Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: What is the Portland Trail Blazers' mascot?
The team's mascot is Blaze the Trail Cat, a two-tone silver-colored mountain lion, which has been the team's official mascot since 2002. Prior to Blaze's debut, the Trail Blazers never had any official mascot. A popular unofficial mascot was the late Bill "The Beerman" Scott, a Seattle beer vendor-cheerleader who worked for numerous pro teams, including the Trail Blazers, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Seattle Mariners. Scott worked for the Trail Blazers from 1981 through 1985.
The 1978–79 Portland Trail Blazers season was the ninth season of the Portland Trail Blazers in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
When the Portland Trail Blazers franchise was awarded for 1970, the Memorial Coliseum became the team's home court, capable of seating 12,666 when configured for basketball. Three NBA Finals have been (partially) played in the Coliseum; in 1977 (when the Trail Blazers won) and in 1990 and 1992. The Blazers were 10–0 in the Coliseum during the 1977 playoffs.
There have been 14 head coaches for the Trail Blazers franchise. The franchise's first head coach was Rolland Todd, who coached for two seasons. Jack Ramsay is the franchise's all-time leader for the most regular season games coached (820), and the most regular season game wins (453). Rick Adelman is the franchise's all-time leader for the highest winning percentage in the regular season (.654), playoff games coached (69), and most playoff game wins (36). Ramsay is the only coach to win an NBA championship with the Trail Blazers, in the 1977 NBA Finals. Ramsay and Lenny Wilkens are the only Trail Blazers coaches to be elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and were both named one of the top 10 coaches in NBA history. Mike Schuler and Mike Dunleavy have won the NBA Coach of the Year Award, in and respectively, with the Trail Blazers. Todd, Stu Inman, Jack McCloskey, Kevin Pritchard, and Kaleb Canales have spent their entire NBA coaching careers with the Trail Blazers. Canales was named interim coach of the Trail Blazers toward the end of the season. Terry Stotts was named as head coach on August 7, 2012. The announcement was made by General Manager Neil Olshey. At this time, his NBA coaching record was 115-168.
Headed by their new general manager Olshey, the Trail Blazers front office further made a few changes during July 2012. The Blazers signed their 30th pick from the 2006 draft, Joel Freeland, and their 22nd pick from the 2009 draft, Víctor Claver, as well as re-signing Hickson and Nicolas Batum. They also signed veteran point guard Ronnie Price to back up Lillard, who was selected as co-MVP of the 2012 Las Vegas Summer League. Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Terry Stotts was hired as head coach on August 7, 2012.
Among Trail Blazers' assistants who have served as head coaches elsewhere in the NBA are Dick Harter, Mike D'Antoni, Bill Musselman and Rick Carlisle. Two former UNLV men's basketball coaches, Bill Bayno and Tim Grgurich, have served on the Blazers' coaching staff.
In 2005, Canales was hired as a video intern for the Portland Trail Blazers, and was eventually hired as the team's video coordinator. In 2009, he was promoted to an assistant coach for the team. In 2010, Canales served as the Blazers' head coach during the NBA Summer League. He was promoted to interim head coach of the Trail Blazers after head coach Nate McMillan was dismissed on March 15, 2012. Canales became the youngest active head coach in the NBA and the first Mexican-American coach in NBA history.
The mascot of the university is Monte, a Grizzly Bear. In 1897, a live bear cub traveled with UM's football team, then known as the "Bears" (the "Grizzlies" name was adopted in 1923). Numerous live bear cubs who served as university mascots, first named "Teddy", then "Fessy" and finally, in the 1960s, "Cocoa". UM's costumed mascot during the 1980s, dubbed "Otto", donned a variety of fun-loving outfits to entertain crowds at Grizzly football games. Monte (short for "Montana") was born in the mountains of Missoula in the fall 1993. The 2002–03 and 2004–05 National Champion Mascot of the Year (Capital One/ESPN) has evolved into a "motorcycle-riding, break-dancing, back flipping, slam-dunking, movie-making, crowd-surfing, goal post smashing, prank-pulling superstar."
The current mascot is the 16th in a series of mascots named "Chesty" in honor of famed Marine Lieutenant General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller Jr. This dog lives at the Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., where he appears in weekly parades.
The logo and mascot of Florida Atlantic University's athletic teams is the burrowing owl. Owlsley is the name of the mascot for Florida Atlantic University. The presence of this bird has been popular on the land of the university, even preceding the construction of FAU. At the dedication ceremony in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson even made notice and reference to the popular presence of the bird. In 1971, the National Audubon Society designated FAU's land an official owl sanctuary, honoring the tradition of the bird's presence and moving to protect the birds from attempts to expand construction of the university. Owls are still dominant in their presence on the Boca Raton campus to this day. With the addition of intercollegiate athletics in the mid-1980s, the university used the bird as its mascot - an animal that denotes wisdom, determination and cognizance.
