On June 5, 1977, the Portland Trail Blazers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers to win their first and only NBA championship.
The next day, a victory parade made its way through downtown Portland in 100 degree heat. Two hundred-fifty thousand fanatics attended the spectacle, some wearing homemade commemorative T-shirts, some hanging off fire escapes, lamp posts, trees, anything for a better view, and it became the largest public gathering in Oregon history, topping the number who took to Portland's streets to celebrate the end of World War II on VJ Day.
That was authentic Blazermania and the NBA had never seen anything like it. Nor had the veteran sportswriters who covered the league. Many were cynical in their reports on the Blazers and their insane fans, but Curry Kirkpatrick, writing in Sports Illustrated after Portland won it all, got it:
Blazermania was the force behind the Trail Blazers winning their final 18 games in the Coliseum, including 10 in the playoffs, including, of course, the world championship. Run a lap. Kiss a fir tree. Throw away an aerosol can. Chug-a-lug boysenberry kumquat juice. And root for Bill Walton. You've got Blazermania.
What Blazermania demonstrated beyond anything else was that in an age when pro sports is so often the dull child of dismal bigness, a team by its style, character and wholesome ways can still manage to personalize itself, enchant its audience and make everybody feel good. The Trail Blazers didn't simply win the NBA championship. They related. They shared. They got down to their people. In the peculiarly accurate street vernacular of the NBA, the standard opening greeting of "Wha's happenin'?" finally can be answered:
"Portland is, what is."
