When considering Oakland’s greatest sports figures, so many names come to mind. There are historic giants like baseball’s Rickey Henderson and the NBA’s Bill Russell. There are contemporary stars like Warriors point guard Stephen Curry and figure skating Olympic champion Alysa Liu.
The wealth of great athletes from the town begs the question: if you built a Mount Rushmore of Oakland sports, who would be on it?
How could you possibly select just four people to represent The Town’s rich sports history?
Oakland has long been a sports powerhouse. But don’t take our word for it. According to Paul Brekke-Miesner, who wrote the book on Oakland sports history, “Oakland has one of the most iconic sports legacies in America.”
In order to answer this seemingly impossible question, we turned to some of Oakland’s biggest sports fans: political and business leaders, local sports media, local sports teams, and even some local athletes. All of them had opinions, and all of them had stories.
“Bandage this MF up”
On a summer day in 2015, then-Mayor Libby Schaaf dropped her kids off at camp and decided to go for a jog. As fate would have it, she tripped, fell and broke her hand. At the hospital, she was told she needed to have surgery the following day.
“If there is one day that I cannot miss in my life,” she says she told them, “it is tomorrow. Bandage this MF up and I will come back any other day.”
That is how badly Oakland’s mayor wanted to be at the Golden State Warriors’ championship parade the next day. And it was worth it because, as she later noted, “That parade is without question one of the very best days of my life.”
The hospital gave her a Warriors blue-and-yellow cast and some Tylenol and sent her on her way. There was just one problem: she was supposed to ride a fire-breathing snail art car in the parade, and her staff worried that without the use of her right hand, she would be too unsteady on it to ride alone. Unsure who to ask to ride with the mayor, one staff member had an idea. It was a long shot, but he had a cell phone number for someone who loved Oakland sports as much as she did. At 10 p.m., Schaaf got a text message that former Oakland A’s bat boy MC Hammer, someone she had never met, would be accompanying her at the parade the next day. After that, it became their thing. When the Warriors won the championship again in 2017 and 2018, they rode the snail car in the parade together again.
So of course, the Warrior who was the driving force behind those three Oakland championships, Steph Curry, is on Schaaf’s Mount Rushmore.
NBA star Stephen Curry won multiple NBA championships with the Warriors while the team played in East Oakland’s Oracle Arena. And the Eat.Learn.Play Foundation he co-founded with his wife, Ayesha Curry, gives back to the city’s children. Credit: Amir Aziz/The Oaklandside
NBA star Stephen Curry won multiple NBA championships with the Warriors while the team played in East Oakland’s Oracle Arena. And the Eat.Learn.Play Foundation he co-founded with his wife, Ayesha Curry, gives back to the city’s children. Credit: Amir Aziz/The Oaklandside
In fact, Curry is on a lot of people’s lists, despite the fact that he isn’t from Oakland and no longer plays here, since the Warriors moved to Chase Center in San Francisco in 2019. Such is the love for his championships and his commitment to Oakland through the Eat.Learn.Play Foundation, which he co-founded with his wife, entrepreneur, chef, and actor Ayesha Curry.
“Man of Steal”
Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Rickey Henderson was on the list of nearly all of the people we interviewed for this story, and was usually the first person mentioned (the leadoff, if you will). Two people referenced baseball statistician Bill James’s famous quote about Henderson: “If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.” Maybe if you could split him in four, you would be done with the Oakland sports Mount Rushmore, and it would just be four Rickeys.
What makes Henderson so compelling of an Oakland sports figure is that he fits every criteria. The Oakland Tech grad was from Oakland, and he also played for, and won a championship with, the Oakland A’s. Paul Freedman, co-founder of the reigning champion Oakland Ballers, put Henderson at the top of three different Mt. Rushmore lists he offered for this story.
Nearly ever sports aficionado we interviewed agreed that left fielder and stolen bases record holder Rickey Henderson, left, is one of Oakland’s greatest athletes of all time. Many others named 1989 World Series MVP Dave Stewart, right, as a choice for their four-person Mount Rushmore’s. Credit: Amaya Edwards for The Oaklandside
As the all-time runs and stolen base leader in major league history, Henderson is clearly one of the greatest to ever play. As Monte Poole, NBC Sports Bay Area Warriors and NBA insider, put it, there is “not much that everyone agrees on” but everyone agrees that Henderson was “absolutely the best leadoff hitter in history.”
