by Kevin Burton
Some memories have a soundtrack and this one has the best.
On April 29, 1976 the Cleveland Cavaliers played in what they now call The Miracle of Richfield. It was the first playoff berth for the Cavs, who were born as an NBA expansion team in 1970. In the first round they played the arch-rival Washington Bullets.
They won the series in dramatic fashion, culminating with an 87-85 win in game 7 at the Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio. Three of the seven games were decided in the last two seconds; another went into overtime.
The famously fevered Cleveland fans exploded onto the court and tore down the baskets after game 7. That's a football kind of thing to do – tearing down goalposts after a big win. I don't believe I've ever heard of a similar thing in basketball.
"It was unreal," said Cavs reserve player Austin Carr. "People were coming from everywhere. They were frantic. The noise. I will never forget the noise."
I wasn't there for the Miracle of Richfield, except as a listener to legendary Cleveland play-by-play man Joe Tait, as a group of us boys gathered around a radio at the Ohio State School for the Blind. After the Cavs won, we had our own explosion spilling out from room 6 out into the hallway.
And the thrill of that moment comes back to me every time I listen to the Cavaliers fight song of the time "Come On Cavs!"
There are a few versions of the song to be had on You Tube. Some have bits of Tait's play-by-play included. For me it's as infectious now as it was then.
It's a throwback too because just as Jim Croce's lyric "you can keep the dime" is frozen in time in his song "Operator," Come On Cavs includes the line "and when the pressure's on and the game is almost through, the Cavs will make it happen and rally two by two."
It was a time before the 3-point basket was a thing (that began in the 1979-80 season).
My friend Todd was a big Cavaliers fan from the get-go. Some of the rest of us drifted in and became hard core fans as a result of the Miracle of Richfield.
For example, I elected to go swimming instead of staying at the cottage to listen to game five of the series. That's the game Jimmy Clemons won it for Cleveland by rebounding an airball by Bingo Smith and hitting a reverse layup at the buzzer.
Todd told me about the game after I got back. Looking at the video now, I see a few fans rushed the court after game five too.
Despite winning their division, the 1975-76 Cavs were not expected to do much. They were seen as a team of castoffs and misfits. They still had the smell of expansion about them. But there was a chemistry brewing there.
Embracing the Cavs was an early expression of my affinity for underdogs of all stripes, in sports and in life.
In 1995 the Refuse To Lose Seattle Mariners had a moment comparable to the Miracle of Richfield. They also won their first playoff series in dramatic fashion, when Edgar Martinez hit a two-run double in the bottom of the 11th inning to beat the Yankees three games to two.
Like the 1975-76 Cavaliers, it was the first playoff berth for the Mariners. Also like the Cave, the Mariners lost in the next round of the playoffs. But fans don't talk about that. They remember with fondness those first glory days.
"The Miracle of Richfield ranks with the most iconic periods in the history of the Cavaliers," wrote Burt Graeff in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
"The Miracle of Richfield in reality began in late November, 1975 when coach Bill Fitch engineered a trade with the Chicago Bulls that turned what appeared to be a dismal season into one for the ages."
"The principals in the four-player trade were Nate Thurmond and Steve Patterson. Thurmond, 34 was on the downside of what turned out to be a Hall of Fame career," Graeff wrote, but he was just what the Cavs needed.
"The first time Nate walked into our locker room," Fitch said, "he had the respect of everyone on our team."
"The Cavaliers were 6-11 and going nowhere when Thurmond arrived. They went 43-22 the rest of the way to finish the regular season 49-33, setting up the best-of-seven playoff series against the Bullets.
"The addition of Thurmond cemented a rotation that had Campy Russell and Bingo Smith starting at the forwards, Jim Chones in the pivot, along with Dick Snyder and Jimmy Cleamons in the backcourt. Thurmond, Carr, Jim Brewer and Foots Walker made up a formidable bench."
The 20,000-plus crowds at the Richfield Coliseum were near maniacal. Twenty minutes before the Cavaliers came out for their layup drills, a chant would begin. "We want the Cavs. We want the Cavs. We want the Cavs."
The chant grew so loud that the chalkboard Fitch used to diagram plays shook. "A couple of players had to hold it down," Carr said.
I can feel the excitement 48 years later, with highlights from Joe Tait and that driving R&B-tinged "Come On Cavs" fight song.
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