Who IS that guy with the sweet afro at Warriors games?

There’s a certain pride that comes with being a super fan. I expect myself to know all that there is to know about the Warriors - and then some! So it was a little troubling to me when this came up in conversation: who is that dude with the sweet ‘fro? He’s a staple of Warriors games, but as far as I can tell his entire list of responsibilities includes a grand total of two items:

1. Turn the video monitor around for the refs’ replays;
2. Catch the end-of-quarter heaves.

And that’s it. You’ll never see him acting as an usher, he clearly isn’t involved directly with personnel... I think more than anything it makes me jealous that I don’t have his job!

Well, I’ve scoured the internet and can fill in some of the answers, but not many.

First of all, the man’s name is (allegedly) James Young, and his job title as of 2015 was “stats technical coordinator” and he’s been with the Warriors long enough that Chris Mullin actually shaved his ‘fro off one time:

"To me, it seems, we've had a lot of talent (over the years), but we haven't had a conductor," said Young, a native San Franciscan. Young was a scoreboard technician when he started working for the Warriors years ago, and had additional duties added over the years. And in a league of homogeneity off the floor, Young's salt and pepper Afro stands out.

"I've always had a 'fro," he said. "We've had times where we cut it down. Chris Mullin gave me a buzzcut. It's been cut off at times. But it's been fun."

Secondly, there is the theory around (ok, it’s my theory) that he should have caught Steph Curry in the 2016 Western Conference playoffs. I present to you Exhibit 1A:

I’m not going to pass judgement here; this was clearly a split-second decision. Faced with a similar choice, we would all like to say that of course we would have caught Curry, but that’s around a couple hundred pounds of sharp edges flying through the air and I don’t begrudge the man’s self-preservation instincts. Still, in the second quote of his that I found, is there some equivocation happening?

James Young, the Warriors’ stats technical coordinator (aka Afro Guy) was not so entertained.

“It looked pretty rough,” said Young, who was a few feet away from the incident. “He landed in the aisle behind the first row. It looked like he was stunned a little bit.”

Unfortunately, that’s about all I got. The guy is steeped in mystery. But at least now we know that he is James Young, the Warriors’ do-everything man who serves as stats technical coordinator during games.

What else he does, how he got the job, and any other factoid will have to wait till I can figure out some way to get an interview with this man.

Until then, I guess maybe you can throw the name around and impress people with the utter obscurity of your Warriors trivia depth of knowledge.