When we asked him for his four-person list of all-time greatest Oakland athletes, Poole unsurprisingly included Henderson.
It has been a little over a year since Henderson passed away. Longtime broadcaster and East Bay native Brodie Brazil believes that “one of the biggest shames is that Oakland never got a Rickey Henderson statue while he was alive. He deserves that.”
Pioneers and record breakers
Anna Johnson played for the San Francisco Pioneers during the WBL’s 1979-80 season. Credit: Courtesy Anna Johnson
Oakland has had more than its share of sports trail blazers and again, it’s hard to pick just few as standouts.
Don Budge, for example, was the first tennis player, male or female, to win the Grand Slam (Wimbledon, U.S. Open, French Open, and Australian Open) in a single year, 1938, and he still holds the record for Grand Slam event wins in a row, with six.
McClymonds alum Jim Hines was the first sprinter to break the 10 second barrier in the 100 meter dash. He won individual and relay gold medals at the 1968 Olympics and held the 100m record for 15 years.
A Topps baseball card featuring A’s star Glenn Burke.
Glenn Burke, who was raised in Oakland and later played for the Oakland A’s, actually has two different legacies. In 1977, he raised his hand to give Dusty Baker the first recorded high-five. Five years later, in 1982, a retired Burke became the first Major League baseball player to come out as gay.
Another pioneer is a literal Pioneer, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Anna Johnson. She was the first professional women’s basketball player from Oakland, with the San Francisco Pioneers of the Women’s Professional Basketball League in 1979. Known as the WBL, the league folded in 1981. Johnson went on to a distinguished coaching career at Oakland Tech, her alma mater, as well at AAU camps and local clinics for many years. As a result, she has crossed paths with nearly everyone in Oakland basketball from the 1970s through today. For example, a 12-year-old Damian Lillard worked out at a camp Johnson ran with coach Pico Wilburn. Speaking of Wilburn, he and coach Leroy Hurt, before they led Oakland Tech girls basketball to a combined five state championships, were players Johnson coached on the practice squad that scrimmaged against her Oakland Tech girls teams.
In the words of current Oakland Tech Athletic Director, Alexis Gray-Lawson, Johnson “is the GOAT [Greatest Of All Time] because she coached all the GOATs.”
“You can’t have a Mount Rushmore in Oakland without a woman”
Olympic gold medalist and world figure skating champion Alysa Liu practices at Oakland Ice Center in Oakland on Monday, May 12, 2025.
Alysa Liu competes during the women’s figure skating free program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy. She took home a gold medal. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
A mural in Uptown Oakland celebrating Alysa Liu’s gold medal performance at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Credit: Jerome Parmer for The Oaklandside
Johnson is one of the few women that multiple people we spoke with considered for their lists.
Oakland City Councilmember Rowena Brown, the resident “sports nut” on Council who played running back for the Bay Area Bandits and celebrated many of her birthdays by tailgating at the Coliseum, went so far as to reserve a future space on her Mount Rushmore for a woman to be named later, perhaps from the Golden State Valkyries whose practice facility is in Oakland.
“You can’t have a Mount Rushmore in Oakland without a woman,” said Marcus Thompson II, who is an Oakland Tech alumnus as well as a columnist for The Athletic. Thompson bemoaned the lack of opportunities for female athletes in Oakland, especially prior to the passage of Title IX in the 1970s.
Brekke-Miesner says that even after Title IX’s passage, Oakland schools did not really have the facilities to support girls sports until the 1980s, so Oakland’s early female sports heroes were outliers like Oakland High alum Zoe Ann Olsen, a diver who won Olympic medals in 1948 and 1952, and who had the benefit of a mother who was a swim teacher. (Bonus fact: Olsen was twice married to 1958 AL MVP and fellow Oakland High alum, Jackie Jensen.)
This year has seen the emergence of the most internationally accomplished female athlete in the Town’s history, Oakland School of the Arts alum Alysa Liu, who developed her figure skating skills at the Oakland Ice Center. After becoming an Olympian as a teenager in 2022, Liu took a two year hiatus from competition. Upon her return to the sport, Liu emerged as World Champion in 2025. She then won two gold medals, team and individual, in the recent Winter Olympics, representing the USA but also the Town, in her words, bringing “Oakland to Milan.” In addition to her place on Mayor Barbara Lee’s hypothetical Oakland’s sports Mount Rushmore, Liu has a real mural painted in her honor in the Temescal neighborhood.
