I'm somewhat of an old-timer, but I will share my earliest memories of the Blazers. Hopefully, this won't bore you all to tears.

It all began on a rainy night in December, 1970. I was in the third grade and lived in the Bridlemile neighborhood of Southwest Portland. My dad took me to my first Trailblazer game at the Memorial Coliseum. The opponent was theDetroit Pistons。我记得这是一个损失，111-103，因为那些日子里有很多回来。Dave Bing和Bob Lanier是活塞的星星，对于我们的小型扩张团队来说，太多了​​。我记得阅读游戏节目封面封面 - 鲍勃拉明尔去了圣金纳维登费学院 - 在赫克哪里？我很高兴地说出响亮的声名 - “Bonaventure”。我记得大剧院的氛围，爆米花，烟，大人群（4000人是一个大人群回来）。没有舞者或管道音乐或巨型视频屏幕，只有男人打篮球，被当时的机器音乐演奏中断。我每次射门都生活和死亡。尽管造成了损失，我回家满意与旧的猩红色和黑色轮转焰火的白旗（上下，不倾斜），不能等待与朋友分享经验。我迷上了生活 - 几乎 - 囚犯确实让我走了一段时间。

Portland was much smaller back then. There was no Washington Square, no Fremont Bridge, no Marquam Bridge, no Pearl District, no I-205. The Vista Ridge Tunnel was a year away from opening. Highway 217 was not a highway yet, just a road with stoplights. Beaverton was actually out of town a ways, with fields in between. Beaverton-Hillsdale highway to Barbur Boulevard was the main route into town from the West.

我了解了所有的拖车者的名字，他们来自哪里。Leroy Ellis，Dale Schleuter，瑞克阿德尔曼, Geoff Petrie, Terry Dischinger. I found out Gary Gregor was from Charleston, West Virginia, the same hometown as my dad, so he became my favorite player. My dad recalled playing baseball with his brother, Dick Gregor. The Trailblazers were the new shiny toy in town. I remember at that time, the Portland Buckaroos hockey team was the main sports team. At the local Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor restaurant - oh, how I miss that place, the roaring 20's theme, the music, and all the ice cream creations like the Pigs Trough and the Portland Zoo- the pictures on the wall were of Buckaroos who had eaten there, not Blazers. The Buckaroos were the lead-in for the sports report every night on TV, not the Blazers.

我不仅为那些在电视上的那些少数游戏（KPTV 12只在麦克斯·琼斯而在MIC，没有电缆，没有国家电视），我曾经写过游戏脚本，那么就像希蒙斯都会称之为广播里。例如：“Rick Adelman通过Midcourt的独眼巨人跳舞。将它用它来到Mackenzie，警卫前进交换。斯坦利Mac将它传给Petrie。Petrie驱动器并将其铺设在一起！他去了舔斑，在中间徘徊！”西装外套是我的运动队。当我和我最好的朋友一起打篮球时，我会成为Leroy Ellis，他将是卷曲的杯或Walt Bellamy或Lew Alcindor。我收集了那些泡泡胶包装的所有NBA交易卡。我会把角落从卡片上脱落，为拓扑制品玩家 - 他们很特别。我在我的小电池供电的晶体管收音机上听了所有的游戏，经常在父母认为我睡着的时候在枕头下隐藏在枕头下。我难以记住一款年轻的燃烧者挖掘了强大的游戏湖人队after Gail Goodrich had missed three straight free throws. It was as if they had slayed Paul Bunyan.

在1971年，在我的第四年年级 - 我的家庭决定搬到弗吉尼亚州罗阿诺克的一个可怕的事情。我怎么能在背后留下我的心爱的拖车者？他们起草了超级西德尼的灯芯，并在我脑海中的尖叫声。我身体哭着乞求我爸爸不要让我们搬家，因为燃烧者。我完全伤心了。但我们这样做了。一年来，我的体育迷效忠被切换到追随股票赛车，大学橄榄球（我父亲最喜欢的Notre Dame总是在收音机上），ABA团队称为弗吉尼亚州的热门新秀名为Julius Erving。我不认为当地纸张甚至印刷NBA分数。

A miracle happened though, in the summer of 1972, my mom and dad decided to move us back to Portland. Hallelujah! I would be able to follow my beloved Trailblazers again. Not only that, the Trailblazers had drafted LaRue Martin. I had never heard of him, but he was the first pick in the entire NBA draft. Now, the Trailblazers would surely turn the corner and become a winning team.

正如我们所知,没有结果。尽管those seasons between 1972 and 1976 were not the most glorious, I still kept idolizing the team and its players. I remember seeing Johnny Johnson (who would later win an NBA championship with Seattle) in the Raleigh Hills Fred Meyer looking at records. I tried to muster the courage to ask for an autograph, but did not. I just smiled at him and said hi, and he smiled back. Lenny Wilkens was my favorite player, I didn't know then he was also the coach. He always seemed to be in charge of things. I remember them drafting Bill Walton, thinking this may be the year, then going to a game and finding out he had grown his hair into a ponytail and had a beard and didn't look at all like a basketball player to me anymore. I couldn't understand why the fans were booing him though. He seemed to be trying out there, but there was something missing. He always seemed to miss a lot of games and sit on the bench with a cast on his leg, looking disinterested. My other favorite player was Lionel "Train" Hollins, although I remember listening to a game in which ahe had a particularly bad shooting night. He was hearing it from the crowd, and according to the Schonz, "started waving to the crowd". I wonder if that's what he really did or if he used that certain finger. That's when the radio announcers and the press looked after the players, I guess.

在预热之前，我会下到地板上，从球员那里获得签名。由于粗短的铅笔，我曾经嘲笑我曾经嘲笑我。我还是一个粉丝，但失败对我来说很旧。在开拓者队会有一个胜利赛季之前，我认为这将是一段时间，更不用说季后赛。季后赛和锦标赛只属于纽约，波士顿和洛杉矶等地。我变得有点不感兴趣。

I had also started becoming a fan of the new sport in town, soccer. The Timbers were now the new shiny toy. They had engaging players with cute accents. I learned this foreign game and became enthralled by it. If there was ever a mania in Portland, this was the first one. The Timbers made it all the way to the Soccer Bowl (wow, that almost sounds like the Super Bowl!), and crowds of 30,000+ packed Civic Stadium. I started to idolize players named Mick and Graham and Clive. The Blazers had become secondary. In 1976, that was all about to change.

I won't recap the whole championship season. I was tempted by my friends to skip school and ride the TriMet bus downtown for the victory parade, heck it was almost the end of school anyway, but I didn't want my parents to find out and chickened out. Even more amazing to me was the 50-10 start to '77-78, and all the euphoria it caused. Portland was just in a wild state of delirium. I would be among those 3000 people who would pack the Paramount theater (now the Schnitz) to watch most of the Blazers home games on closed circuit TV, because the MC was always sold out. The Blazers were now on national TV almost every week, blowing out opponents by 40 on the road and having their coaches apologize to their city and fans. Portland had finally joined the big leagues, but alas the delirium ended way too soon when Walton got hurt. The end of a short but magical era. It hurt even more because the Sonics took our place at the top of the NBA.

Nothing since in sports has created that same level of euphoria for me like that run after the championship. It was as dominant a team in professional sports that I had ever seen or have seen since. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.