The Jailblazers in Retrospect: It was never about character, it was about losing.

I remember getting into some really heated arguments with Ed back then, and it boiled down to the fact that he's all about wins and I'm not. I was embarrassed to be a fan, didn't wear my cap or t-shirts, etc., because I wasn't proud of the team, even after they won a game.

 

As a fan, I always want my team to win, but there is more to it than that. I think most people want their team to represent the city in a way that doesn't embarrass it. I think they want million dollar athletes to play hard every play.

I am a Raiders fan, and it sucks that they have been bad for so long, but I still love them because they do the best they can. They play hard, they play physical, they are bad asses on the field, but you never hear a lot of bad publicity off it.

 

I'm not sure what you mean with the second part. I have no idea how respected you are, or how respected I am or anyone else here is. I respect your posts. If you thought my comments about how you enjoy sports was a sign of my not respecting you as a fan, that isn't what I meant. As I noted, the vast majority of hardcore fans get upset and struggle to "enjoy" sports (look at our game threads...win or lose, it doesn't seem like a bunch of people having fun). I'm one of them at times (though I've tried to be better about it). I just don't see the reason to slam people who actually do enjoy sports pretty much all the time. To me, it seems like they're getting the point better than we are.

 

Yeah, to be honest I don't know what I'm thinking anymore... mostly feeling sorry for myself, I guess. I've been battling with myself over whether I'm a bad fan or no fan at all for wanting to cancel my tickets, for not wanting to go to the games I've already bought. I've decided that I'm not apathetic about the team, I'm pained by it, which means I still care. So I'm a fan.

But I can't be unique, so when I hear arguments that a lack of attendance is equivalent to apathy, I bristle a little. Or a lot. I don't think, just because winning does increase attendance, that it means we're a town of frontrunners.

Maybe they have the right of it; maybe Yankees fans from DeMoines and Heat fans from Rhode Island and Lakers fans from Tacoma all have it right: pick a winner, and enjoy winning. I watch the World Series and the Super Bowl without having any horse in any race all season. Those are enjoyable events. I cannot ever divorce my emotions from the Blazers; the team is present in too significant a portion of my memories (positive, happy memories that I cherish) for me to de-ritualize each season.

 

Yes, there's no question to me that you're a big fan. That's really the irony that I was getting at: it seems, sometimes, that the more you invest into sports (emotionally) the less pure enjoyment you get back. The more emotional investment you have, the less it becomes a fun past-time and more of an emotional obligation. So, to be a bit more flip, the bigger the fan, the less the enjoyment. That's not strictly true and certainly doesn't apply to everyone, but there's at least an element of that.

As for the character of sports fandom in Portland...I don't think "attendance tracks winning" is a slam on Portland, because it's basically true in almost every city (there are a very, very few exceptions...like the Green Bay Packers or Chicago Cubs, but that's for circumstantial reasons). It's a facet of fanbases, not specific cities. People want to watch winners (in general). Losing teams draw mostly empty stands. It's not a Portland thing.

 

The moralists peered out of their church basements and didn't like a bunch of loud black guys on a local team. But Whitsitt had attendance high, so all they could do was use the Oregonian as their mouthpiece.

After a few years of media propaganda, Paul Allen surrendered to the Religious Right, blew up the team, and Whitsitt quit. Suddenly we weren't a top team, and suddenly attendance dropped.

If the moralists had been as numerous as they pretended, that's exactly when attendance would have INCREASED.

The Oregonian recognized the danger that fans might hold the paper responsible, since the paper had forced the whole mess. To distract us from the present, the paper overpraised Whitsitt's replacement and dwelled on our inevitable golden future.

Attendance recovered, not when the loud black guys started being traded for nothing, and not when most of the loud black guys were gone, but long afterward, only when the wins resumed. That's because most fans base ticket purchases on wins, not conservative character.

The churchgoers then crowed, "See, that proves we're in the majority." If you control the media, you control the country.

 

^ That's some funny shit right there!

The churchgoers own the media and the country? Seems more like an OT forum topic, but still funny.

Go Blazers

 

The Blazers brought in character guys because it made rebuilding more palatable. However, in hindsight, doing so probably screwed them long term (dumping Zach for nothing in the name of "character" when it was probably not a good basketball decision).

 

Doesn't that mean the team thought that fans value character? What screwed the team was having two of the three players they built around having serious ongoing injury problems.

I was fine with trading Zach, but I was upset that they didn't get anything for him.

Go Blazers

 

Yes. The team/organization fucked up. The injuries are the reason for our losing, but not having more depth was an organizational screw-up.

 

We had a strong contender before we blew it up, but a weak coach.

Now we got nuthin'.

 

Not a day goes by where I don't bemoan the loss of the dynamo that was Sergio, or the All-star Travis Outlaw.

 

I was like 10 so I had no idea they were thugs. My favorite players were Zach Randolph and Bonzi Wells. I had each of their jerseys and Randolph's Michigan State jersey.

 

I won't pretend to speak for anybody but myself - but I would rather win with Sheed, Zach, and Bonzi, than lose with the current team.

As for living out-of town and not having the "thugs" as neighbors...al I can say is get serious. Those guys may have been loud, immature, even rude - but they were hardly a bunch of Al Capones. People need to take media propaganda with a bit of salt.

 

I find this post hilarious. Yes, it was the media's fault that Qyntel Woods was into dog fighting, Ruben Patterson raped his nanny, and Rasheed Wallace tried to assault a ref after a game.

 

I didn't say they would be your neighbor, I said in the community.

Street racing through downtown gets community members killed, or maimed...and you don't have to be their next door neighbor for it to happen.

Shots fired inside strip clubs and shots fired in strip club parking lots are another way that community members get killed by boneheads that aren't their neighbors.

A player beating up his girlfriend is a drain on community resources, not to mention being no class. Police, caseworkers, prosecutors and judges ain't free. Then there's the loss of time that those folks could be doing something else.

Raising and fighting pit bulls can get people maimed when they get loose, but that probably does apply more to his neighbors.

Spitting in a clerk's face doesn't get people killed, but I doubt that she was a neighbor of his.

When Blazer players do that kind of crap, I don't feel proud of being a Blazer fan, and that doesn't have anything to do with media propaganda.

Go Blazers

 

Couple of lies there. Sheed yelled at Donaghy. He was a long distance away and did not make a run at him. Ruben didn't rape a nanny, and not while here. As a Sonic before he came here, he made a maid who was his own age do oral sex. He was never accused of rape.

Whatever, it was unnecessary for the Oregonian to demand day after day for years that a 50+ win team be blown up.

 

Patterson pleaded to third degree attempted rape.

Go Blazers

 

To me the Jailblazers era started with Dontonio Wingfield, J.R. Rider and Gary Trent. That was when I first heard Jim Rome coin the term 'Jailblazer'. Then Damon's foil incident in Arizona and leaving the house wide open, with pot on the counter and the I-5 yellow Hummer incident. By 2000 it was just peaking. Then the attitudes of Sheed and Bonzi kind of put a damper on the fans in about 2002-03 with the Bonzi flipping off the fans and Sheed throwing the towel in Sabas' face. I'd say the last phase was the Miles and Z-Bo days of about 2005-06.

 

Except that the Raiders coach beats the shit out of his wives.