Oakland native Alexis Gray-Lawson played for Oakland Tech high school’s basketball team, then UC Berkeley, and then went on to play in the WNBA and internationally. She also coaches. Credit: Ximena Natera/Berkeleyside-Catchlight
And circling back to the “GOAT of GOATs” Anna Johnson, when we asked her to create a Mount Rushmore of Oakland sports, she delivered a list that was all women, and all basketball players. It included two-time high school state champion, Cal legend and WNBA player Gray-Lawson; Rehema Stephens, whom Johnson coached at Oakland Tech in the 1980’s before she played at UCLA and in the WNBA; and Diane Blackwell and Denise Gazaway, Fremont High School teammates in the 1970’s who made the Tournament of Champions all-star squad.
Beast Mode and The Glove
Another athlete on a lot of people’s lists is five-time Pro Bowl running back and Super Bowl champion, Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch.
Many pointed to a particular “Oakland swagger” as one of Lynch’s key attributes, something akin to Rickey Henderson’s style. As Ahmed Alibob, native Oaklander and past chair of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, put it, “Oakland recognizes its own when we see it.”
Like Henderson, “Beast Mode” combines being from Oakland with playing for an Oakland team, the Raiders. The Oakland Roots, who now play soccer in that same Coliseum where Lynch played football, use “Oakland” by Vell as their goal song in homage to the dance that Lynch did on the sidelines when he heard the song there. Lynch also gets Oakland cred for doing community work through his Fam 1st Foundation alongside fellow Oakland native NFL stars, Josh Johnson and Marcus Peters.
Marshawn Lynch was inducted into the Oakland Tech Hall of Fame in 2023. Credit: Amir Aziz/The Oaklandside
The third athlete that people described as having Oakland swagger is Skyline High legend Gary Payton. “The Glove” is an NBA champion and Hall of Famer known for his tenacious defense, floor leadership and trash talk. Lesser known but equally important, said the fans we spoke with, is how Payton stays local and gives back through coaching at the College of Alameda and supporting efforts like the recent refurbishment of Mosswood Park.
Sports journalist Matt Steinmetz, who has lived in Oakland over 25 years, said Henderson, Lynch and Payton “all resonate a pride in Oakland. It’s probably part of the reason why they are so loved. They send a positive — and accurate — message about what happens here.”
Payton was the most frequently mentioned member of Oakland’s rich history of homegrown point guards. This includes Brian Shaw, who made it to the NBA two years before Payton; streetball legend Demetrius “Hook” Mitchell, who probably should have made it to the NBA alongside Payton; NBA Champion Jason Kidd, whom Payton mentored; and current NBA All-Star (and recently crowned three-time All Star 3-Point Champion) Damian Lillard. Amazingly, Payton, Kidd and Lillard were all named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team.
The Classmates Who Changed the World
The fourth Oaklander on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team is the person, after Rickey Henderson, who was most frequently mentioned as deserving of a spot on Mount Rushmore: center Bill Russell.
A five-time NBA MVP, Russell is the winningest player in professional team sports, with 11 NBA championships. Some people we spoke with noted that while Russell was raised in Oakland, he is more often associated with Boston, where he won NBA championships for the Celtics. In Oakland, he was actually cut from the McClymonds High junior varsity team.
But Oakland sports fans we spoke with wanted to recognize and celebrate him as a son of Oakland who made history not just as a player, but as the first Black coach in NBA history and as a civil rights activist whose fight for racial justice led to his recognition with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Incredibly, Russell’s high school classmate, Frank Robinson, was also a highly decorated athlete. People cited Robinson as worthy of Oakland sports’ Mount Rushmore not just because of his Major League Baseball career – which included winning two World Series, earning All-Star recognition 14 times, and being the only player to win MVP in both the National and American Leagues – but also because he was the first Black manager in Major League history.
West Oakland’s McClymonds High School was a sports powerhouse, fostering talents like Bill Russell, Frank Robinson, and Curt Flood. Credit: Jugho Kim for The Oaklandside
And yet, a more important historical figure may be Russell and Robinson’s classmate Curt Flood. His Major League career was excellent, winning two World Series and earning three All-Star selections and seven Gold Gloves as a centerfielder. Flood’s impact off the field was even more significant, famously challenging the reserve clause and suing for the right to free agency.