Jack the Bulldog is the official mascot of the Georgetown University Hoyas athletic teams. Jack has been the name of at least five live Bulldogs since 1962, when the name first came into use, though Georgetown counts seven official bulldog mascots including the two living ones. The current incarnation of Jack is an English Bulldog born in 2013 whose full name is John B. Carroll.
Georgetown's nickname is The Hoyas, but its mascot is "Jack the Bulldog." Various breeds of dogs have been used by the sports teams as mascots since the early 1900s. Several notable bull terriers like Sergeant Stubby and "Hoya" were used at football games in the 1920s, as was a Great Dane in the 1940s. However, in 1951, the school suspended its football program because of the increasing cost of the game financially and academically, which left the school without an official live mascot.
Terry Linn Stotts (born November 25, 1957) is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is the head coach for the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Thailand receives reliability, creditability and confidence by the OCA member countries, once again, to host the 1st Asian Indoor Games in 2005. For the Games mascot, the Organizing Committee agrees to use “Elephant” as it foresees that it is a national treasure of Thailand. Besides being a mighty animal, it is an intelligent animal capable of using it in various occasions even during our natural disaster.
On January 22, 1968, the ABA awarded a franchise to Milwaukee Professional Sports and Services, Inc. (Milwaukee Pro), a group headed by Wesley Pavalon and Marvin Fishman. A fan contest was held to name the new team, with over 40,000 fans participating. While the most-voted fan entry was the "Robins", named for Wisconsin's state bird, the contest judges went with the second-most popular choice, the "Bucks", which was a reference to Wisconsin's official wild animal, the white-tailed deer. One fan, R. D. Trebilcox, was awarded a new car for his part in reasoning why the Bucks was a good nickname, saying that bucks were "spirited, good jumpers, fast and agile." The Bucks marked a return of the NBA to Milwaukee after 13 years; their previous team, the Hawks, played for four seasons in the early 1950s before moving to St. Louis in 1955 (they are now based in Atlanta). In October, the Bucks played their first NBA regular-season game against the Chicago Bulls before a Milwaukee Arena crowd of 8,467. As is typical with expansion teams, the Bucks' first season (1968–69) was a struggle. Their first victory came in their sixth game as the Bucks beat the Detroit Pistons 134–118; they won only 26 more games in their first year. The Bucks' record that year earned them a coin flip against their expansion cousins, the Phoenix Suns, to see who would get the first pick in the upcoming draft. It was considered a foregone conclusion that the first pick in the draft would be Lew Alcindor of UCLA. The Bucks won the coin flip, but had to win a bidding war with the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA) to secure him.
In the 2009 NBA draft, the Milwaukee Bucks selected point guard Brandon Jennings, who had not gone to college but played in Italy the previous year. Midway through the season, Bucks GM John Hammond traded Hakim Warrick to Chicago, and acquired John Salmons. In a Bucks uniform, Salmons averaged a team-leading 19.9 points per game. The play of Jennings, along with the improvement of Andrew Bogut, the improved Ersan İlyasova, and the Salmons trade, catapulted the team to be a playoff contender. At the beginning of the season, the Bucks had low playoffs expectations; they had not been in four years. In October, the Bucks quickly fell behind the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Central Division, but Milwaukee ultimately clinched a playoff berth on April 6, 2010, with a road win over the Chicago Bulls. It was during that time that the phrase ""Fear the Deer"" started, most likely by an ESPN commentator, and adopted on message boards and within Andrew Bogut's Squad 6. The slogan rang well with Bucks fans, who started bringing signs with the phrase to games. The slogan became the team's battle cry in the NBA playoffs. The Bucks finished the regular season with a record of 46–36. The Bucks clinched the sixth seed and were eliminated in a seven-game series against the Atlanta Hawks. It was the farthest Milwaukee had gotten in the post-season since 2001. The Bucks short playoff run was also in part due to Bogut suffering a broken arm after making an awkward fall after a dunk in a late-season game, thus ending his season. In the 2010–11 season, the Bucks finished ninth in the Eastern Conference, just out of reach of the playoffs.
