Schonz calls it a career: ‘Good night, everybody!’
As would be expected, Bill Schonely did not have the most restful night of sleep on Sunday.
Pros vs. Joes No. 14: From board opp to clone to talk-show host, Chad Doing is getting it done
Purveyors of sports talk radio like Chad “The Body” Doing for several reasons.
One, he’s likable. But it goes far beyond that.
Talking All-Star Game to Portland (nope), Geoff Petrie and Jerry West, Gary Payton and Lester Conner, The Kamikaze Kids … and more
Items on my mind during the chilly final days of February …
• Thought for the day provided by Frank “The Flake” Peters, at 78 still a juvenile at heart:
With Neil Everett and Dewayne Hankins, talking Blazer broadcasting for 2021-22
Summing up the Blazer broadcasting scene for the upcoming season — and there are plenty of changes …
• Neil Everett sounded like a kid in a candy store when I caught up with him via phone while he was at his vacation cottage in Seaside.
“I just found a vintage Trail Blazers jacket at an antique store in town,” Everett told me. “I don’t know what year it’s from, but it has to be 30 to 40 years old and it looks like it’s never been worn. I’m so fired up.”
Everett paid $300 for the jacket.
On Kevin Calabro and Jordan Kent, the sports broadcasting scene in Portland, Ime Udoka, James Allen, the Cambia Portland Classic and much more …
Knocking it around on a potpourri of sports topics …
• Kevin Calabro’s return to the broadcasting booth with the Trail Blazers is not a done deal.
The Blazers, who let Jordan Kent go last week as their TV play-by-play announcer, have extended an offer in principle to Calabro, who served as their TV play-by-play man from 2016-20 but gave up his job during the COVID-19-interrupted 2020 campaign.
I’m no fan of no fans at Moda, and neither is Damian Lillard
Having left the newspaper business in April after 45 years, I’d not been to a Trail Blazer game at Moda Center until Sunday’s date with the New York Knicks.
Portland PR honchos Jim Taylor and Jake Gifford were good enough to credential me and allow me to experience first-hand what it’s like to be in an NBA arena without fans due to COVID-19.
Hey Guys! I Was Listening
Seems that Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells used the occasion of a recent interview on “Rip City Drive” to engage a little hit-and-run action on my book, “Jail Blazers: How the Portland Trail Blazers Became the Bad Boys of Basketball.”