I’ve always liked basketball just fine. I enjoy a good game when it’s on, and living in Oklahoma City during the Thunder’s rise meant you couldn’t exactly escape the excitement. But I’m not the guy who rearranges his schedule around tip-off or memorizes every stat. Photography, motorcycles, and chasing stories around Oklahoma have always taken up more of my attention.
Then, in 2015, Russell Westbrook made me a full-blown superfan—not of the triple-double machine or the MVP candidate, but of the generous, smiling, always-positive human being known as Russell Westbrook.
It started the way a lot of my better stories do: with a freelance photography assignment. A public relations firm working for Nike hired me to cover a shoe-signing event at the Foot Locker in Penn Square Mall. Nike had just released a signature shoe for Russell, who was then nearing the peak of his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder—a little over a year before he’d win the NBA MVP award. My job was simple on paper: go behind the scenes and photograph Russell as he met and interacted with fans.
I showed up early. The mall was already packed. Huge lines of hundreds of people—plenty of them kids—snaked through the corridors, everyone waiting for a chance to meet him. The PR team hustled me deep into the back of the store so I could catch Russell arriving by private limousine and stepping into the staging area.
That was the first time I saw him up close.
What struck me wasn’t the athletic build or the famous intensity we all knew from the court. It was the smile. A giant, radiant smile that lived not just on his face but deep in his eyes. While the crowd outside was a magnet for attention, Russell radiated happiness like a bright, burning star. He put off far more energy and joy than even those hundreds of fans could shower back on him.
I’ve photographed plenty of celebrities over the years. More than a few showed up looking like they’d rather be anywhere else, going through the motions of whatever PR obligation the day required. Russell was the opposite. He seemed genuinely eager to meet people—especially the kids.
Once the signing started, he settled in and went to work. For about two hours he signed shoe after shoe, beaming that same infectious smile and engaging with every person who stepped up. Hundreds of kids waited patiently with their brand-new (and not cheap) Nike kicks. Russell kept the energy high the entire time. It wasn’t the usual celebrity performance. It felt real.
Then came the moment that sealed it for me.
As the scheduled signing time wound down, his entourage let him know the contractual obligations were finished. He could leave whenever he wanted. Job done.
Russell looked out at the remaining line—still full of fans, and especially kids—and refused to go.
He just kept signing. Kept smiling. Kept talking with people. His team urged him to wrap it up. He’d already gone well beyond what was required. Russell wasn’t having it. He stayed until every single kid still standing in that line got a signature.
I overheard him mention that when he was a young kid himself, he’d idolized some NBA player (I never caught the name) and had desperately wanted an autograph he never got. He was determined that no kid who had spent hard-earned money on those shoes would leave without one. The entourage kept pushing. Russell kept signing.
He ended up spending nearly four hours at that table—almost twice as long as he was required to stay. From the first signature to the very last kid, the energy never dipped. Same smile. Same warmth. Same Russell.
That’s the version of Russell Westbrook that turned me into a superfan. Not the explosive player on the court, but the guy who treated a shoe-signing event like it mattered more than the contract that brought him there. The one who remembered what it felt like to be a kid wanting an autograph and decided to make sure those kids in the mall got theirs.
I like basketball well enough. I just don’t watch a lot of it. But I’ll always be a fan of Russell Westbrook. That day in Penn Square Mall, watching him refuse to leave until every last kid was taken care of, is the reason why.