Purcell designed a low, bleached-white canvas-and-rubber badminton sneaker for the B.F. Goodrich Company, known as PF Flyers in 1935. The shoe would provide better support on badminton courts because of a steel shank embedded in its heel. For most of the twentieth century, Jack Purcell's tennis sneaker was required wear on all grass and clay tennis courts in the United States and, at least for a time, on newer, all-weather asphalt courts as well. Unlike basketball sneakers (running shoes hadn't been invented yet), Jack Purcell sneakers had perfectly flat soles, unmarred by grooves that could tear up clay or grass and skew the elasticity of tennis ball bounces. Everyone from the youngest learner to professional and amateur tennis stars on the international tour wore Purcell sneakers; no other company made them. In 1972, Converse purchased PF Flyers (now owned by New Balance), along with the trademark rights of Jack Purcell sneakers. When Nike purchased Converse in 2003, Jack Purcell sneakers were kept in production, and is still manufactured today. Purcell-type basketball sneakers are now no different from Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars, except they have the trademark blue across their toes. Classic Purcell tennis sneakers are unchanged in appearance from their heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, when they were first nicknamed "Blue Tips" and "Smilies", but they have risen in price from about $20 in 1965 to as much as $150 or more today. Converse "Jack Purcell" basketball sneakers are also popular, but more for their vintage fashion appeal than for athletic use.
The most unusual event of this season took place on February 28, 1981, during the final regular-season game. Big East rival Connecticut was visiting McDonough Gymnasium when, during a timeout, Connecticuts Jonathan the Husky mascot started a fistfight with Georgetowns Jack the Bulldog mascot, leading to Jonathans ejection from McDonough. Thanks to senior center Mike Fraziers heroics, which included a block and rebound at the end of the game to preserve a 60-58 Georgetown victory, over a hundred Georgetown students gathered outside Fraziers on-campus apartment for an informal post-game pep rally.
The Portland Loo is a public toilet system built by Madden Fabrication in Portland, Oregon. It has been adopted by multiple other municipalities. The "flagship toilet" is in Portland's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood.
Military mascot refers to a pet animal maintained by a military unit as a mascot for ceremonial purposes or as an emblem of that unit.
Osceola and Renegade are the official mascots of the Florida State University Seminoles. Osceola, representing the historical Seminole leader Osceola, and his Appaloosa horse Renegade introduce home football games by riding to midfield with a burning spear and planting it in the turf.
The Portland Trail Blazers are a professional basketball team which joined the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association in 1970. They play at the Moda Center in the Lloyd District of Portland. They are owned by the estate of the late Microsoft co-founder and Vulcan Inc. chairman Paul Allen, who purchased the team in 1988. The team is often referred to as "Rip City", which was coined by play-by-play announcer Bill Schonely during their inaugural season. The Trail Blazers have retired several players jerseys, including Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame members Clyde Drexler and Bill Walton. Jack Ramsay, who was the Trail Blazers head coach from 1976 to 1986, had the number 77 retired in honor of Portland's only NBA Finals victory in 1977. Portland has had four NBA Rookies of the Year; Geoff Petrie (1971), Sidney Wicks (1972), Brandon Roy (2007) and Damian Lillard (2013). The only NBA Most Valuable Player that earned the award as a member of the Trail Blazers was Bill Walton in 1978.
The Portland Trail Blazers have played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) since the 1970 season. The Trail Blazers have played in three NBA Finals (1977, 1990, 1992) and have won one NBA Championship (1977). Several of the Trail Blazers' former players are in the Basketball Hall of Fame, including Dražen Petrović, Bill Walton, Lenny Wilkens, Clyde Drexler, and Arvydas Sabonis. Furthermore, the team has retired several numbers including Terry Porter (#30), Maurice Lucas (#20), Larry Steele (#15).
All Trail Blazer games are broadcast over the radio, with broadcasting carried on the Trail Blazers radio network, which consists of 25 stations located in the Pacific Northwest. The flagship station of the Blazers' radio network is 620 KPOJ in Portland. The radio broadcasting team consists of play-by-play announcer Brian Wheeler and studio host Jay Allen. All games are preceded by a pre-game analysis show, "Blazers Courtside", and followed by a post-game show known as "The 5th Quarter". Bob Akamian served as studio host until halfway through the 2010–2011 season, when the team hired away Adam Bjaranson from their over-the-air TV partner, KGW, and former Trail Blazers' player Michael Holton is the studio analyst. The original radio announcer for the team was Bill Schonely, who served as the team's radio play-by-play announcer from 1970 until his retirement in 1998—calling 2,522 Blazers games—and remains with the team as a community ambassador.
The Portland Trail Blazers are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The franchise entered the NBA in 1970, and is one of two major league franchise in Oregon. The Trail Blazers sold out 814 consecutive home games from 1977 through 1995, the second longest such streak for American professional sports teams which was broken July 9, 2011 by the Dayton Dragons. The team has played their home games at the Moda Center (formerly known as the Rose Garden), since the 1995–96 NBA season. The Trail Blazers are owned by Paul Allen. Since the team joined the NBA in 1970, it has won one NBA championship, three conference championships, six division championships, and has appeared in the NBA playoffs 34 times.