Interview with Kerry Eggers, Sportswriter with the Portland Tribune

If you ever want to know what it was really like in Rip City with the Portland Trail Blazers during the early '90's when Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams and Terry Porter roamed the hardwood, then Kerry Eggers will square you away.

Eggers - then with the Oregonian as a Blazers beat writer - chronicled the '92 Blazers rise to glory with longtime cohort Dwight Jaynes in, Against the World: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at the Portland Trail Blazers' Chase for the NBA Championship, a must read for any Blazers die-hard. Now with the Portland Tribune - having left the Oregonian in 2001 after two-plus decades with the company- Eggers continues to bring an inside look at Portland's climb back to prominence in the league and....dramatic pause....perhaps even a Larry O'Brien trophy one day soon. Call it Rip City revival if you will.

Until then, Eggers simply keeps writing away, discussing openly his tricks of the trade, future book hopes, his dislike of "bloggers" and how these Blazers share one particular trait with those Blazers.

How has your approach to writing changed from when you first started on the Blazers beat back in '89 to now?

It's been gradual and probably something I'm not aware of to some extent. But I believe you build on your life experiences and you kind of encounter different people and you mature as a person. All of these factors are involved. The end product is, you hope you write with a little more discretion, a little more passion and you get better as the years go on. But I guess that is up to the readers to decide.

So that first year covering the team, did it take you long to find your comfort zone?

Well, it was 1989 and it Rick Adelman's first year as a head coach and they went to the NBA Finals that year and then two years later, so I guess I kind of felt that every team I covered it was going to be like that the rest of my career, right? No, it was an amazing beginning for me because it was a great group of people like Clyde Drexler, Buck Williams, Terry Porter and all that group, and Geoff Petrie was the General Manager who I regard very highly today and Rick (Adelman) the same way. So my baptism was a good and easy one.

How did your collaboration with Dwight Jaynes on Against the World come about in 1992?

I had written a book the previous year called "Blazers Profiles", on each of the twelve players and it was kind of a puffy book, but we thought they were going to win it all that year and we thought they had a great chance at it. We thought, let's chronicle the year and kind of divide the responsibilities and see what we can come up with, and we had a publisher and darned if they didn't get knocked off by the Western Conference Finals by the Lakers with Magic (Johnson), (James) Worthy. I think they would have won it all had they got to the Finals, but you never know.

The amazing thing is, I would write one chapter and he (Jaynes) would write the next and you go back today and look and I can't tell what chapters I wrote. That's how close Dwight and I were in those days - and were still close, he's the editor of the paper (Portland Tribune). But in those days we worked together on the beat, and I think the book went fairly fluently.

Do you ever think about writing a follow-up book on the Blazers?

The book projects I have in mind don't involve the Blazers at this point to be honest with you.

What do you have in mind?

I'm hoping at some point to do a book with Pat Casey, the Oregon State baseball coach and the incredible happenings they've had with that program. We had it all set up last year but the publisher didn't work out. I guess my forte isn't finding a publisher, but I hope my forte is writing a book so I guess I need some help in that area. But it's a good book- I can tell you that- if I can get it done.

Is your approach to writing a book different from when you write a column or game time story?

I don't think the writing style changes, but it's such an enormous project. If you just had the book to do and you didn't have a job or family, it would be one thing but I have had those other responsibilities. It's just a tremendous undertaking and you have to have a long range to look at it. It's mostly reporting at first and once you have most of the information you start writing. I think the information gathering is probably the hardest part and then organizing. Those are the two things...once you have those two knocked out the writing sort of comes easy.

I don't know if I learned too much about myself (through the writing process). I felt good I was able to tackle a project and get it done in time. I've never been late on a deadline for any of the four books that I've done. You know, it's rewarding. You get through it and you look back on it. It's kind of like when I covered the Olympics - the summer Olympics twice for the Oregonian - and boy what an incredible three weeks that was. It was just helter-skelter and people ask me if it was fun. It wasn't really, but it's always fun to look back on it and the experience of doing it. I'll tell you the same thing about a book. It's hard work but once you get done it's rewarding to look back and see how you put it together.

Can you share with me about your decision to leave the Oregonian?

Dwight had left a year earlier because - and this is very ironic - they wouldn't let him do a radio show and so he went to radio. He went fulltime with radio for I think a year-and-a-half with KPAM. Then he got to talking to Bob Pamplin, owner of KPAM at that time and many community newspapers, from there they decided they wanted to put together a city newspaper. It (the Tribune) would be the anchor for his (Pamplin) empire, if you will, for sort of suburban newspapers. So Dwight was in charge of hiring bodies and called me and I guess I was ready for another challenge in my life. I had been at the Oregonian for 25 years total with the company (Eggers started at the Oregon Journal out of Oregon State University in 1975 until 1982 when the Journal merged with the Oregonian. He would remain there until he joined the Portland Tribune in 2001).

