Book chronicles Cavaliers’ journey into adulthood
By Jeff Gallatin
Sports
Published Jan. 20, 2010

Classic Cavs: The 50 Greatest Games in Cleveland Cavaliers History By Jonathan Knight 201 pages Kent State University Press

Like watching any youngster get older and mature, Cleveland Cavalier fans have experienced a wide range of growing pains since the team entered the NBA in 1970-71.

Ohio author Jonathan Knight has chronicled much of the good and some of the bad for the Cavaliers with “Classic Cavs,” his latest entry in his 50 greatest games series for Cleveland’s major sports teams.

Like his books on the Browns and the Indians, this volume is also published by the Kent State University Press. It includes well-known games, like several from the Miracle at Richfield series between the Cavs and the Washington Bullets, the Lenny Wilkens era teams, including the shot when Michael Jordan began his string of breaking Cavaliers fans’ hearts. Knight also writes of the down years from expansion, through Ted Stepien and the lull before LeBron James brought the team to new heights.

Knight said writing this volume on the Cavaliers was different than writing the volumes on the Indians and Browns.

“It’s definitely a different dynamic,” he said. “With the Indians, you’re talking about a baseball team that’s more than a 100 years old. If you talk to your oldest relative, even that person can’t really remember all the years associated with the team and its long history. With the Browns, you’re still talking about a team that’s 60 years old. There are some people who can remember all of it, but not a lot of them.”

With the Cavaliers, Knight said it has been like seeing a child grow into maturity.

“Most of the fans can remember all or most of their history,” he said. “Others can only remember a few years of it. There is some passing on of history from one person in a family or among friends about certain games or events, but not like with the other two teams.

“With the Cavaliers, so much more of the overall history and events are a lot more personal to many people,” he said.

Knight said that feeling of personal attachment is common to many of the fans he has talked to about the Cavaliers.

“It has been like watching a child grow,” he said. “There have been periods of growing and learning. There has been the expansion years, the Miracle at Richfield when they really grew into a team the entire area and parts of the rest of the country loved. Then we had the lows of the Stepien era and learning to do things all over again, the renaissance years after that. We had more growing pains again before LeBron and the others came in and got us growing up again.”

Knight said watching the Cavaliers has been similar to watching the city of Cleveland itself during the team’s 40-year history.

“The team is like what the city has become,” he said. “It’s gritty and has had to survive some hard times, but there’s a lot of good that can go with bad things that have happened along the way. It’s like anybody or place experiencing growing pains.”

Knight said his favorite part of the book was the seven-game 1975-76 series between the Cavaliers and Bullets, leading up to the “Miracle at Richfield” seventh game at the Coliseum.

“It was great because I really hadn’t written a lot about it, as opposed to some subjects I’ve written about,” he said. “With some of the items in the Browns book, I’d written other stories about a lot of those games. And I’ve written a lot about the Indians through the years.

“But, this was something that I hadn’t had a chance to write about. I loved getting into the research and talking to people about it. It’s one of those types of events or events where people can tell you what they were doing and where they were listening or watching it,” he said.

Knight said people still get excited when they talk about the series with the Bullets and the subsequent matchup with the Celtics.

“There was a such a sense of excitement and community because of it and how everybody was behind the team,” he said.

Knight said people also are reacting strongly to the LeBron-led teams.

“There’s a strong sense of excitement and feeling that this could finally be our time,” he said. “People want to believe that this city can finally win a league championship again. Yet, there’s still this fear that because it’s Cleveland, something will go wrong.”

Yet, whatever happens, Knight said he will be writing more books about the Cavaliers and other Cleveland sports.

“Just like most other people, these teams are part of me,” he said.

On the Web:

• "Classic Cavs" book page at Kent State University Press