Contest Entry: Paul Allen, Donkey Basketball, and the Blazer Alumni

rpeachey — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:03:33 -0000

I. What's so special about the Portland Trailblazers?

My favorite Blazer moments on the court, I'm sure, are just the same as yours -- it's the off-court stuff that always interested me the most. Over the next few weeks Blazersedge will bloat with paeans to everything from Walton's jersey-throwing to Wallace's towel-throwing. Many of us will alternately lament and celebrate Bowie, LaRue Martin, and the Jailblazers. My on-court favorites appeared in the three Finals trips: Maurice Lucas duking it out with Darryl Dawkins in 1977; Cliff Robinson banking a huge Game Two three in 1990, just off a Petrovic pass; and Clyde Drexler throwing a tomahawk on Bill Cartwright in 1992, to the maniacal delight of a hitherto slumped-over Alaa Abdelnaby. I reacted much as I imagine Greek audiences did to Homer's tales, with fear and wonder.

Yet these moments, if we step back a bit, all these are common to sports fans around the world. (In form, at least.) Think of how many Laker fans wish it'd worked out with Payton and Malone. Think of how many Yankee fans wish they could reverse the A-Rod deal. Do Blazers fans really have so much in common with Laker and Yankee fans, apart from the team they cheer for? What's so unique about being a Blazer fan? What is it about Oregon that makes the Blazers so special? What is it about a basketball team with sponsors like Franz Bread and Les Schwab Tires? What is it about having a shy software tycoon run a basketball team that makes the whole thing a little goofy?

I don't want to sound self-congratulatory here. After all, I grew up in The Dalles, Oregon, and someone might criticize me for celebrating the Blazers' uniqueness so I can get a little of their sunlight. That might be true, but it's certainly not my intent. More than anything I have grown more critical of the team as I age. Once I worshipped these swift-footed men as gods. Now, with some regret, I regard the team strictly as a corporation, with all its attendant plusses and minuses (which are academic and obvious). For that matter, I still fantasize about the Blazers becoming a public company like the Green Bay Packers once Paul Allen is gone.

Even so, I think what's special about the Portland Trailblazers, as with any corporation, is how the community interacts with it "off the court," so to speak. And with no further -- ahem -- Abdoolnaby, here are my top two off-the-court Blazer moments in my own life.

II. Giving Paul Allen Bad Advice

I'm sure Paul Allen does not remember me. He probably doesn't remember you either, even though you guys sat together at Roy's Turnaround Three game, sharing Cornnuts and Twizzlers, clapping Paul Allen's exaggerated seal-clap. The next day, poof, you're forgotten. And Paul Allen almost certainly does not remember people who give him bad advice. That makes me doubly forgettable.

My brother worked as a bellboy at the Ashland Springs Hotel in college, wearing that goofy beige sea captain's hat and oversized jacket. In 2002 I visited for the Shakespeare Festival. My brother said Paul Allen was staying in the Hotel. As a huge Blazer fan, with the team stumbling through post-Snaq-dunk shenanigans, I considered meeting Paul Allen to be an excellent opportunity to impart my then-radical idea: Trade Rasheed Wallace.

Not that I had any idea who to trade Wallace for. I had such a big ego. I thought Paul Allen would be so intrigued by the Trade Wallace idea as to hire me as his personal Rasputin. The only difficulty, then, was actually meeting Paul Allen. Where would I find him? My brother said he was staying in the penthouse. Was he there now? Could I just go up and knock? What if his girlfriend answered? What kind of sway does she have?

There was too little time to decide as my brother and I had to leave for the theatre. It turns out my brother could not get tickets to the Shakespeare shows, so we got tickets to a play about the life of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Spanish poetry and homosexuality. Not two things I often associate with the Portland Trailblazers, although I will admit to a brief fascination with Señor Dale Davis's biceps.

