SAN FRANCISCO – You could feel the air galvanize the second Gabby Williams stepped off the ferry.
You could feel it in the rattling of the metal gates as word of her sighting spread like wildfire through the crowd. You could see it in fans climbing up poles, electric control boxes, fences, even each other, in a mad scramble to get a vantage point. And you could hear it in their ear-curling shrieks of joy and ecstasy.
“Gabby, Gabby, Gabby!” fans cried out, a mix between a chant and a call to look at their “For the Gays!” sign etched in sparkling purple.
“Gabby, we love you!” another roared from the deepest caverns of their chest.
Williams waved back. And in an instant there was electricity — the crowd hooting and hollering in a mad scramble to whip out their phones and capture the sight of the woman who delivered them and the Golden State Valkyries the 2026 WNBA Championship.
Then came the real horde; cameramen, TV anchors, photographers, reporters, and maybe even some random parade workers descended onto Williams, creating a hurricane with the Valkyries' mega star at the eye of the storm. Questions tossed her way, camera shutters fired like neurons, phones shoved her way, and all Williams could do was duck her head and try to suppress a smile.
The queen had landed. And her kingdom acted like it. And wrapped tightly in her arms was her crown — the Finals MVP trophy, the spoil of war she collected for dispatching the Atlanta Dream with a Game 7 heater that will become Bay Area folklore in the coming years.
But for the next 20 minutes, Williams' two arms never let go of her trophy. Even as she waved to the crowd, even as she high-fived fans and shook hands with the slew of celebrities coming her way to pay tribute, Williams kept that baby tucked in her arm like a football. It would have taken an elephant and two to yank that hunk of silver out of Williams' grasp.
Because whether she was hugging the trophy to ground her in the sea of overstimulation around her or clinging on to a physical reminder herself what she and her team accomplished less than a week ago, the sight of Williams holding felt like one thing and one thing only amid the thousands of fans screaming her name.
An embrace of the Bay and an embrace of what she's become for the Bay. And like Williams with her trophy, the Bay will never let Williams go. She's captured their hearts.
Counting hot dogs and shotgunning beers with Kaitlyn Chen, Veronica Burton, and Laeticia Amihere
Down the line of buses, Kaitlyn Chen and Veronica Burton were capturing the crowd a different way, tossing their hot mic back and forth and taking turns cracking jokes like Abbott and Costello — as Laeticia Amihere watched them, baffled at what was transpiring.
“Veronica Buuurrrtonnn!” Chen roared into the mic, camcorder in hand, gesturing to the crowd to cheer for her best friend.
“I can't hear you!” Chen yelled as the crowd cheered even louder before handing Burton the mic.
“I would not have given her the mic,” Burton laughed, taking control of the speakers, her point guard, protect-the-ball instincts kicking in before something caught her attention.
“From wieners to winners!” Burton shouted into the mic, pointing out a sign in the crowd referencing Chen showing up to Game 7 in a hot dog costume to celebrate Halloween. With that memory back in her head, Burton scanned the crowd for one of the easiest costumes one could have predicted fans to show up dressed up as.
“Hot dog!” Burton pointed out, still on the mic. “That's our third hot dog today; we're counting hot dogs.”
But soon, their attention switched from hot dogs to beer. And a little while later, Chen gathered Burton and Amihere up to shotgun a beer together, very much in the backup point guard's nature to rally together her teammates with her enthusiasm and spontaneity in a manner not too dissimilar to her putting on the hot dog costume.
And after some tinkering and a countdown, all three of them crushed their beverages, with Chen tossing her empty can to the fans. Maybe that empty can make its way to eBay.
The Custodian of the WNBA Championship Trophy
The only person holding a trophy tighter than Williams was the guy in charge of guarding the WNBA Championship trophy, who will be referred to as the trophy custodian from here on out, partially to maintain the nameless, thankless aura that comes with guarding the hardware and partially because we did not get his name because this man was locked in on the task at hand.
