Written by Greg Popelka

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Do you recall... 

NBA commissioner David Stern's announcement, from The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey:

"With the first pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, the Cleveland Presidents select...Kyrie Irving." 

Or how about the lyrics to that catchy tune:

"C'mon Jays, Gotta make it happen!" 

Or announcer Joe Tait's familiar in-game call:

"...out of bounds ...and the ball will go BACK... to the Foresters." 

 

If you do have such recollections, you would have had to have passed between various alternate realities over your lifetime. For each of these names were passed over, in favor of the name "Cavaliers," when Cleveland was first granted an NBA franchise. 

It was owner Nick Mileti who made the choice of the team name, after fourteen thousand entries from a newspaper promotion had been received and whittled down to five, including the names used above. It has been suggested that the Foresters name benefitted from a ballot-box barrage by local lumber yard Forest City.

Mileti, a lawyer, had already purchased the Cleveland Barons AHL hockey team as well as its Cleveland Arena home in 1968. He had headed a team of around 25 investors, which cost $3.7 million (contrast that to the $375 million price tag Dan Gilbert paid for the LeBron-led Cavs in early 2005). The process took 15 months, and the cities of Buffalo, Portland and Houston were granted franchises as well. Said Mileti, "Here we've been supporting a team (the Cincinnati Royals) that wasn't even ours. In fact, we supported them better than their own city did." (The Plain Dealer, Bill Nichols, February 7, 1970) 

As an 8 year old when the Cavaliers were born, there were two things that struck me the most at the time. One was announcer Joe Tait. Loved that guy. The other was that the team seemed to have an awful lot of players whose first and last names began with the same letter. Butch Beard. Walt Wesley. John Johnson. Soon after, Dwight Davis. Beard and Wesley had been among 11 players taken in a league-wide expansion draft, along with one of the fan favorites of the contending Miracle of Richfield team of a few years later, Bobby "Bingo" Smith.  

The colors were to be wine and gold, reminiscent of Nick Mileti's John Adams High School colors. The first coach was to be Bill Fitch, who most recently had been the coach of Minnesota but had previously been the coach of Bowling Green State University (Mileti's college alma mater). Predictably, the Cavaliers' inaugural season was pitifully awful. The team finished last in its division, at 15-67. They were bad enough to be a joke among even their hometown fans. The season began with the first seven games on the road due to a prior commitment by the Arena to the Ice Capades, a traveling ice skating show featuring celebrities from past Olympics. The Cavaliers had sold more season tickets than the other expansion franchises, but when they came home for their first game in Cleveland at 0-7, much of the excitement had waned. 7,129 fans did turn out for the home opener, however. Mileti had planned a wine toast for the "wine and gold"; he had wine glasses distributed and was going to fill each one with a wine from the vintner who also made Wild Irish Rose. However, there were laws on the books that prevented the wine from being shared in this manner, so Mileti was left toasting with a crowd who was hoisting empty glasses. The Cavaliers lost the home opener to their fellow first-year team, Buffalo. Bingo Smith had 21 points in the 107-92 decision. They did beat Portland on the road, after losing their first 15, for their first win ever. They then proceeded to lose 12 more in a row. They then beat Buffalo by one point for the first home win in their history, before 2,002 fans. They averaged 3,518 fans that first year. It was noted, however, that the fans who did attend games were loud and boisterous (that is as unsurprising to me as Gabe Paul's Indians-fans-as-a-‘sleeping giant' comment coming true). The low point of the season may have been when Bobby Lewis threw an inbound pass to John Warren, who was sprinting to the hoop. Warren scored, despite the efforts of Leroy Ellis of Portland, who tried to block his shot. The only problem was that it was the wrong basket: two points for Portland. Well, there was one other problem: Bingo Smith was calling for the ball; he was 'open' and would have taken a shot at the same basket!

Cleveland Arena contributed to the dreary pessimism which settled on the franchise when it became clear that the roster was subpar. The hockey rink under the basketball court chilled the air, and the place was run down. It felt like an extra large, old, musty high school gym. Ohio native John Havlicek of the Boston Celtics was an outspoken critic. 

In my opinion, Bill Fitch wasn't much help in the public-relations department, either. He was always cracking one-liners, endearing him to many in the media. However, the media often included sneering smart alecs from national outlets (no, really). These were guys who viewed covering the Cavaliers as a chance to write a comedic piece. Fitch's cracks were duly noted in the press as comic relief, but personally, I always thought his comments were pretty lame. Here are some of his most humorous one-liners I could find: 

"Just remember, the name is Fitch, not Houdini." 

"Mission Impossible didn't even want us on their show." 

"I phoned Dial-a-Prayer, but when they found out who it was, they hung up." 

"War is hell, but expansion is worse." 

(after winning a badly-played game) "It looked like the gamblers got to both teams." 

OK, that last one was kind of funny. 

In 1976, Fitch said, "I was amazed at first when Portland and Buffalo could outdraw Cleveland during those first three years, even though Cleveland had a better record. And I was amazed how little knowledge our fans had at the time. They have turned it completely around. They not only have grown larger, but more educated. Now they are doing more cheering and less coaching. And I notice at banquets, people are asking much better questions now." (The Sporting News, March 20, 1976, Bill Nichols) 

There were some highlights from that first year for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Besides Bingo Smith starting his nice career with the team, top draft pick John Johnson was an all-star and averaged 16.6 points per game. Unlike today, however, those Cavaliers had no superstar and no depth. And not many fans. However, they were awful enough that the more time passes, the more endearing they become. 

Thank you for reading.

Here is a nice PD article on that team.