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    A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho
    A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho
    A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho

    By Kevin Danna

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    About this ebook

    A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho dives into the history of the now-defunct Idaho Stampede, a minor league basketball franchise that played nearly 20 years in Boise. At the time of its relocation to Salt Lake City by the Utah Jazz (its NBA parent club), the Idaho Stampede was the second-longest running minor league basketball franchise in America and had outlasted more than 40 high-level minor league basketball organizations since the team began play in the Continental Basketball Association in 1997.

    Relive the last game in team history through the eyes of a Stampede superfan who was in attendance for the team's inaugural game, and learn about the Stampede's successes, failures and eventual relocation through the team's founder, community members and former players, coaches and employees.

    A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho is a great read for die-hard hoops fans, people interested in minor league lore and anyone else who wants to hear a story that will otherwise go largely untold.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKevin Danna
    Release dateOct 24, 2016
    ISBN9781540151155
    A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho
    Author

    Kevin Danna

    Kevin Danna has worked professionally in the sports media industry since 2009, beginning as a webstream play-by-play broadcaster for Stanford athletics. Currently, Danna is the play-by-play broadcaster for the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA Development League, in addition to broadcasting for Pac-12 Networks and Stanford Athletics, among other entities. He also is a blogger for the Pac-12 Conference's official website. Danna got initially got into the world of sports as a student manager for the Stanford men's basketball team. He graduated from Stanford University in 2009 and earned his Master's of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University in 2011. A native of San Jose, California, Danna still resides in the 10th biggest city in the United States and biggest city in the Bay Area.

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      Book preview

      A Eulogy for Professional Basketball in Idaho - Kevin Danna

      1

      It’s good shit, man. And now it’s gone.

      Paul Waldon followed the familiar path to his courtside box suite as he said this. Along the Idaho Stampede side of the baseline, it was the same spot he’d had as a season-ticket holder from day one.

      Waldon brought his Stampede game program from November 14, 1997, to commemorate tonight’s contest. He’d given this quite some consideration – maybe he should rock his 2008 D-League championship hat, instead – but in the end he settled on the inaugural program with the first-ever Stampede roster card, the numbers and names of players aligned both alphabetically and numerically.

      The program was a sign that, for Waldon, this was a special event. Tonight’s game against the Santa Cruz Warriors wasn’t just the regular season finale; he was sure it was going to be the final game in team history. He could see the writing on the wall that the Idaho Stampede, after 18 seasons in 19 years in Boise, were about to be relocated by their NBA parent club, the Utah Jazz, to Salt Lake City.

      He had good reason to believe this. Nothing official had been announced yet, but the team had been completely silent on a potential agreement to extend their lease at CenturyLink Arena in downtown Boise. And with the recent trend of minor-league teams moving closer and closer to their parent clubs, he could read between the lines. A team that had survived more than forty Continental Basketball Association and NBA Development League franchises was about to meet the end of its road in the Treasure Valley.

      The Stampede were 19-30. The playoffs, as they had been for seven years running, were out of the question. With Santa Cruz also 19-30, it seemed like the only thing on the line this Saturday night was avoiding the cellar in the Pacific Division of the D-League. But it was more than just that for Waldon; for him, it was probably the last time he would see his team.

      I looked at the program last night, which I typically don’t do, Waldon said. And I thought, this has been kind of special. We have seen some elite athletes play here for going on 20 years now. I don’t know – I’ll miss it, if it happens. If it happens, I’ll miss it.

      But there was still one game left, and if Friday night’s game was any indication – a 108-104 Idaho victory over Santa Cruz in overtime – tonight’s game at least figured to be entertaining, even if it was a battle for fourth place.

      As the teams took the court before pregame introductions, the Idaho coaching staff made its way over to Waldon and shook hands with the Stampede superfan. Jordan Brady, an assistant coach who had also played for the Stampede, gave Waldon a fist bump and some parting words.

      We still got 48 minutes!

      ________

      Bill Ilett was nowhere near CenturyLink that evening. He had been spending most of his time in Palm Desert by then. The man who founded the Stampede couldn’t stomach it; he didn’t want to be there for the funeral.

      Ilett is synonymous with Boise. Born and raised in Idaho’s capital city, he was the first student body president and part of the first graduating class from Boise College (now Boise State University) after its transition to a four-year school. Outside of studying at Long Beach State for a semester and spending some time in the Air Force Reserves in Texas, Boise was the only place Ilett had truly called home.

      After a successful two-decade stint in the commercial truck leasing business, he sold his company, TransCorp, at the age of 50 but stayed on as a consultant, leaving him with more time on his hands. So the big basketball fan had an idea – bring professional hoops to Boise.

      In 1996, Ilett made a trip to the St. Louis offices of the Continental Basketball Association, at the time the premier minor league for pro hoops in North America, to take the first steps towards placing a minor league basketball franchise in Boise. Ilett then visited Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the home of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, and Omaha, Nebraska, home to the Omaha Racers, at the suggestion of CBA employees to get a closer look at some of the teams. He loved what he saw in Sioux Falls and started a friendship with Skyforce owner Greg Heineman that lasts to this day; whenever Idaho and Sioux Falls played throughout the years, the loser would buy the winner an In-N-Out burger.

      Omaha? Not so much.

      If I had made the trip the other way and started in Omaha, I probably would have never gone up to Sioux Falls, and there would probably never have been an Idaho Stampede, Ilett said. I saw the best first and then a rather rugged-run franchise down in Omaha.

      The Skyforce is coming off a 2016 D-League championship, setting the league record for regular season wins in the process and drawing good crowds on a consistent basis; the Racers folded in 1997.

      By that summer, Ilett was determined to bring a CBA franchise to the Treasure Valley. Not wanting to take the entire financial risk, he reached out to his Boise community and heard back from about 20 people who were interested in investing in the new team. Ilett eventually whittled it down to 11 investors including himself, ranging from corporate types to entrepreneurs to politicians.

      Of course, the CBA still had to approve the franchise, which it tentatively did in August 1996, but there was just one more hurdle to clear: the team had to sell 3,000 season tickets before the end of the calendar year. Ilett and the staff worked diligently to meet the quota with time to spare, and the CBA gave the team final approval in December. The Idaho Stampede – at least partly named after the Snake River Stampede rodeo that takes place every year in nearby Nampa – was born, at the price of $800,000 to Ilett and his investors.

      The timing was perfect; at the end of the 1996-97 season, three CBA teams – the Omaha Racers, Oklahoma City Cavalry, and Florida Beachdogs – would be discontinued. In a testament to the fragility of CBA teams at the time, the Beachdogs and the Cavalry played in the 1997 CBA Finals, with the Cavalry defeating the Eric Musselman-coached Beachdogs four games to two in a heated series that according to The Oklahoman[1] saw one player spit on a fan and threaten an official and Musselman get into several dustups with Cavalry fans and the police officers working the games in Oklahoma City.

      Opting to spend a year zero in 1996-97 to get the franchise on its feet, the Stampede would begin play in the 1997-98 season, helping to offset the loss of the Racers, Cavalry and Beachdogs.

      With the franchise established, now came the business of putting together the roster. As an expansion team, the Stampede needed to secure the rights to players to be able to field a team. Leading this charge was director of player personnel Eric Chapman, a veteran of the CBA ranks who had spent the past four seasons as an assistant coach and director of player personnel for the now-defunct Omaha team.

      It was a lot of fun, certainly. To get in on the ground floor with an expansion team from a basketball perspective was very challenging, said Chapman, who also worked as the director of player personnel for the Albany Patroons[2].

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