Blazers go to Nike for president

On Tuesday, Larry G. Miller was head of a Nike division that brings in billions of dollars in revenue a year, counts the NBA’s biggest names among its endorsers and owns about 90 percent of the footwear market.

On Wednesday, he took over as the president of the Portland Trail Blazers, an NBA franchise that loses tens of millions of dollars a year, has missed the playoffs four seasons in a row and is only recently seeing a rebound in fan support after years of decline.

But Miller, 57, said he remembered coming to Portland about 15 years ago and getting swept up in its Rip City fervor for the Blazers.

 – Excerpt from The Oregonian, June 21, 2007