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| CAMERON WILLIAMS | THE CHARLOTTE POST |
| A reproduction of the photograph showing Charlotte Hornets Dell Curry (30) and Kendall Gill (13) rushing to embrace teammate Alonzo Mourning (on the floor) after Mourning’s game-winning shot beat the Boston Celtics in the 1993 NBA playoffs. The display is part of “The Hive at 35” exhibit at Charlotte Museum of History. |
In 1988, long before the Carolina Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes or Charlotte FC, the Charlotte Hornets put North Carolina on the professional sports map.
Thirty-five years after the NBA franchise’s first game – a 40-point loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers – the Charlotte Museum of History captured the team’s history in its “Hive at 35” exhibit.
The exhibit walks viewers through the history of the Hornets with tons of memorabilia and things fans can interact with as they tour the exhibit.
Before they were the Hornets
From Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning to LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller, the Hornets have been the Queen City’s team for over three decades. They weren’t the first professional basketball franchise.
The American Basketball Association Carolina Cougars played home games in Greensboro and Charlotte. The museum exhibit includes a red, white and blue ABA basketball from back then and a media guide from the upstart league, which ultimately merged with the NBA.
“We start with the ABA,” Charlotte Museum of History Program and Exhibits Director Nolan Dahm said. “It was founded in 1967, came to Charlotte in the late ’60s, and was here for a few years.”
Early days of the Hornets
The museum displays media guides from the Hornets’ inaugural game as well as items that were handed out to fans. The Charlotte Coliseum on Tyvola Road was built before the Hornets arrived to lure the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament here.
“It all started with George Shinn,” Dahm said. “He single-handedly drove the effort to bring basketball to Charlotte. They built the Charlotte Coliseum – the one that no longer exists – that the Hornets played in. They built that actually a year before it was really announced that the Hornets would be in town. So, in a lot of ways, George Shinn actually forced the NBA’s hand in this.”
One thing Dahm feels is underappreciated in the building phase of the Hornets is its cultural impact. The team’s jerseys and colors became national best-sellers, were not random by any means.
“It often gets overlooked just the iconic colors of the uniforms,” he said. “And, rather than just a generic sports jersey, they hire Alexander Julian, one of the country’s most prominent fashion designers to design the jerseys. They were the first [basketball] team to have pinstripes on the jerseys.”
The Hornets didn’t serve just as entertainment. Dahm feels they captivated what Charlotte was and meant to the people who lived in and around the city.
“The Hornets didn’t come onto the scene as just a basketball team,” he said. “They came onto the scene as a cultural force.”
The team had a fair amount of success in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. The exhibit shows a photo of Alonzo Mourning’s game-winning shot against the Boston Celtics in the 1993 playoffs to send the Hornets to the Eastern Conference second round. It also includes a basket and a series of basketballs arranged to duplicate the trajectory of Mourning’s shot.
Hugo the Hornet
Every modern sports team has a great mascot. Shinn and Hornets management went to great lengths to hire someone to design one.
“They hired (Muppets creator) Jim Henson’s daughter Cheryl to design the original mascot,” Dahm said. So, for me, I think that is what really captivated Charlotte.”
Underneath all the mascot gear is a person. One of the most famous in Hornets history is Michael Zerrillo, who was Hugo and his alter ego Super Hugo for 17 years.
The Bobcats era
In 2002, the Hornets organization applied to the NBA for relocation to New Orleans, leaving no team in the Queen City. The NBA was already in the process of adding another franchise.
“So, when the Hornets leave for New Orleans, I guess it was just a coincidence that the NBA was also looking to expand,” Dahm said. “I think that the NBA knew they had a very lucrative market in Charlotte. They knew there was a fanbase here. So, when the NBA expanded the Bobcats were the new team here under the leadership of owner Bob Johnson.”
The Bobcats struggled early but earned a playoff berth in the 2009-10 season. In 2010, NBA legend and North Carolina basketball great Michael Jordan’s ownership group bought the majority stake. Jordan was the majority owner of the team until August when he sold most of his stake. In 2011-12, the Bobcats went 7-59 in a lockout-shortened season, which is still the worst record of any team in NBA history. After a 21-61 season the next year, fans wanted change. It came in the form of a returning mascot.
Bring Back the Buzz
In December 2012, the New Orleans Hornets began the process of changing their name to Pelicans, Louisiana’s state bird.
With the Hornets’ name available, brothers Evan and Scotty Kent wanted it back in Charlotte. Their “Bring Back the Buzz” campaign was something Bobcats fans quickly rallied behind.
“Bring Back the Buzz was the whole campaign,” Dahm said. “It was completely grassroots. Fans basically created an organization called Bring Back the Buzz in order to try and convince the new ownership to change the name back.”
The Kents and fans supporting the campaign were successful. In the 2014-15 season, the buzz was back. The museum has a case display of a media guide from their first season back as the Hornets as well as a ticket from opening night against the Milwaukee Bucks on Oct. 29.
“Very easily, the NBA for records and stats purposes could say that Dell Curry and Muggsy Bogues played for and kept all their stats in the New Orleans Pelicans record books,” Dahm said. “But the NBA and the Hornets negotiated this out and decided that those records belonged in Charlotte.”
Here’s to the next 35 years
Hornets fans may not be out on the court making baskets to help the Hornets win games, but they still feel have a sense of ownership in the team. It is a team with rich history and the museum encapsulates it in a 10-minute walk-through of their displays.
“From our perspective, what is really special about this exhibit and the potential for the future is that this is kind of the first time there has been an actual museum exhibit about the Charlotte Hornets,” Dahm said. “So, we hope this is step one in these next five to 10 years. What does 40 or 50 years in the future look like? Hopefully bigger and better and more exciting.”