“I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes,” he stated in a 1969 letter to the league. Flood’s principled stand led to the end of his playing career and a barrage of hate mail and even death threats. But it also led to opportunity and riches for generations of players after him. An annual award for selflessness and devotion to players’ rights is bestowed in Flood’s name by the Major League Baseball Players Association.
The legacy of those McClymonds classmates — who incidentally also played alongside four-time All-Star centerfielder Vada Pinson — is unique. Said Brekke-Miesner, “If anybody knows of any high school in America who can claim to have three athletes at the same high school at the same time who changed the face of sports, let me know.”
“Oakland’s Coach”
Coach John Beam with the Laney Eagles before a game. Credit: courtesy of Peralta Community College District Credit: courtesy Peralta Community College District
Asked for her Mount Rushmore list, Mayor Barbara Lee felt that legendary football coach John Beam, whose death in November shook the community, deserves inclusion.
Tommy Hodul, vice president of Oakland Roots and Soul, might be biased since Beam coached the football team at Skyline High while Hodul was a student there. But Hodul said Beam’s impact will be felt for generations, not just because of football but because of “the number of people who would say he is a second father.” He called Beam “Oakland’s Coach.”
Before there was Coach Beam, the person you might have called “Oakland’s Coach” was George Powles, who from 1946 to 1975 coached baseball, basketball and football in Oakland, influencing many of the Hall of Famers mentioned in this story, including the famous McClymonds classmates of the 1950’s. Bill Russell insisted that he never would have played basketball if not for Powles’s mentorship. Powles even coached an NFL MVP, former San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Tech quarterback John Brodie, who recently passed away.
Another coach frequently cited was John Madden. A Super Bowl champion with the Oakland Raiders in 1977, Madden went on to influence multiple generations as a broadcaster and through his eponymous video game.
A bronze bust of John Madden displayed at the Coliseum in 2022 for his memorial service. Credit: Amir Aziz/The Oaklandside
A Bay Area native, Madden had a deep love for Oakland and understood what the Raiders meant to The Town. Shortly before he died, Madden enjoyed watching his grandson, Jesse Madden, play quarterback for the Bishop O’Dowd Dragons, sometimes texting with one of John Madden’s biggest fans, former mayor Schaaf, about his games.
Silver and Black and Green and Gold
Despite the heartbreak of Oakland losing its football team twice, many people still hold love for the Raiders’ roster of star players, including Marshawn Lynch, Bo Jackson, Gene Upshaw, Tim Brown, Jerry Rice, Kenny Stabler, Jim Plunkett, Jim Otto and John Matuscak, with an extra special mention for Charles Woodson throwing up the O for Oakland and coming back to end his career here.
Two of the sports fans interviewed for this story found space on their lists for Al Davis, who as a coach and team owner was largely responsible for setting the culture of the Raiders.
Jorge Leon, founder of the Oakland fan group, the Oakland 68’s, chose Davis because “he created that Oakland Raiders persona” and credited him as a progressive mind who wanted to employ Black and Latino players. Davis hired the first Black coach in modern NFL history, Art Shell, and also the first female NFL CEO, Amy Trask.
Leon also listed former Oakland A’s owner, Charlie Finley, whom he credited for similarly having “a very Black squad” that was “a team that represented our city.” There was a lot of affection for the A’s among many people we spoke with. After Rickey Henderson, his championship teammate pitchers, 1989 World Series MVP Dave Stewart and 1992 AL MVP Dennis Eckersley, are especially beloved because they are from Oakland. Stewart’s legacy includes staying up all night after the Loma Prieta earthquake, while still wearing his World Series uniform, to assist rescuers in West Oakland.
Reggie Jackson was praised by some because, like Steph Curry, he brought three championships to Oakland. Mark McGuire was also recognized as one half of the A’s homerun smashing “Bash Brothers” with Jose Canseco.
“It’s a huge honor to play for Oakland,” said Oaklandish COO Aaron Higgins, who still remembers running around the third deck on Little League nights at A’s games.
Beyond the Big Three
While the “big three” sports — baseball, basketball and football — account for many of Oakland’s greats, there are other legends. The most unusual sport that someone noted in my interviews was competitive slam dunking. Vince Carter’s dunk contest masterpiece at the 2000 NBA All-Star Game at Oracle Arena was impressive enough to go down in Oakland sports history.
Hall of Fame boxer Andre Ward, after winning a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, launched an undefeated (32-0) professional career. Not only did he win every fight, Ward made sure to contest many of them in his hometown, at Oracle Arena, making big-time boxing accessible for local fans.
