Column: NorCal final at former Warriors home? City officials should try to get Oakland-Oakland Tech to Oakland Arena

An all-Oakland NorCal Division III boys basketball final between Oakland Tech and Oakland has the making of a showcase unlike any that The Town has ever seen before.

It is believed to be the first time two Oakland schools will face off for a state championship bid in the long history of the city.

And for a city rich with basketball, the perfect home is ready and waiting inside the city limits: Oakland Arena, the former home of the Golden State Warriors.

Oakland Tech reached this round Saturday night by knocking off Justin-Siena 61-55, and Oakland went to The King’s Academy and won 70-60. It sets up the fourth matchup between the two Oakland Athletic League schools this year, all played since Jan. 20. Tech won the three previous matchups, all by one possession.

“I think it will be big for the city of Oakland,” Oakland coach Orlando Watkins said after Saturday’s win. “It’s big for two Oakland teams to represent Northern California.”

With capacity crowds already overflowing Oakland Tech’s last two home games for the boys and girls teams, Oakland Section commissioner Franky Navarro had already planned ahead for the possible NorCal championship game.

Navarro told Bay Area News Group that Laney College has been secured as a venue to host Tuesday’s regional championship, which has seating for around 2,000 spectators and could have up to 2,500 people squeezed in. With profits from regional and state tournament games going to the California Interscholastic Federation, Navarro said the Oakland Section will take on the added costs for the move to Laney.

But this fourth and final showdown between boys teams has folks in the city believing the interested crowd size could be far greater than what Laney can hold.

“I think it would be the whole city out for this game,” Navarro said.

That’s how Frank Knight feels, too. The current Moreau Catholic head coach starred at Fremont High in the 1990s and then coached there. There’s no question that Laney is going to be full, which has him hoping that the Oakland Arena — which has a basketball capacity of 19,596 — can host on Tuesday.

“It’d be awesome if they could get the game there,” Knight said. “With Oakland and basketball, it’s a big family. Everyone knows everybody. When we play each other, we’re trying to beat each other, but when it’s over, we’re all from the same soil.

“Everybody who’s an Oakland coach would be there. Ex-players who are alumni, friends of mine, small business owners. If it was in the Coliseum, it would be great.”

Navarro said he hasn’t been in touch with anyone involved with the Coliseum Complex or the Oakland Arena. He said that, “If I had a magic wand,” he’d get this game to the Oakland Arena.

Undoubtedly, the logistics involved are very difficult to do, especially with only two days until gameday on Tuesday. Staffing, security, even finding a basketball court and basketball hoops may be a challenge for the arena formerly known as “Roaracle” — which hasn’t hosted a basketball game since Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals.

But a return to Oakland Arena would be so fitting, especially because the arena’s history as a prominent high school basketball gym predates even the Warriors playing there.

When the building opened in 1966, one of the first events that moved to Oakland was the prestigious Tournament of Champions, which pitted eight of Northern California’s best teams against each other in a three-day event. The North Coast Section used to host many of its playoff games there, too, and Knight even remembers going to a regular season game between Bishop O’Dowd and Jason Kidd’s St. Joseph’s-Alameda team at the then-Coliseum.

When the CIF adopted its new state championship format in 1981, Oakland Arena was the host site for most of the NorCal and state finals in the first 15 years. Knight not only attended those games growing up, he even got to play in them himself in 1995.

“There was nothing better than the state championship in the Oakland Coliseum,” Knight said. “For the people who grew up when it used to be there, that was the place to be.”

Since the Warriors left in 2019 for the Chase Center in San Francisco, the venue has primarily been a concert venue and non-sports event space. Notably, there are no events scheduled for the middle of this week, with a Sunday concert from Rage Against the Machine canceled and nothing on the arena’s public calendar until Saturday.

Basketball is in the future plans for the arena. The African American Sports and Entertainment Group is hoping to have a WNBA team in the arena in the years ahead.

Could all parties come together to make basketball happen in the present, and turn what will be a momentous evening in Oakland to something even more special?

There has been precedent for such on the other side of the Bay in football. In 2011, longtime rivals St. Ignatius and Sacred Heart Cathedral reached the Central Coast Section Division III championship, set to face each other.

While the game was originally scheduled to be played at Terra Nova High School in Pacifica, the San Francisco Giants’ home – then-AT&T Park – was in football mode, having hosted Cal football games while Memorial Stadium was undergoing renovations.

After a day or two of discussions, the section was able to get the game played at AT&T Park. The estimated crowd size was between 10-12,000 fans.

Could Oakland get that many or more for Tuesday night? Some believe so, if the venue were Oakland Arena.

It would sure be great for the city, the Coliseum Complex and anyone else involved to try and make it happen.