The voice of my childhood died on January 21. Bill Schonely, a.k.a. the Schonz, the longtime radio voice of the Portland Trail Blazers and the man who coined the name Rip City, died at 93.
This essay was adapted from the Alta newsletter, delivered every Thursday.
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Schonely was the team’s first play-by-play man. Beginning with the team’s inaugural NBA season, in 1970, he called almost every game for 28 seasons and was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.
In the days before regional cable, before SportsCenter, before Inside the NBA, and before Blazers point guard Damian “Dame” Lillard had 3.2 million followers on Twitter, when only a smattering of Blazers games were even broadcast on local TV, it was Schonely’s singular voice on 50,000-watt KEX that beamed the Blazers’ story across the Northwest.
The Schonz began each broadcast with “Good evening, basketball fans, wherever you may be” and signed off with “Goodnight, eeeevvrybody.” During the games, his smooth baritone narrated the drama of our guys, from the 1977 championship I can’t remember to the early-’90s Finals runs helmed by Clyde “the Glide” Drexler that I will never forget. Schonely told us how they “crossed the cyclops at midcourt,” moved “lickety brindle up the middle,” “scooped to the hoop,” and scored. “Bingo, bango, bongo!” And when a play really popped off the court, he had his catchphrase: “Rip City!”
Schonely was so beloved—and Portlanders so thin-skinned—that it was common practice to turn down the sound of nationally televised games and place a radio tuned to the Schonz near your set.
Schonely was patient zero for Blazermania, inviting anyone within earshot to catch the fever. When he wasn’t broadcasting games, he’d traverse the state in his red Cadillac with RIPCITY plates, visiting small radio stations to spread the good word about the team. While the hysteria that gripped the state in the wake of its lone championship has morphed into a very specific kind of collective trauma known to fans of small-market teams whose seasons often end in heartbreak, the love is real. Today, Rip City, Schonely’s rallying call, is inescapable in Portland. There is Rip City Painting. Ripcity Cars. Rip City Roofing. Rip City Grill. The Blazers’ merch store is called Rip City Clothing.
In my house, we had it bad. My dad listened to the Schonz at high volume. He was half-deaf from working in the metal shop, creating prototypes at Tektronix. We listened along with him whether we wanted to or not. My mother was a short-tempered schoolteacher trying to correct assignments. In exasperation, she bought Dad a little yellow Walkman for his birthday so he could listen with headphones.
Dad cranked that Walkman so loud, I could still follow the action from a distance. I wanted to be around him. My dad was a safe harbor in our house. He was quiet with an easy smile. He told us stories about growing up on a farm in Nebraska. The years his family worked rented farms were lean, and he came to love the abundance of Oregon. Almost anything would grow here, he said. I remember a T-shirt he had that said something like, “If you live a good life and say your prayers, when you die you’ll go to Oregon.”
The Blazers were the biggest thing going in his adopted state. He loved them, win or lose. Usually lose.
In 1998, Blazers owner Paul Allen unceremoniously declined to renew Schonely’s contract, replacing him on-air with the more demonstrative Brian Wheeler. I loved Wheeler, too, streaming his broadcasts despite moving away from Oregon to the East Coast, California, and even China. In 2002, my dad died of a sudden heart attack. I kept listening to those voices from home.
I returned to Portland when my oldest daughter was born because my wife and I could (kind of) afford to buy a house. But even for someone who grew up here, Portland’s long, gray winters are hard to endure. When it’s pitch-black at 4:30 p.m. and raining buckets, it’s hard to feel like you lived a good life and died and went to Oregon.
The Blazers, though, make it easier. Maybe I just tell myself this to justify the amount of time I spend watching games with my daughters. Dad’s not here anymore. When the team’s rolling, I call my friend Tony and my nephew Nick to ask if this could be the year. Often as not, the team seems to be falling apart, riddled with injuries and hamstrung by small-market talent. I text Tony and Nick to bemoan the Blazers’ sorry state. Nick tells me to stay positive. “Good vibes only,” he replies. I try. We all try.
When Dame and CJ McCollum led the Blazers to the 2019 Western Conference Finals, I bought standing-room tickets to almost every game. I went with my brothers, my nephew, and Tony. We wore our Blazers stuff. I’m still deaf from the great roar that erupted when Dame hit that shot.
Schonely was often in the arena at those home games. He wore his Blazers championship ring and mixed with the fans of Rip City, frequently wishing aloud that he would live to see the team win another ring. He didn’t make it. At this rate, I might not either.
I didn’t know Schonely. Not personally. But news of his death hit me in a place I didn’t expect. His voice was always there, whether it was raining or not, whether the Blazers were winning or losing. He gave Rip City something to rally around.
People had been preparing for him to die for decades. He survived a heart attack in 1981. He outlived radio’s heyday. He outlived the reach of mass media. The Oregonian prepared his advance obituary more than eight years ago. He lived so long that his biographer, Kerry Eggers, had to publish an updated biography more than two decades after the release of the first edition.
When he finally passed, I felt a pang of grief I didn’t see coming. I thought of my dad, of the safety I felt in his presence. Of how with each passing year, it grows harder to conjure his memory. And here was another piece of his world that was gone.
Bill Schonely was more than just a voice on the radio. He was the narrator of so many memories I’ve shared with other Blazers fans, with other Oregonians. He planted the seed of Blazermania, the thing we all love together. Like everything else in Oregon, it grew.•
Kerry Seed has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, WashingtonPost.com, NYTimes.com, NPR and BBC. He produced several episodes about basketball in China for Sports Explains the World, a forthcoming podcast from Meadowlark Media.
