What’s in a name? A lot of fun stuff …
To our readers:
I’ve always gotten a kick out of some of the unusual names of sports figures. For fun, I’m re-posting a column I wrote for the Portland Tribune in 2013 on the same subject from a national perspective (Can’t believe I left out race car driver Dick Trickle.)
Despite COVID-19, it has been a ‘Fantastic Year’ for new Beaver wrestling coach Chris Pendleton
It wasn’t what Chris Pendleton had in mind when he dreamed about his first year as Oregon State’s wrestling coach.
To begin with, the season was abbreviated due to COVID-19. From January 14 to February 14, five meets were canceled. At one time, the Beavers had seven wrestlers — including a pair of starters — in 14-day quarantine due to contact tracing.
“We had kids stuck at home,” Pendleton says. “We had assistant coaches delivering wrestling mats to their apartments to try get their workouts. That made it tough.
Thoughts on the Portland Diamond Project, Kevin Love and Payton Pritchard, Bill Schonely, Jermar Jefferson, Hamilcar Rashed and a new book by Ben Golliver …
Questions on your mind, for which I have answers …
• What’s going on with the Portland Diamond Project? It’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything about the bid for major league baseball in the city.
A: A lot, says PDP managing partner Mike Barrett.
“We’ve been crazy busy,” Barrett tells me. “I can’t give you any specifics. Hopefully, we’ll be in position to be able to speak publicly on it soon, but we’re in a sensitive time right now.
Brian Grant’s autobiographical confessional is worth the read
One of Portland’s favorite sons has come out with his autobiography, and it’s a good one.
Brian Grant’s life story, written with author/sports journalist Ric Bucher, was released April 6 and is in bookstores and available on-line wherever books are sold.
Grant, 49, decided to write the book after a discussion with long-time friend and business associate Brian Berger.
“I was telling stories,” Grant says. “And Brian said, ‘Maybe now is the time to write the book.’ I thought back about my life and decided I’m ready to talk about not just my basketball career but other things — my personal life, getting Parkinson’s Disease, growing up in Ohio, becoming a man in the Northwest.”
Book Your Flight To Some Summer Reading Adventures …
I have a bit of a love/hate thing about John Thompson.
Like/dislike, to be more accurate.
Dislike because I often felt that about the way Thompson, the Hall of Fame basketball coach at Georgetown, went about his business.
Like because I very much enjoyed reading his autobiography, published posthumously and given to me as a Christmas present by my son Troy.
2 computer screens, 2 TVs, a cell phone, and I have the Masters covered …
By Steve Brandon
For me, it’s a tradition unlike any other.
Not just the Masters. Watching the Masters on television.
One week every April, I set aside at least one room in the house to smell the azaleas, hear the roars, feel the highs and lows at Amen Corner and immerse myself in America’s historic and illustrious cradle of golf.
‘The Whale’ spouts off on the great running backs in Oregon State history
By Jim Wilson
(Editor’s note: Oregon State’s spring practice began on April 6. To get Beaver Nation in football mode, radio analyst extraordinaire Jim “The Whale” Wilson offers his appraisal of the top five running backs in Beaver history.)
Jermar Jefferson officially ended his Oregon State career when he declared for the NFL draft in December 2020. That didn’t come as a surprise to most Beaver fans, but it does leave a huge vacancy in the Beaver backfield as Jefferson was one of the best to ever tote the football for the Orange and Black.
In three years — make that one full year and two partial seasons — Jefferson leapfrogged into the conversation as one of the top five running backs in Beaver history. He is fifth in career rushing yards behind a decorated group that includes Ken Simonton, Steven Jackson, Jacquizz Rodgers and Yvenson Bernard.
Ex-Beaver greats weigh in on Tinkle, 2020-21 Beavers …
We asked a collection of names familiar to Beaver Nation — most of them former players — for their opinion of this year’s Oregon State team, which faces Loyola of Chicago at 11:40 a.m. PDT in a Sweet Sixteen showdown of underdogs. Their responses, in alphabetical order:
JIMMY ANDERSON (player from 1957-59, assistant coach from 1961-90, head coach from 1990-95):
“I haven’t missed a practice all year, so I have a pretty good handle on why the season has gone like it has. They brought in five new and (coach Wayne Tinkle’s) defensive system is a little complicated.
Hot meets hot As Beavers, Ramblers collide in Sweet Sixteen
Oregon State has reached the NCAA Tournament’s “Sweet Sixteen” for the first time since 1982, when Lester Conner led a young crew of post-“Orange Express” Beavers to an “Elite Eight” appearance.
