| 17 April 2009
Fifteen minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but when you are waiting for interviews outside the Portland Trail Blazers practice facility at 1 o’clock on a sunny Thursday afternoon, it seems like a lifetime.
I knew all along I wasn’t going to make the trek downtown to the Blazers playoff rally at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Just the way it goes as a stay at home writer dad. Chalk it up to my two-year-old daughter's nap schedule. Figured I’d at least snag a quote or two for a Portland/Houston playoff story while she was dreaming away.
So there I was. Waiting. As usual.
Just didn’t figure I’d be standing outside the practice facility with a handful of media members while two white charter buses sat idle, four police escorts – two of which were motor patrols - patiently pacing like the rest of us.
A few autograph seekers were geeked standing in front of the rigs hoping for a scribble on the Spalding. A group of nurse practitioners from a nearby medical office star gazed. Club Sport custodians lingered. Players wives came and went.
Finally Nate McMillan was thrown to the wolves, caught between rested and over anxious.
After all the hoopla from Wednesday night, I asked how he slept. He said better, after he’d watched ESPN re-run the Portland/Denver game in the wee hours of the morning.
After McMillan’s five minute presser, players slowly began shuffling out of the facility, but with my window of opportunity and nap time closing I decided to check in on a couple guys I’ve come to know better the past few weeks: Portland assistant coach Kaleb Canales and Mike Barrett from Blazers broadcasting.
Yes, the roster is full of good guys. But so is the coaching staff and those in the announcer’s booth.
Neither Kaleb nor Barrett got much rest Wednesday night – four... maybe five hours at the most. Join the club. Figures as much.They fared better than some in the organization. Others lived-it-up until 7 am only to turn around and be back to work at 10 am. People were amped last night. Others were on deadline. But for those within the organization, it’s been a long time coming.
A long time.
With my fifteen minutes up, I started for the parking lot until something caught my eye. Better yet, someone.
It was Harry Glickman – the man who helped bring the NBA and Trail Blazers to Portland. He was the organizations first GM until 1987 and now serves as President Emeritus.
The 85-year-old Glickman leaned on a car near the two buses and under a shade tree, sporting a pair of black shades and taking it all in. He was almost out of site, but not out of mind. I wondered if he was thinking about the good old days: how he worked without an investor and won an NBA expansion franchise in 1970.
How the Blazers almost never were. How seven years later on June 5th the team hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy that shines through the front window at the practice facility today.
Dr. Jack, Walton, Lucas, Hollins, Gross, Gilliam, Twardzik, Davis, Neal, Walker, Jones, Steele, Calhoun. How Blazermania captured the city.
How this team reminds some of that team.
How these guys are easy to pull for.
How it seemed like all a dream way back in ’70.
Now 39 years and fifeteen minutes later, we both stood wondering where the time had gone.
pic via: oregonian/bruce ely
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