One of golf’s greatest “what ifs” is Tony Lema. A 12-time PGA Tour winner considered to be in the class of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, Lema tragically died in a plane crash in 1962 at the age of 32.
With the Roots and Soul, Oakland is undeniably a soccer town now. Our greatest soccer player is Calen Carr, who was Pac-10 Player of the Year at Cal and then played in the MLS, scoring the go-ahead goal in the 2012 MLS Cup for the Houston Dynamo.
Perhaps the most famous person mentioned by those we interviewed was Bruce Lee. Lee popularized martial arts in the U.S. while living and starting a school in Oakland, before moving to Los Angeles to act in TV and movies.
Globally, the most famous athlete to ever live in Oakland might be Bruce Lee, the martial artist and actor. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for The Oaklandside
So, who is on the Oakland sports Mount Rushmore?
The dozens and dozens of names offered by the sports fans we spoke with makes it clear that restricting the list of the greatest of the great to four people shortchanges Oakland’s history.
“It has to be a pretty big mountain range,” said Brekke-Miesner.
Many sports fans feel that there should be a monument to The Town’s sports heroes. If there are three bronze statues of Oakland legends (Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan and Ernie Lombardi) in Cincinnati, then why are there none in The Town?
Maybe because it’s too hard to choose who the statues would represent.
Super fans share their Oakland sports Mount Rushmores
We asked 15 people — civic boosters, former mayors, current councilmembers, sports journalists, coaches, former players, team executives — all mega fans, to name their top four all-time greats. Here’s what they told us.
Ahmed Alibob, former director of social impact at Block and past chair of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce
“Oakland’s Own” Mount Rushmore
- Rickey Henderson
- Bill Russell
- Gary Payton
- Marshawn Lynch
“Owned the Oakland Stage” Mount Rushmore
- Bo Jackson
- Mark McGuire
- Steph Curry
- Vince Carter (for the 2000 NBA Dunk Contest in Oakland)
Brodie Brazil, broadcaster who covered the Oakland A’s and currently works for the San Jose Sharks
- Rickey Henderson
- Al Davis
- Dave Stewart
- Bill Russell
Rowena Brown, Oakland Councilmember
- Rickey Henderson
- Steph Curry
- Marshawn Lynch
- TBD (Space held open for a future female sports star)
Paul Freedman, CEO, Oakland Ballers
“From here, played here” Mount Rushmore
- Rickey Henderson
- Marshawn Lynch
- Dave Stewart
- Dennis Eckersley
“Grew up here, played anywhere” Mount Rushmore
- Rickey Henderson
- Bill Russell
- Frank Robinson
- Jason Kidd
“Played here, from anywhere” Mount Rushmore
- Rickey Henderson
- Steph Curry
- Jerry Rice
- Klay Thompson
Alexis Gray-Lawson, Oakland Tech athletic director and retired WNBA player
- Rickey Henderson
- Marshawn Lynch
- Gary Payton
- Anna Johnson
Aaron Higgins, COO, Oaklandish
- Dave Stewart
- Dennis Eckersley
- Charles Woodson
- Steph Curry
Tommy Hodul, vice president, Oakland Roots and Soul
- Rickey Henderson
- Bill Russell
- Frank Robinson
- John Beam
Anna Johnson, retired coach and the first female professional basketball player from Oakland
- Alexis Gray-Lawson
- Rehema Stephens
- Diane Blackwell
- Denise Gazaway
Barbara Lee, Oakland mayor
Jorge Leon, founder of the Oakland 68’s
- Rickey Henderson
- Curt Flood
- Charlie Finley
- Al Davis
Monte Poole, NBA and Warriors insider, NBC Sports Bay Area
- Rickey Henderson
- Bill Russell
- Frank Robinson
- Don Budge
Casey Pratt, former sports broadcaster and current Oakland Ballers vice president for communications
- Rickey Henderson
- Steph Curry
- John Madden
- Reggie Jackson
Libby Schaaf, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, former Oakland mayor
- Rickey Henderson
- Steph Curry
- Bill Russell
- John Madden
Matt Steinmetz, Bay Area sports journalist and current host on 95.7 The Game
- Rickey Henderson
- Frank Robinson
- Bill Russell
- Marshawn Lynch
Marcus Thompson II, columnist at The Athletic
- Rickey Henderson
- Marshawn Lynch
- Damian Lillard
- Alysa Liu
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