Root for the Home Team

I grew up in Oregon during the glory days of the Portland Trail Blazers, which was the early 90s for those of you not following the NBA 20+ years ago. It was the era of Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey, Terry Porter, Kevin Duckworth, Cliff Robinson...and yes, I was such a hard-core fan that I just listed those players from memory! (It probably helped that my family regularly used our Dairy Queen Blazers' collector glasses, also.)

I remember in elementary school, we were putting on some type of choir concert and convinced our teacher that we should change the words to a song about eagles flying to instead be about "Drexler in the sky, racing to the hoop!" During the playoffs, my sister and I made posters to hang in the back windows of our station wagon heralding the excellence of the Blazers and the lameness of all their opponents with such colorful puns as "the Jazz are singing the blues," and "the Bulls are seeing red!"

But over the years, my attention to basketball waned as other pursuits became more important, and before I knew it, I didn't really recognize any players on the team any more. Then I moved to Seattle, home of the Supersonics (at least at that time). How could I keep cheering for the Blazers in the home town of their rivals? So, I opted out of following basketball. A subsequent move to DC planted me firmly in Wizards territory, but as a grad student in International Relations, I didn't have much time or brain power to devote to such domestic interests as professional sports.

Now, here we are in Memphis, home of the Grizzlies. This town is crazy about their team! And really, it's easy to be a fan, because they are great players. The Grizzlies are facing the Blazers in the first round of the playoffs, and I must confess that I'm cheering for my new home team. It feels a bit weird after growing up as a Blazers fan, but things change and people move on. Go Grizz!