Portland Trailblazers’ Piano Man
February 26, 1997

Rick Carlisle, Portland Trailblazers Assistant Coach, has always had an interest in playing piano and finally taught himself to play when he was in college at the University of Virginia. Rick shared with me his technique for learning to play the piano -- he would take music that he knew how it was supposed to sound, and then he would teach himself how to play it on the piano.

You can hear Rick’s piano playing on "Jam In The Paint" a CD featuring NBA players past and present that is due to be released very soon. Rick plays on a song called "Billsburg" a song he wrote as a tribute to his good friend , singer and musician Bruce Hornsby. Rick said that Billsburg is the nickname Bruce has for his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia. " ‘Billsburg’ is a song that was inspirational to me by Bruce Hornsby-the style he plays and the way he mixes contemporary and jazz is really unique" said the multi-talented Rick.

Rick said that "Bruce is a huge basketball fan and that Bruce was a very good basketball player in college and that he could have played hoops for a Division II school." Bruce plays on the "Jam In The Paint" CD as well.

Rick said that "it is no surprise to me that so many athletes pursue music on the side, because all athletes want to be musicians, and all musicians want to be athletes."

Even though Rick has a busy schedule with the Portland Trailblazers he said that he manages to find time to play the piano. "I’ve learned every hotel that has a piano and every Steinway (piano manufacturer) store in all the cities with NBA teams around the country so that I can squeeze in some time playing piano on the road" said the former Boston Celtic. So, if you happen to think the man playing the piano at the hotel lounge looks a little like Rick Carlisle, you might just be right.

A Little of This and a Little of That…

NBC Sportscaster Marv Albert and Olympic Gold Medalist Figure Skater, Katarina Witt will appear as themselves on "Everyone Loves Raymond", Friday, February 28th at 8:30 p.m. on the CBS Television Network…

Movie critics Siskel and Ebert gave two thumbs up to the recently released documentary film "When We Were Kings-The True Story of the Rumble in the Jungle" – it is about the heavyweight championship match up between reigning title holder George Foreman and challenger Muhammad Ali on September 25, 1974 in Africa. The Foreman vs. Ali match-up was one that actually exceeded the hype-unusual for boxing. The buzz in Hollywood is that the film will win the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Feature… Celebs playing golf in the Nissan Open Celebrity-AM at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles this past Sunday took so long making their shots that the organizers of the event never had a winner after six hours of play. Comedian Bill Murray notorious for being a big goofball and distracting players at these type of golf tournaments wasn’t even playing in this event…

Oops! Those silly programming folks at MTV—I told you that Dennis Rodman would have Whoopi Goldberg on his MTV show "The Rodman World Tour" on Sunday, February 16th – well the programming folks at MTV decided to save that show with Whoopi and Dennis dishin’ about sex and love over breakfast for this Sunday, February 23rd @ 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.