Tough Times in Portland and also, Hello!

My name is Allie, and this is my introductory blogpost.

Let me start by saying that I don't know very much about sports. Previously, I believed that my lack of knowledge was because of a very intentional decision to "not participate." Growing up un-athletic in the Hawkeye-saturated Iowa City, I associated all sports fans with the undifferentiated tools that took over my town on weekends and used it as an excuse to behave belligerently and violently. In my defense, these people are impossible to ignore; and if you are not of their ilk, they are also impossible to tolerate. In fact, their presence had some significant impact on the speed at which I came to the realization that I had to leave Iowa City.

Much to my amazement, shortly after arriving in Portland, Oregon I rediscovered my love for basketball. Credit has to go to my partner, who closeted his love of sports until I loved him too much to let it be a deal-breaker early on. Even before we arrived in PDX, he began expressing his excitement about living in a basketball town again, as he had in his hometown of Chicago. I politely nodded as he gave me the details about the Trailblazers organization being on an upswing, with their newish poster boy, Brandon Roy and their promising first-round draft pick, center Greg Oden.

At this point, long ago, in the year 2008, I could never have envisioned myself, two years later, screaming at the television, shouting unheard advice to the players and actually feeling pain or relief depending on the outcome of a game. But here I am.

It doesn't hurt that basketball on the whole has a "calmer" audience - partially, I think, due to the frequency of games. Football's ritualized sacred day, for many, is a 24-hour event, starting at 6 am with tailgating and ending, I can only guess, in one's own vomit. In basketball, one's team plays about 3 to 5 times a week, and on no particular day, and there are about a billion more games in a season. Basketball fans wouldn't survive the season if we partied the way American football fans do.

Yes, I realize I am comparing college football fans to NBA basketball fans; the reality is, these are my only real experiences of sports fan culture. I much prefer the latter, though I no longer scoff at any fan's love for his or her team. I only hope that they continue to celebrate somewhere far, far away from me.

My short relationship so far with the Trailblazers has been an emotional roller-coaster, an experience only augmented by our honeymoon period. It's been two years now - both years, we (yes, "we" is now how I refer to my team) have been a successful underdog, an inspiring story of fighting through adversity. Last year was the toughest of the two, with a slew of devastating injuries which forced the strength of our deep bench to pull through and still make it to the playoffs. Our players missed a combined total of 311 games due to injury. It was depressing, but also extremely impressive to see them come up with a 50-32 record, and make it to the competitive Western conference.

We lost in the first round to Phoenix, but the story of the season was by and large a good one.

This year is going to be an interesting one for the Trailblazers. We are at a make or break point already, and new and old injuries continue to plague us. But that is for another post, another time.

So, I'll leave it at that and say: Hello! And welcome to the world of nerd-sports-fan dilettantism!