So how's the challenge been?

It's been good. It's been different because we're (the Tribune) not a daily and that's been the hardest part is, staying current and when you have times where I story can be broken, hoping the competition doesn't get it before you do to reach print. Now we've had a change where were only once a week compared to twice a week, but basically daily online. Our website is a huge focus now, and it kind of reminds me of the old days because as soon as we get stuff now we try to get it up, so that parts been a challenge too.

How do you feel about the newspapers business currently, particularly with the constant layoffs and downsizing?

I feel bad about it. It's depressing. I don't know what the future of the newspaper industry is, there is always newsgathering whether it is on the internet with electronic media. I'm not sure what the future holds, but I've always been a newspaper guy. I like to have a newspaper while I sit and do my workout, or have coffee in the morning, and just to see what is happening to the newsrooms and layoffs is frustrating for someone who has been a career newspaper man that's for sure.

So how do you adjust to the blogs and growing media pool?

I don't like blogs at all, and I'll tell you why. I don't think they have the integrity of a newspaper or a website. Bloggers don't necessarily have the credentials that a real accredited journalist has - some of them do but some of them don't - so you don't know what you're getting. Anyone can sit at home with their computer and write and consider themselves and expert while their out there in the world having people read their stuff. They lack accountability and credibility as well. But people think they can throw anything out there in a blog, and they aren't accountable. One columnist we both know told me once he likes the blog because "you don't have to be quite as responsible." Say what? Therein lies the problem. It's a lot of opinion and that opinion is not backed by much fact. I would like to think in our business; at least we have a pretty good background of facts in what we are writing. So that part discourages me with bloggers.

It's a fine line though because you have many newspapers and beat guys who have their own blog as well....

I think many of them write about their own personal experiences, it becomes "me-me-me". I don't know. As a reader I'm not interested in that. I want to read what they are writing about, not about the troubles with their rental cars.

So what makes a good writer in your mind then?

I think somebody who....when I think about what I write, as reader what do I want to know about this story? What would I want to know if I was a reader, reading about this subject? So if I'm interviewing somebody, I go from that aspect. You can try and be as clever as you want and we all try to get cute with it at times, but really the meat and potatoes is the important part of your story. As my old dear departed sports editor -my first sports editor- George Pasero would say, "make it sing". Not every story you write "sings" but you try and put a little sonnet in there somewhere.

George wrote six columns a week in addition to serving as sports editor and running the department. It's amazing to think about it- a little 5-4 guy with a big ego - but I learned a lot and had a great relationship with him. He's a legend and in the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.

Two part question here: who did you enjoy reading growing up - because I assume that's a big influence on you today? And who do you enjoy reading now?

Good question. As a kid growing up in Corvallis, Oregon, I wasn't reading national media, because we didn't have that opportunity then, but there two guys at the Oregonian and at the Oregon Journal - Leo Davis and Kenny Wheeler - both of them are old time writers and great wordsmiths. I worked with Kenny for many years covering the Blazers, and Leo was an absolute gem of a writer. And yeah, you absolutely barrow stuff from writers that you admire.

Today - and I wrote a column a year or two ago- about my ten top favorites, and I'm sure I'm going to miss some people, but - Jason Whitlock (Kansas City Star), Phil Mushnick (New York Post), I enjoy reading Peter Vecsey (New York Post), I'm not saying I always think is stuff is solid or true but I enjoy reading him. Steve Kelley with the Seattle Times is excellent, Mark Whicker in Orange County (Orange County Register), Ray Ratto (San Francisco Chronicle), and Shaun Powell (Newsday) was an intern at the Oregon Journal when I was there and he does a great job. So those are some of the guys that I like.

One more before I let you go - and we'll head back to the court for this one - but can you draw any comparisons between the Portland Trail Blazers today and from those teams you covered in the early '90's?

Yes, I do. And I'm not saying they are going to - well, let me back track. They may very well repeat history and get to the Finals and they may win it, and that '89-'92 group didn't ever get there but it was a great character group. This group, I believe, has made even more of a concerted effort to go on character, with Kevin Pritchard (Blazers General Manager). And even before him with John Nash and Steve Patterson - I think they sort of get left to the wayside - and think they started the ball rolling about bringing good character players in. It was such a reaction to what had happened under Bob Whitsitt in the early '90's and early 2000. They had to do it because they had to reconnect with the community. But they also had to do it with a group that could win, and that's where Pritchard comes in. I think he's done a nice job of putting together a team that can win, at least in the near future and has a chance. Kevin seems to have a nice eye for talent, we'll see what happens. But I definitely see a comparison, whether it happens, we'll find out the next couple of years.