Anyway the play had a surreal stage setup, shaped like a half-pipe with doors at either end, and dim starlights on the ceiling. Upon entering I looked around the room and noticed audience seating on both sides. We walked to the left and headed up the stairs and I tucked my chin to my chest thinking what am I going to do about Paul Allen and

OH MY GOSH PAUL ALLEN IS SITTING RIGHT THERE.

He stared at the stage with his hands on his knees. No one spoke to him. I thought, Do it. He's right there. Predictably, I got cold feet and quickly took my seat.

The first act of the play finished, wonderful story about green satyrs and absynthe, and I schlepped over to the snack bar. Nearby Paul Allen was surrounded by slicklooking men in suits. You would have thought Paul Allen was the funniest man in the world, the way these guys were howling and bending about. Paul Allen grinned. He held his glass of wine and kept his right hand tightly in his back pocket. I tried to get his attention. Hello, Paul Allen. I am very tall and looking straight at you. I am an Aquarius, too. See me. Feel me.

The lights flickered, a gentle voice announced the second act, and everyone shuffled back to their seats. Everyone except me. Maybe Paul Allen will take a quick restroom break? Maybe he won't mind discussing my Trade Rasheed Wallace plan over a urinal? Alas, it wasn't going to happen. He walked back into the theatre, and the doorman beckoned me to return to my seat. I had to think fast.

Back in the theatre I could see Paul Allen in his seat. I walked very slowly up the stairs, as if I had some natural imbalance, and just before passing Paul Allen, I threw myself flat onto the floor.

Paul Allen leapt towards me. "Are you all right? That's a nasty fall."

I kept looking at the floor. "Thank you, sir. Very kind of you. I am unharmed." I couldn't bear to look at him.

"Well, shake it off," he said. "The play is about to start."

Suddenly I felt my confidence restored. I stood up, brushed myself off, and stared at Paul Allen.

"Trade Rasheed Wallace."

He stared at me and slowly opened his mouth to speak. "Ehh..."

That was all I needed to hear. I rushed back to my seat so quickly, the beads of sweat hadn't yet formed on my scalp.

The very next day my brother got an uncomfortable request from his boss at the Hotel. "Today Mr. Allen has to go back to Seattle. You realize he hasn't signed the guestbook yet? Would you mind taking that up to him?" He turned to leave, and then swung back again. "Feel free to remind him he hasn't paid his bill yet."

My brother was too shocked to voice his disapproval. Entrap a guest to sign your guestbook? What kind of place is this? Anyways he duly went upstairs to the penthouse, where he found the door slightly ajar. He could hear the shower running. He thought, this could end badly, like that scene in The Shining, except even if I see Paul Allen shriveled and naked I really hope I don't have to make out with him. He rapped twice on the door. "Knock, knock?"

"Who is it?"

"Hotel management, sir." My brother said weakly. "I was wondering whether you could sign the guestbook?"

Brief silence. "Well, make it quick because my girlfriend's in the shower, and I don't think she'll want you to see her."

My brother nudged the door open. Paul Allen sat at the end of the bed. My brother handed him the guestbook, Paul Allen signed it, and my brother scurried away. I asked my brother what Paul Allen looked like. "He only had one sock on. Apparently I caught him in mid-sock-pull." My brother grinned. "Which I suppose is better than catching him in something else."

III. Blazer Alumni and Donkey Basketball

Last weekend my friends in Seattle told me they'd planned on taking me to a Tractor Pull, but that I "wouldn't be interested because that's so The Dalles." You get used to that sort of jive, growing up in Eastern Oregon. You'd think we marry cows and sheep, and drive pickups with huge Band-Aids holding up the bumpers. But every now and then, these stereotypes sort of ring true. Only in towns like The Dalles, Oregon would two of the major highlights of the year be: (1) watching locals play basketball while riding donkeys; and (2) watching the Blazer Alumni beat the snot out of a group of local heroes.

