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Cleveland sports are experiencing success, rejuvenating the city and people

I grew up in Cleveland, which means that I don’t have memories of sitting on my dad’s shoulders watching a championship parade or anticipating a stellar season for any of my hometown teams.

Instead, I have memories of crowding into my grandma’s room at a rehab center to watch LeBron James announce that he was going to the Miami Heat or watching my brothers burn their LeBron posters in our backyard.

I may have waited the entire 20 years of my life for a Cleveland championship, but that’s nothing compared to my dad.

A toddler when the Browns won the NFL Championship in 1964, he lived most of his life dreaming of a championship.

My dad grew up attending games and personally witnessed some of the most infamous moments in Cleveland sports history, such as “The Drive,” where John Elway and the Denver Broncos stunned the Browns by scoring off of a 98-yard drive in the last minutes of the game.

This led to overtime and a Broncos victory off a field goal, preventing the Browns from making it to the Super Bowl in 1987.

Despite all of the heartbreak Cleveland has endured over the years, 2016 has turned out to be a dream of a year for what a Wall Street Journal article calls “the much-maligned Rust Belt city.”

This summer, I witnessed history as the Cleveland Cavaliers ended a 52-year Cleveland championship drought and became the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 game deficit to win the NBA Finals.

The fact that James, a Northeast Ohio native had returned home and spearheaded the team made the victory that much sweeter.

It didn’t just feel like the Cavaliers won — it felt like we, as a city, won.

The incredulous feeling that washed over me the moment the clock ended after the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the NBA Finals will stay with me for the rest of my life, perhaps as potent as it is because I know it may be once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

This fall, I sat in my dorm room, watching as the Cleveland Indians faced the Chicago Cubs in the World Series.

Game 1 was played at Progressive Field in Cleveland, right across the street from where, that same night, the Cavaliers were presented with their championship rings.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that these two events on the same night would ever happen in Cleveland during my lifetime, and never had I wanted to be back home in Cleveland so badly.

Visions of the Indians winning their first World Series since 1948 and bringing the second major league sports trophy in one year home to Cleveland danced in my heads, but it was not to be.

As Cleveland’s unofficial motto says, “There’s always next year.”

Maybe next year the Indians will finally win the World Series again, and maybe next year the Cavaliers will win their second championship in a row.

While it’s unlikely and I don’t count on it happening, it would be incredible if it did.

However, no matter what happens next year, for Clevelanders 2016 will always be remembered as the year when “next year” finally came.

Depiero is an opinion writer.