Handcrafted by Tiffany & Co., the Championship trophy weighs around 26 pounds and stands about 25 inches high, a nightmare to carry around if it weren't for the trophy custodian, who was equipped with white satin gloves so as to handle the highest honor in the league with the appropriate delicacy and care.
But his job was more than just holding the trophy. It was to guard the trophy, to protect the trophy, and to make sure it got to every single significant person or player associated with the Valkyries so they could hoist it up to the fans. Not an easy task when the buses are separated by packs of floats and bands and dancers and low-riders in between and players are spraying champagne onto fans.
But the trophy custodian did his job. Zooming from bus to bus on his designated golf cart, thanks to his designated driver, the trophy custodian moved like a thief in the night, getting the trophy where it needed to be when it needed to be. At one moment you'd see Burton counting Amihere down to raise the trophy for all the fans to see and then blink twice to see it's teleported into Miela Sowah's hands standing at the edge of her bus.
Truly a thankless job, as when fans did catch the trophy custodian holding the trophy in between destinations, with one person shouting at him, “Hey! You're not a player!” and another yelling, “Didn't know you were on the team, buddy!”
To which the trophy custodian responded: “I'm not, but I'm getting it to them,” grinning as he sped away.
Natalie Nakase running to catch the bus
There was a moment in the parade when no one had a clue where Natalie Nakase had gone.
Disappeared like a puff of smoke. Nowhere to be seen atop her and the coaching staff's bus as it breached the shadow of the Bay Bridge to a sea of fans along the barricade crying out, “Natalie!” They seemed to be also searching for their beloved coach who delivered on her promise of a championship in five years well ahead of schedule.
Assistant coach Kasib Powell and the other coaching staff members, in between tossing gold beaded necklaces and waving to people in the crowd, gestured media members toward the general vicinity of the horde of parade marchers trailing the bus. Might as well be a needle in a haystack of purple and violet.
Article Continues BelowAll of a sudden, a rumble. I look around, not quite sure where it's coming from. But luckily for me, another reporter grabbed my attention, pointing at something behind me.
I turn around to see a horde of cameramen and photographers barreling toward me, and at its center, the woman everyone had been searching for: Natalie Mitsue Nakase. All five feet two inches of her, decked out in prism-style visor sunglasses and a T-shirt with her chibi version of herself with her mouth bleeped out, running like the wind.
Not quite on the level of Tom Cruise, but certainly with an urgency that had everyone around her huffing and puffing. So, not wanting to get trampled by the hurricane of humans heading toward me, I started running. For the next quarter mile, all I could see as I booked it to stay with the pack was Nakase taking an interview with a local TV station, barely hearing the questions between breaths, with fans yelling her name as they watched her race by.
Once she finally reached her bus, things settled down for a moment, allowing a reporter to ask her a question. Had something to do with the parade and reaching this point. And Nakase, out of breath, said, “To do the impossible to do, do it!” an answer fitting for someone who ran down a moving bus like a velociraptor.
Champagne everywhere
Kayla Thornton, Tiffany Hayes, and Kaila Charles' bottles of champagne were empty by the time they got off the bus and started running towards the barricades to interact with the fans. Because of the first chunk of the parade, they'd already sprayed the streets down in gold.
But that didn't stop them from hoisting their green bottles as they posed with fans for photos, all while Too Short and E-40 blared on in the background.
It was a vibe, the three of them running from barricade to barricade. No other way to describe it.
The trio shuffled between a crip walk on one side and moonwalked on the other — with Thornton running in place, Hayes wobbling her legs in and out, and Charles documenting all of it.
Because while Thornton, Hayes, and Charles no longer had champagne in the bottle, they had the smell of bubbles and arbor permeating the air. A smell of champions and a smell not easily washed out. A smell that will linger.
The Valkyries won't forget that scent, and neither will their fans.