One of life’s most mysterious and widely debated creatures has been unearthed in the trails of Forest Park, lurking in the shade of Oregon’s largest tree, sporting a plaid shirt and beanie, sipping cold brew.
Bigfoot.
The furry beast, it turns out, does exist. His name is Douglas Fur. He’s a hipster. And he’s coming to a Portland Trail Blazers game near you.
The Blazers unveiled a new Bigfoot mascot Tuesday night at the Moda Center, digging up and re-imagining a forgotten relic from the past to partner with Blaze the Trail Cat for games, community events and other public appearances.
“Blaze is only one cat and he can only do so much,” said Ryan Flaherty, the Blazers’ senior vice president of brand marketing. “Now he has a new best friend.”
So, why another mascot … and why now?
“It’s a super fair, valid question,” Flaherty said. “Officially, there’s only one other NBA team with more than one — the Cleveland Cavaliers have a second mascot — so it’s fairly uncommon. But to be honest, we’ve been talking about the idea for quite a few years.”
Before he died last October, longtime team historian and statistician Chuck Charnquist was sharing old stories at the Moda Center when the subject of mascots arose. The Blazers, Charnquist said, used to have a doozy of a creature that roamed old Memorial Coliseum in the 1980s. It was a gigantic, furry beast, that towered 8 feet tall and wore enormous shoes and red sunglasses.
The creature didn’t attend every game, but he was a consistent presence over five or six seasons, and fans loved him.
“He was this larger-than-life character,” Flaherty said. “A big, huge, beastly character of Bigfoot origin. That conversation, that character, always intrigued us. It was authentic and offered a peek back to the ′80s, which is an era that doesn’t get a lot of mention. But we had some unique things and unique teams back then.”
As the Blazers contemplated ways to accentuate their game-day experience, they often found themselves thinking about mascot night, an annual event that draws several mascots to the Moda Center, often on Blaze’s birthday. There always seemed to be more energy and enjoyment among the crowd — from kids and adults, alike — as fans connected with a cornucopia of creatures and chuckled at their antics.
Add that to the hundreds of community and fan appearances that Blaze makes in a typical year, when he visits schools, hospitals, birthday parties and everything in between, and the Blazers saw an opportunity to expand their reach.
“We wanted to bring another character into the mix to give us another way to engage and entertain fans,” Flaherty said. “And it gives Blaze more opportunities to be creative and have fun. He needed one of his kind that he could relate to.”
Thanks to Charnquist, Flaherty and the Blazers knew that some version of Bigfoot would be Blaze’s new relatable wing man. They just needed an origin story, preferably one that meshed with their one-of-a-kind trail cat.
Blaze originally hails from the Cascade Mountain Range. He was abandoned many years ago and brought to the Oregon Humane Society, where, to his good fortune, Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen found him. Pippen adopted Blaze, and he’s roamed the Moda Center ever since.
All the while, it turns out, Douglas Fur has been hiding in the hills of Forest Park, roaming its 80 miles of hiking trails, blending in with the urban wilderness and “other unshaven local hikers and explorers camouflaged in true hipster outdoor attire.” Douglas, as the story goes, was too shy to surface in society, so he passed his days playing solitaire, eating his favorite vegan dishes and drinking cold brew.
Then one day, while Douglas was extracting sap for his last craft brew concoction, Blaze discovered the beast in the woods.
They became fast friends and Blaze showed his new buddy — whom he nicknamed “Douggy” — the joy of basketball and the Blazers.
“He’s been hiding right in plain sight all these years, living among the Douglas fir trees in the largest urban park in the USA,” Flaherty said. “He’s been able to blend in. He’s not only the best hide-and-seek player, but he just kind of fits in with an average Northwest person, a regular outdoor-loving unshaven hipster on a weekend hike.”
Douglas Fur, who stands about 7 feet tall, wears a red and black plaid vest and a red beanie featuring a Blazers pinwheel logo. The team commissioned a life-size wooden carving of him, which will be permanently displayed in Kid City on the 300 level at the Moda Center, and the new mascot will be featured on limited-edition Nike Biketown bikes around Portland.
The Blazers are hoping the mascot becomes an instant hit and a fabric of the franchise moving forward.
“Blaze has discovered Bigfoot and proven, once and for all, that Bigfoot is real,” Flaherty said.