No audio (podcast) version is available at this time.
By Finn J.D. John
|
The NBA’s expansion committee consisted of Abe Pollin of the Baltimore Bullets (later the Washington Wizards), Fred Zollner of the Detroit Pistons, Tommy Cousens of the Atlanta Hawks, and Carl Scheer, a representative of NBA Commissioner Walter Kennedy. Glickman leaped into action, got on the phone, and called everyone he could think of who could arrange interim financing for the cash that would be needed to launch a team. After the team was launched, a public stock offering would cover the loan handily; but that would take much more time than Glickman had just now. He had gone through his phone list and was waiting for callbacks when the time came to jump on a plane and go plead Portland’s case, so — hoping something would happen while he was in the air — he did so. Nothing happened, though, and Glickman found himself the next day in the super-unenviable position of having to tell the committee the interim financing was still up in the air. Committee members were visibly dismayed at this. By this time, they all knew Harry Glickman, if not personally then by reputation; and to know Glickman was to be his friend — he was that kind of personality. Nobody wanted to tell him no. Plus, they were all impressed with the work he had done, and they believed him when he assured them that he would line up the financing in short order. His word was bankable, and they all knew that. So one of the members — Tommy Cousens of the Atlanta Hawks, who Glickman had actually never met in person until now — promptly offered to pony up a quarter-million if Glickman could find funds to match it from his Portland people. That would get him over the hump and they could say yes to him. Could he do that? This offer kept the deal alive for another 24 hours or so, which would turn out to be critically important. “It’s superfluous to add that I fell in love with Cousens in exactly five seconds,” Glickman wrote, in his 1978 memoir. Glickman promised to give it his level best. Then, as quickly as courtesy allowed, he got himself back to his hotel room and got on the phone. No dice. Nobody seemed to have the lettuce. So close, and yet …. But just as Glickman was thinking Portland’s bid was as good as dead, plucked, and roasted fork-tender, the phone rang again. Suddenly everything was changed. The IPO was now a no-go — big fish with deep pockets had stepped up. New Jersey real estate developer Bob Schmertz had jumped aboard along with Seattle businessman Herman Sarkowsky, and they wanted to finance the franchise privately in partnership with Beverly Hills real estate developer Larry Weinberg. And they had $750,000 ready to go. “I went back to the room and said, ‘Hey guys, time out, there’s a new deal,’” Glickman recalled later, in his memoir. “I explained that we were now going to have a privately financed company.” The committee members were no doubt relieved to hear this. Pollin told Glickman to get a letter of credit ready and present the whole thing to a meeting of all the league’s owners, scheduled for noon the following day. Glickman got on the phone to Sarkowsky, who told him he’d have his banker in Tacoma get in touch the next morning. Glickman can’t have felt too comfortable with this — bankers didn’t start work until 10 a.m., which would give him very little time to get the documentation he needed and get back to the Bev for that noon deadline. So the next morning, at 10 a.m. on the dot, he called the bank. He was referred to a banker named Hugh Darling at the bank’s sister institution in Los Angeles. “I called Darling,” Glickman said. “He had never heard of me, Sarkowsky, the NBA or anything. He called Tacoma, called me back and said yes, he would handle my problem.” So at a few minutes after 10 a.m., Glickman was on his way to downtown L.A. to pick up the letter. He got lost on the way. By the time Glickman found his way to the bank branch, it was already 11:15 — and it was a half-hour drive back to the hotel, even if he didn’t get lost again. He raced into the bank and found Darling yelling into the telephone, having a heated discussion with someone. “He waved me to a chair where I sat biting my nails for about 10 minutes,” Glickman recalled. “When he finished, he started asking me questions about Portland and the NBA.” Without being too offensive, Glickman managed to redirect Darling’s attention back to the letter, which was just on the verge of being too late. Darling dictated the letter to his secretary, who brought it over for him to sign. Alas, there was a typo on it. He told her to take it away and retype it. “I said, ‘Don’t bother with that, just initial it and give me the damn letter,’” Glickman said. “Which he did.” Racing to the parking lot, Glickman leaped into his car and started running every red light and blowing through every stop sign between downtown L.A. and the Beverly Wilshire. When he got there, it was 12:05 p.m. And when he burst into the room, he found that Pollin — the Baltimore Bullets owner — was in the bathroom. Pollin “told me he had been worried about my lateness so had asked for a recess while he went to the john,” Glickman said. “He remained there until I arrived with my letter.” The NBA representatives took the information and told Glickman to come back at 3 p.m. When he did, he was told that, congratulations — Portland was now officially an NBA city. The rest of the story of the Portland Trail Blazers — including how they got their name, which is arguably the best team name in professional sports, and their progress from nothing to the NBA World Championship in 1977 — is a story for another day.
|
