Schonz's return shot was a "Rip City"

By steve brandon

The Portland Tribune, Oct 20, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (5 Reader comments)

L.E. BASKOW / THE PORTLAND TRIBUNE

Trail Blazer legend Bill Schonely graces the Memorial Coliseum sellout crowd with a pregame song, before calling the radio play-by-play in an emotional return to the microphone in the second half of Wednesday's game against Phoenix.

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"The Schonz" showed Wednesday night that he can still deliver more than voiceovers and sales pitches for Standard TV & Appliance and other businesses.

The 80-year-old Schonely, as every real Trail Blazer fan knows, returned to your "radio dial" after halftime of Portland's exhibition game against Phoenix at Memorial Coliseum. What a joy it was to hear those golden tones calling play-by-play again.

It was a billed as a one-quarter tribute, but thanks to the graciousness of the team's current radio leading man, Brian Wheeler, the nostalgia lasted the entire second half. Here's a big Rip City to that decision.

The third quarter seemed to fly by and ended all too soon. By itself, it would have come across too much like just a cameo appearance.

Letting Schonz go the final 12 minutes of action also gave him a well-deserved chance to call something that mattered – a game that was up for grabs, even if it was just a preseason game.

The Blazers were the ones who faltered down the stretch on this occasion, not Schonely, as Nate McMillan's crew lost 110-104, never even generating a run for Schonely to call in the second half.

Many thousands of you no doubt have your personal memories of Schonely and his long reign as THE voice of the Blazers. Mine go back to the inaugural 1970-71 season. I was 16 and newly equipped with a driver's license. Gas was about 36 cents a gallon, and cruising was still something to do in Portland. On many a teen-age night, my friends and I would spend a few hours learning the roads of the city, staying open to potential conversation with the opposite sex but inevitably settling for a close encounter with a drive-in burger – and, most important, listening to Schonely and the Blazers on the car's AM radio.

It was the major leagues, and there was the great Geoff Petrie and other new heroes. And soon came Bill Walton, Maurice Lucas, Jack Ramsay and all the other players in that all-too-brief championship period.

Many more good years followed, along with the opportunity for me to become a professional sports writer and even cover the team – getting to meet and know Schonely in the process.

A better gentleman, friend and tireless giver to causes one cannot find. Which makes it so neat that the Blazer organization was able to give something special back to him on Wednesday. The "Rip City" uniforms for the game were a great, added touch, too.

But I come to you today not just to praise Schonely, but to critique him.

On Wednesday night, I made sure to be home in time for the third quarter. I turned on the radio in the living room, with my 14-year-old son on the couch nearby. I was too nervous to sit, wanting Schonely to do well, and wound up standing the entire second half. I felt like Nipper, the dog in the old RCA Victor logo listening to the cylinder phonograph.

My son is a sports fan who has met the Schonz but obviously had never heard him do much more than emcee an event or talk about past Blazer events in taped interviews. My son is used to following play-by-play via "game cast" one-line descriptions on the Internet, but I think he understood that this was going to be a historic, sentimental quarter of otherwise forgettable basketball.

We were both impressed by how easy on the ears it was to hear Schonely call the action. His voice and delivery are unique in this era – it's like you're sitting there next to him, blindfolded, and he's calmly (for the most part) telling you what's going on. He's not trying to wow you with his knowledge of the game or his ability to recite a litany of facts and figures, he's just riding the waves of emotion with you, from basket to turnover to missed free throw to "dribble drive." He's your broadcaster/favorite uncle. You trust him to tell you the things you need to know – who has the ball, did the Blazers make the shot or not, what's the time and score.

And, of course, the sound of his words flows into your ears like warm apple cider going down your throat on a chilly winter night.

Yes, he was understandably a bit rusty Wednesday – but not much. And, it should be noted, the game he had to call was relatively frenzied for this day and age in the NBA – the Suns, in particular, weren't taking much time to run an offense. Schonely also had no replay screen above to look at, and, of course, was not expecting to go beyond the third quarter.

So, given his long layoff from Blazer play-by-play and the fact that he was born in the year the basketball was patented (1929), he was great.

And what an interesting contrast: Schonely and Wheeler. Two very different announcers, both with outstanding strengths.

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