A little background on the Blazer Alumni. I'm not sure whether they still do this, but former Blazers used to round up and tour Oregon's small towns to raise money for charity. They wore their old jerseys and donned enormous goggles and wristbands. It was thrilling for people in my parents' generation, who watched these guys win the NBA Championship in 1977 and still knew them by their nicknames. Sure, these alumni teams didn't have Walton or Lucas, but even the thirteenth guy on an NBA roster is going to clown your best smalltown baller. Better yet, the Blazer Alumni didn't get big heads over it. They'd be up by seventy, and not once did they taunt the other team. It was all in good fun.

For smalltown kids in the '80s, the Blazer Alumni game often represented the first time we'd ever met a black person. Of course, the Blazer Alumni had white guys, but we were much more interested in the black players, because the best current Blazers were black -- Drexler and Porter and so on. White people were boring and ordinary to us. Petrovic was simply puzzling. The black Blazers were the fastest, the smartest, the most passionate players on the team. Kersey's aftergame interviews were the first poetry I ever heard. More than any religion or authority figure, these men were my gods. I woke up every morning to the sight of Kersey dunking on Golden State, and Drexler dunking on the Lakers. I could not imagine a higher calling than creating such physical splendor.

Some smalltown kids never get over the stereotypes. In high school my friend Ben, the only black guy in school, was constantly begged to play streetball. Some guys thought he had some innate racial power to play basketball. If Ben said you were a player, that really meant something to some of those guys. Me and Ben, we just had to laugh. The truth was, Ben couldn't make a basket if he were standing on top of it. Guys who thought he was the best player in school never saw him play.

That first sight of the Blazer Alumni definitely left an impression. Their warm-up drills were like third-rate Globetrotters, but still, it was the Blazers, the Black and Red, and they were playing in our busted-up old middle school. Nowadays they have a new building, maybe ten years old. The old building had an enormous gym and a beautiful parquet floor. TDMS Huskies. That was a curious mascot to me since I'd never actually seen a Husky. In fact, "husky" was just a word you called fat kids when you were around your mother. The Blazer Alumni were most definitely not "husky". Still, they weren't as trim as Drexler and Kersey, so what could we expect? A bunch of airballs and sucking air?

They didn't move like the young Blazers either, and it was still enough to run up the score on the local team. I remember that first year, there was a lot of no-look passing, passing-to-themselves-off-opponent's-back, that kind of thing. And the Blazer Alumni could shoot the lights out without even jumping. They had that weird Sabonis no-jump shot which never got blocked. By halftime the score was pretty lopsided. It wasn't quite the 70-7 spanking my football team took against Pendleton earlier that year. But it was a twenty-point lead, for sure.

And then came the donkeys.

There's a certain fascination most little kids have with animals pooping. I was no exception. And donkeys pooping was even funnier because of the buildup -- the donkey stopping and straightening his legs, the tail rising, and the slow, soft wheaty clumps falling on the floor. "Road apples," we called them. Every hometown parade turned into classic comedy when the donkeys passed by. Even funnier to me was the look on the donkey's face. "Yeah, I'm poopin'. Quit buggin' me."

Somehow the middle school decided to allow some locals to ride donkeys and play basketball at the Blazer Alumni halftime, and on such a beautiful floor. There were some awkward drives to the basket, and a couple of people tumbling from the saddle. Lots of "hee-haw," for sure. And of course, lots of pooping. The crowd roared with every plop on the floor. But even funnier was that the locals had dressed up the donkeys -- as the Blazers. Complete with jerseys, and even "goggles" for the Buck Williams donkey. (This was pre-headband Cliff Robinson, by the way.) The Danny Young donkey kept trying to walk to the snack bar. We cheered loudest for the Clyde Drexler donkey, of course, but he kept trying to set screens for the Kevin Duckworth donkey at center court. All of halftime the PA blared that old bluegrass music.

