Bay Area

The Tragic Sports Abuse of Oakland

All 3 teams leaving?

Published

5 years ago

September 12, 2021

Isabelle Price

Spalding Basketball on a court; Photo courtesy of Sabri Tuzcu via Unsplash

Oakland is the most victimized sports city on the planet, and there is no close second.

And it’s not Oakland’s fault. Pirates, highwaymen and carpetbaggers have unified their heartless souls to rob Oakland of its championship, and fan-supported, sports existence. Under high crimes and misdemeanors, this is the highest crime in sports pilfering.

The Raiders are the only sports franchise to leave the same American city twice, despite sellout crowds before skipping off to Los Angeles, and sellout crowds again after their inglorious failure in Tinseltown. And now they’re off to Las Vegas, which, in time, might prove a worse investment than playing craps.

But, at least, the Raiders were homegrown, Oakland’s own. The Warriors came to Oakland from San Francisco, where the franchise was going broke, and built themselves up financially, with capacity attendance, as by winning three NBA championships in the short space of five years. After that, it was back across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, where this one-time dynastic bunch has found itself in serious slippage.

And, lastly, Oakland is one fleeing franchise short of a hat trick — all three of its teams taking flight. The last team still with an Oakland zip code, the Athletics, are looking at Las Vegas or — who knows? — the moon for a new home. This is the same franchise that bottomed out in Kansas City, after burning out in Philadelphia, and now is seeking to bury Oakland among its dearly departed.

It isn’t failure on the field of play that’s driving these teams elsewhere. Despite becoming a major-league sports town in 1960, a late start in sports economics, Oakland has produced 10 national championships. The A’s and Warriors have four titles apiece, and the Raiders have won two Super Bowls.

And it isn’t disappointment at the box office that these teams can use as an alibi. The Raiders and Warriors filled their facilities despite having long stretches of losing seasons, built on horrific draft picks. Jamarcus Russell, anyone? Joe Smith? The A’s haven’t drawn nearly as well as the other two tenants at the Oakland Coliseum Complex, but when you’re constantly trying to move to Fremont, Santa Clara, and now Las Vegas, why should local fans display loyalty?

I’ve been observing the Oakland sports scene closely since 1964 after gaining employment at the Oakland Tribune, which has left Oakland, too, with no relocation, no nothing. My arrival coincided with the building of the Coliseum and adjacent Arena in 1966, which was large-scale planning since the Raiders were the only team in town back then. The A’s moved here in 1968, and the Warriors in 1974. The Coliseum and Arena, over time, would be the last of the dual sports complexes in the country, but let it be known that it was the absolute best of its kind.

First, it was built in the middle of six Bay Area counties, with Contra Costa to the North, Santa Clara to the East, San Mateo to the South, San Francisco and Marin to the West, and Alameda County where the first shovel of dirt was dug for the complex itself.

Fortuitous still, the complex would be abutted in time by rapid transit (BART), a freeway, and railroad tracks, with an airport five minutes away. The Father of the Coliseum, the late Robert Nahas, was Einstein-like in his blueprints for the complex, and for Oakland’s future as a big-league, big-time sports town.

Adding to that image were the most loyal, passionate and, well, loony crazy fans. Oakland has the most abused fans in the universe in spite of fanaticism that couldn’t be rivaled anywhere. Who gets stepped on not once, but twice, by the black-attired, blackhearted Raiders and still professes loyalty. If the Raiders fail in Las Vegas, and they might eventually, the Coliseum in Oakland would fill up again. Nobody loves a team like Raider fans, bless their ravaged souls.

You mean the Raiders could come back to Oakland for a third go-around? If the Davis family is in charge, of course. Al, the father, was a user, and Mark, the son, a loser. Neither one of them, in all this time, has stuck their nose out for Oakland. They advertised little if all, they gave to charities nil, and they expected deference regardless throughout their penuriousness. There have been traitors replete throughout the history of organized sports, but nothing like the Davises, father and son: Benedict Arnold and Benedict Arnold Junior.

