The Golden State Warriors and Evergreen Valley College
The Golden State Warriors is the only NBA team headquartered in the Bay
Area and Evergreen Valley College (EVC) is the only Bay Area community college
that was established in 1975. 1975 was the first year that the Warriors won the NBA championship after moving from
Philadelphia to the Bay Area in 1962.
The Warriors won the NBA Finals in May 1975, a few months
before EVC first opened its doors for new
students. The Warriors did not participate in the next thirty-nine NBA
Finals (1976 - 2014). The drought was the longest such drought in NBA history.
I was hired by EVC a month after the 2014 NBA Finals and was one of only
two new EVC tenure-track full-time faculty hires for the 2014-2015 academic
school year. The Warriors won the 2015 NBA Finals (the first NBA
Finals after I was hired) and reached all four Finals after that. (The Warriors' run
of five consecutive NBA Finals appearances is the second longest such run in the 74-year
history of the NBA.) In all, the Warriors won three NBA Championships during my first five years at EVC!
They won an NBA-record 73 regular season games and were up
3-1 in the NBA Finals one of the two years they didn't win the championship.
Coincidence? Probably, but I like to believe that EVC's decision to hire me and the Warriors' initial success after
that are connected.