That team featured Conner, juniors William Brew and Danny Evans, sophomore Charlie Sitton and a freshman named A.C. Green. The Elite Eight matchup with Georgetown ended badly, with the Hoyas, led by center Patrick Ewing, administering a 69-45 whipping. Georgetown would go on to lose to North Carolina 63-62 in the NCAA finals.
Fronk was one of Oregon’s great athletes, ‘and the kind of person to match’
Bob Fronk was easy-going, smart, inquisitive, competitive and, among other things, one heck of an athlete.
Most of those traits are indisputable, especially the last one, as those who watched Fronk — who died in Portland Thursday at age 62 — play sports in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
Fronk, however, was not lucky.
Rueck: ‘We’re confident, we’re gritty. That’s what it takes this time of year’
Patience, a poet once wrote, “is a companion of wisdom.”
I’ve grown to appreciate Scott Rueck’s wisdom since our paths first crossed more than a decade ago.
It has taken me until this year to understand his patience.
In late January, the Oregon State women’s basketball team was 3-5 and had lost more games to COVID-19 than it had played. Having lost three top players from the previous season to graduation (Mikayla Pivec), transfer (Destiny Slocum) and injury (Kennedy Brown) and dealing with an almost entirely new lineup, it would have been easy for a coach to write this off as a building year and starting thinking about next season.
Cool Hand Luke, the ultimate underdog: ‘We like shocking people’
If anyone on Oregon State’s basketball roster can identify with the underdog, it’s Jared Lucas.
After scoring points at a prodigious rate — almost beyond comprehension — in four years at Los Altos High in Hacienda Heights, Calif., the sharpshooting guard was largely overlooked by Pac-12 schools.
When the media forecast OSU to finish 12th in the Pac-12 before the season, Lucas developed a chip on his shoulder the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.
“Cool Hand Luke” was as big a reason as any why the Beavers came from nowhere to claim the Pac-12 Tournament
Tinkle: ‘It’s the most rewarding season I’ve had, for sure’
I believe it was Cinderella who once famously observed, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.”
That and, I would add, hard work. And perseverance. And dedication in working toward a common goal.
Oregon State wound up wearing the glass slipper for all of those reasons Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.
Talking Jail Blazers, Jerome Kersey and the NBA with the 3&D Love Podcast crew …
I had fun spending an hour with these Portland natives and obviously diehard Blazer fans. We covered a lot of ground and a lot of NBA history. Give it a listen!
Pondering what’s happening with Damian Lillard, Ethan Thompson, Chris Duarte and Terry Porter …
Ruminations on roundball heading into the weekend …
• There is plenty of consternation in Rip City over the NBA’s “snub” of Damian Lillard as a starter in the upcoming All-Star Game. You fans who are up in arms: Sit down right now. You still have a chance to win the “Biofreeze Hoop With Dame” contest, where you can shoot it out with Lillard and win up to $100,000. (Personally, I’d rather have it out with Brooke Olzendam in ping pong.).
Thoughts on Tyler Shough, Ryan Crouser, Paul Castro, the Hops and Volcanoes, NBA-All-Star Weekend and the real G.O.A.T
A wintry weekend? Snow way!
Thoughts on some sporting subjects:
• Item: Oregon quarterback Tyler Shough enters the NCAA transfer portal.
With Scott Barnes and Bob de Carolis, talking everything Reser Stadium
On Tuesday, five days after the seismic announcement that Oregon State will “complete” Reser Stadium, I spoke for a half-hour with Scott Barnes via telephone.
The Beavers’ athletic director seemed flush with emotion over reaction to plans for a $153-million project that will upgrade the west side of Reser and augment the $80-million renovation to the east side that was completed in 2005.
A fond farewell to Herb Brown, the octogenarian Oregonian who has coached the world
Put Herb Brown in among the famous Oregonians who flies under the radar in the world of sports.
The older brother (by 4 1/2 years) of Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Brown is an accomplished casaba coach in his own right.
Brown, who turns 85 in March, is most well-known for his time spent as head coach of the Detroit Pistons from 1975-77.
But Brown’s resume is replete with stops throughout the world. The native New Yorker has had assistant coaching jobs with eight franchises, including the Trail Blazers. He was a member of Maurice Cheeks’ Portland staff from 2001-03.
Cinderella’s slippers come in size 14 for ex-Beaver tackle Mike Remmers
There will be dozens, maybe hundreds or personal stories that come out of the lead-up to Super Bowl LV. I’m not sure any are more Walter Mitty-ish of nature than that of Mike Remmers.
The Beaverton resident and Jesuit High and Oregon State grad will be starting at left tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs as they face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.