 

Two of the sports activities followers interviewed for this story discovered house on their lists for Al Davis, who as a coach and staff proprietor was largely accountable for setting the tradition of the Raiders. 

Jorge Leon, founder of the Oakland fan group, the Oakland 68’s, selected Davis as a result of “he created that Oakland Raiders persona” and credited him as a progressive thoughts who wished to make use of Black and Latino gamers. Davis employed the first Black coach in fashionable NFL historical past, Art Shell, and likewise the first feminine NFL CEO, Amy Trask. 

Leon additionally listed former Oakland A’s proprietor, Charlie Finley, whom he credited for equally having “a very Black squad” that was “a team that represented our city.” There was loads of affection for the A’s amongst many individuals we spoke with. After Rickey Henderson, his championship teammate pitchers, 1989 World Series MVP Dave Stewart and 1992 AL MVP Dennis Eckersley, are particularly beloved as a result of they’re from Oakland. Stewart’s legacy contains staying up all evening after the Loma Prieta earthquake, whereas nonetheless sporting his World Series uniform, to assist rescuers in West Oakland. 

Reggie Jackson was praised by some as a result of, like Steph Curry, he introduced three championships to Oakland. Mark McGuire was additionally acknowledged as one half of the A’s homerun smashing “Bash Brothers” with Jose Canseco. 

“It’s a huge honor to play for Oakland,” mentioned Oaklandish COO Aaron Higgins, who nonetheless remembers working round the third deck on Little League nights at A’s video games.

Beyond the Big Three

While the “big three” sports activities — baseball, basketball and soccer — account for a lot of of Oakland’s greats, there are different legends. The most uncommon sport that somebody famous in my interviews was aggressive slam dunking. Vince Carter’s dunk contest masterpiece at the 2000 NBA All-Star Game at Oracle Arena was spectacular sufficient to go down in Oakland sports activities historical past.

Hall of Fame boxer Andre Ward, after successful a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, launched an undefeated (32-0) skilled profession. Not solely did he win each combat, Ward made positive to contest many of them in his hometown, at Oracle Arena, making big-time boxing accessible for native followers.

One of golf’s biggest “what ifs” is Tony Lema.  A 12-time PGA Tour winner thought of to be in the class of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, Lema tragically died in a airplane crash in 1962 at the age of 32. 

With the Roots and Soul, Oakland is undeniably a soccer city now. Our biggest soccer participant is Calen Carr, who was Pac-10 Player of the Year at Cal after which performed in the MLS, scoring the go-ahead objective in the 2012 MLS Cup for the Houston Dynamo. 

Perhaps the most well-known particular person talked about by these we interviewed was Bruce Lee. Lee popularized martial arts in the U.S. whereas living and starting a school in Oakland, earlier than shifting to Los Angeles to behave in TV and films.

So, who’s on the Oakland sports activities Mount Rushmore? 

The dozens and dozens of names provided by the sports activities followers we spoke with makes it clear that proscribing the record of the biggest of the nice to 4 individuals shortchanges Oakland’s historical past. 

“It has to be a pretty big mountain range,” mentioned Brekke-Miesner. 

Many sports activities followers really feel that there should be a monument  to The Town’s sports activities heroes. If there are three bronze statues of Oakland legends (Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan and Ernie Lombardi) in Cincinnati, then why are there none in The Town? 

Maybe as a result of it’s too laborious to decide on who the statues would characterize.