But as bad as they were, Oakland’s biggest problem, sadly, is Oakland itself. Oakland’s sports owners look at Oakland as a place to run from, rather than to grow with. Being situated across the Bay from San Francisco always has been Oakland’s detriment, dating back to early last century when Oakland native Gertrude Stein said of Oakland: “There’s no there there.” She said that after returning home from Paris and finding her old neighborhood changed, but historians took it as a slight on Oakland.

So the Warriors’ new ownership of Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber began packing up right away for San Francisco, but like other sports ownerships, myopically. Because, at that same juncture, Oakland suddenly came alive as a city commercially, more so than at any other time in history. New businesses, new buildings, new daytime choices, and new nighttime adventures suddenly spurted. Oakland had become, of all things, a boomtown.

Imagine that, while the thinking of the Raiders and Warriors ownerships could go “boom” in their faces. There is no rapid transit or railroad tracks abutting the stadium in Las Vegas, and there is limited parking next to the stadium, which means most fans will tailgate a mile away and take transit to the stadium. The Warriors have no rapid transit close by, no parking to speak of, and game tickets cost high-roller prices.

What was there in Oakland has been lost in franchise-and-fan togetherness in Las Vegas and San Francisco. And if the Raiders and Warriors start losing, which is immediately possible, who will want to mortgage homes and businesses to pay those exorbitant ticket prices? And if the A’s follow the Raiders to Las Vegas, it gets costlier because the A’s will need a domed stadium. You see, you can’t play baseball in 115-degree heat, for there’s nothing cool about that.

It just might turn out, for all three Oakland teams, that “there’s no there there” in their new digs.

The Oakland Post’s coverage of local news in Alameda County is supported by the Ethnic Media Sustainability Initiative, a program created by California Black Media and Ethnic Media Services to support community newspapers across California.

Isabelle Price

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Activism

Diabetes in Black California: Turning the Tide from Crisis to Control

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, nearly 17.9% of Black adults in California have been diagnosed with diabetes — above the national Black adult average of 16.8%, and nearly five points higher than California’s overall adult rate of 12.6% across all races. California ranks 24th out of 39 states with available data for Black adult diabetes rates.

Published

22 hours ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. Khadijah Lang is a family physician with a clinic in Los Angeles who specializes in several family medical practices, including prenatal care. Lang believes in family medicine. She says it is important to treat all members of a family. Thursday, June 5, 2026. Photo by Solomon O. Smith/California Black Media.

By Charlene Muhammad, California Black Media

Crystal Lambert knew something was terribly wrong with her three-year-old granddaughter as she sped down the street trying to get her to the hospital.

“I thought she got a hold of some poison,” Lambert recalled.

Doctors found Lambert’s granddaughter had a blood sugar level over 800, diagnosing her with Diabetic Ketoacidosis(DKA), a state in which the body, starved of insulin, begins to shut down.

Lambert said she was born with a pancreas that was not fully functioning — it lacked the specialized cells required to produce insulin.

Her granddaughter survived and is five years old today. Now, she gives herself insulin shots, asks endless questions about her condition, and runs like the spirited child she is. But the terror of that night transformed Lambert — and ultimately inspired her to launch the We Fight Back Organization, a mobile health and food access initiative serving underserved communities across California. Lambert is the executive director.

The Crisis by the Numbers

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, nearly 17.9% of Black adults in California have been diagnosed with diabetes — above the national Black adult average of 16.8%, and nearly five points higher than California’s overall adult rate of 12.6% across all races. California ranks 24th out of 39 states with available data for Black adult diabetes rates.

Nationally, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Black Americans were 24% more likely than the overall U.S. population to have diabetes in 2024. They also died from diabetes 78% more often than the general population in 2022. Black Americans are also more than twice as likely as the overall population to develop kidney failure caused by diabetes.

According to the California Health Care Foundation’s 2024 Health Disparities Almanac, Black Californians have the shortest life expectancy in the state at just 74.6 years — due in part to chronic conditions like diabetes and its devastating complications.