I'm not sure what sort of voodoo magic that donkey poop had in it. Whatever it was, it confounded the Blazer Alumni, who came out of halftime struggling to hit a basket. Even worse for the Alumni was that the local team suited up one of their old high school stars and then-gym teacher, Steve Sugg, who ran circles around the Alumni and bullied them for every rebound. To this day I remember Sugg raining threes with two Blazers on him. It was too much for the Alumni. They lost the lead after the third, and eventually the game. Maybe they tried to lose? I'm still not really sure. It didn't seem to matter to them anyway. They joined what seemed like the entire town for an after-game pizza feed at Spooky's.

To end this section -- to cheer you up after a story in which the Blazers lose -- I just want to say, if you're living in a small Oregon town, I strongly encourage you to ring up the Blazers front office and encourage them to get the Blazer Alumni team back on the road again. It helped make my childhood a very happy time, and I imagine it will do the same for children in your town. Win or lose, the Blazer Alumni were a real happening.

IV. Conclusion

This has been a long essay, and I appreciate your taking the time to read it. I'll make this ending short. The Blazers are special because the community makes them that way. Even more than the team itself, the management, all the money and advertising, the Blazers serve as a conduit for our creativity and sense of unity. This essay contest only goes to prove my point. What would it matter if Brandon Roy scored fifty points if nobody talked about it? Oh, sure, it'd matter to him, and to the people he plays with, but the fans (and the critics) participate in creating this really beautiful picture in time. And all of the latter part of that equation -- all of us -- all of that happens off the court, in this wonderful and wild place called the Pacific Northwest.

Halberstam's "Breaks of the Game" Available 02.17.2009

rpeachey — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:46:33 -0000

Halberstam's "Breaks of the Game" Available 02.17.2009

This is probably old news by now to you guys, but that greatest of Blazer books, the Breaks of the Game, will be back on the market next Tuesday. A great way to celebrate George Washington's birthday.

Day of Mourning: Kevin Duckworth has died

rpeachey — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:37:57 -0000

According to Fox 12 Oregon, former Blazer Kevin Duckworth died Monday in Kernville.

Link

I encourage everyone to share their memories of the great Duck below in the comments section, or in a fan post of your own. In his own words, "join in and sing some bass".

For my own part, I will never forget his shy and gentle nature. He seemed one of a few basketball players in the world I'd feel comfortable talking to. He told Kerry Eggers in Blazers Profiles that if he hadn't been a basketball player, he'd have been a carpenter, and in the offseason I'd hear reports of him fly-fishing Oregon's rivers.

As a boy "Kevin Duckworth" was my school recess nickname on the basketball court, and I tried to emulate his one-handed shot with no success. I even picked up a pair of knee braces for my first Parks and Recreation league in tribute to Duck. And when my babysitter purchased a Duckworth-brand drift boat, I was so excited because I knew it was the same brand that Duck himself used on the Metolius and the Deschutes.

Of course when I was young I worshipped Clyde Drexler. But as I grew older, I took greater interest in his less celebrated, more humble teammates -- particularly Duck and Jerome Kersey -- for their splendid talents and generosity in the community, and for their personal stories, as much as for their titanic battles on the basketball court. It has been incredibly moving for me to read everyone's kind words in this post and on others, particularly those from people who actually met the great man. These words keep Duckworth's spirit alive in my heart.

My deepest condolences go out to his family and friends.

Kevin Duckworth -- rest in peace.

Addendum:

Tributes to Duck have appeared all over the Web. Henry Abbott has a wonderful post, and Ben has the latest news on the main page.

I found this clip on YouTube from the "Make It Happen" video. It features some of my favorite Duckworth plays -- particularly the back-down on Divac -- all from the playoff series against Los Angeles in 1992, including the UNLV game during the L.A. Riots. Duckworth was fantastic in this series. I hope you enjoy it. (It also features one of the greatest-ever alley-oops from Kersey to Drexler. Magic Johnson: "Highlight film time!")

SB Nation User Blog: rpeachey

Contest Entry: Paul Allen, Donkey Basketball, and the Blazer Alumni

Halberstam's "Breaks of the Game" Available 02.17.2009

Halberstam's "Breaks of the Game" Available 02.17.2009

Day of Mourning: Kevin Duckworth has died