Leon Rock, co-founder of the African American Diabetes Association, believes statistics, though revealing, only tell part of the story.

“There are a whole bunch of Black folks that don’t tell you that they have diabetes — or don’t know,” he said.

And the disease itself, Rock is careful to note, is not what kills. “They die from the complications. That’s heart attack, that’s stroke, that’s amputations of legs, of feet. Going blind. All those complications are inherent in a system that has impacted Black folks with diabetes in California and across America.”

Crystal Lambert, creator and executive director of We Fight Back. She started the organization out of a need to learn more about diabetes on behalf of her granddaughter. Now she is looking to spread the impact of her organization to the valley. Friday, June 6, 2026. Photo by Solomon O. Smith/California Black Media.

Crystal Lambert, creator and executive director of the We Fight Back Organization, started out of a need to learn more about diabetes on behalf of her granddaughter. Now she is looking to spread her organization to the valley, on Friday, June 6, 2026 Photo by Solomon O. Smith/ California Black Media

An Information Gap Fuels the Crisis

For Rock, part of the solution is diagnosis. He says the medical and public health systems are failing Black Californians by the absence of information designed for them.

“That is the bottom line. We need good information. Information that is culturally specific,” said Rock.

Telling people to eat healthy or exercise, he added, falls short when culturally specific alternatives are not provided, and when many residents of urban communities do not feel safe exercising in some neighborhoods – or outside at night.

Dr. Khadijah Lang, a family medicine physician and president of the Golden State Medical Association, agrees that the roots of the crisis run deeper than individual behavior — and blaming patients misses the point.

“We are not genetically predisposed to diabetes,” Lang said. “But the system under which we live increases the likelihood that we will develop it.”

What the Body Needs — What Communities Are Denied

Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90 to 95% of all diabetes cases, according to the CDC, develops when the body can no longer use insulin effectively to regulate blood sugar. Left unmanaged, it damages nerves, kidneys, eyes, and the cardiovascular system. The hemoglobin A1C test is a blood draw that reveals how the body has processed sugar over the previous three months — not just at the moment of the test. It is the standard tool for both diagnosis and ongoing monitoring.

That distinction matters, Lang emphasized, because patients cannot manipulate three months of blood sugar history the way they might fast for a day before a single blood draw.

“The pill is not meant to undo or control a sugar level that’s being constantly stressed,” Lang said. “It’s meant to work in conjunction with a low-carbohydrate diet and exercise.” She recommended at minimum 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week — breakable into 10-minute sessions for those who need it.

Lang stressed that education must be delivered in language people recognize and can relate to. The goal is to inform them of the choices that serve their health best, she said.

But for many Black Californians, even those informed choices remain out of reach, Lambert said.

“They need access to healthy foods and medication, too” she said.

California has made some critical policy advances. The state has expanded access to the Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), which has transformed diabetes care for state residents. Assembly Bill 365, introduced in 2024, proposed requiring Medi-Cal to cover the costs of CGM and other related medical equipment but it failed in the State Senate. Since then, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) reports that the core Medi-Cal CGM benefit now available to eligible patients was solidified through previous budget actions and pharmacy policy updates.

These measures, while meaningful, have not closed the gap for the communities most at risk, according to advocates.

Control Through Community

Health care advocates conclude that the solution must be communal, culturally grounded, and sustained — not a fad, not a celebrity moment, not a single clinic visit. For example, observed Lang, lifestyle shaped by shared values and collective accountability can move the needle where individual prescriptions have not.

Rock is building infrastructure to match the urgency, establishing local chapters of the African American Diabetes Association across the country, with California next.

“We have to do for self, period,” he said. “Health is wealth. We have to eat to live.”

And Lambert, whose granddaughter unknowingly started all of this for her, keeps showing up.

“Diabetes advocacy is about dignity, education, prevention, and hope,” she said.

Video: Diabetes Disparity Exposed in California

This article is supported by the California Health Care Foundation

(CHCF). Visit www.chcf.org

Oakland Post

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

1 day ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

1 week ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.