Chuck Charnquist, longtime Portland Trail Blazers statistician and historian, dies at 89: ‘He was the consummate PR professional’
By Aaron Fentress, Oregonian, Oct. 30, 2021
Chuck Charnquist, the longtime Portland Trail Blazers statistician and historian who died Thursday at age 89, never met a sports statistic he didn’t like. Well, maybe some that spelled bad news for the Blazers. But even those received the same level of respect Charnquist gave to all stats.
Numbers were his life. Specifically, those attached to the action on the court or on a field. Compiling those numbers born from intense action became his passion.
“Numbers tell a story; it’s like looking at a painting,” Charnquist told The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2013 shortly before retiring after 43 years with the organization. “I don’t live or die with who wins or loses a game, but I’m interested in the story.”
Sports statistics very much help tell the story of Charnquist’s life. But he was much more than that to those who knew him best. They described him as a gentle soul who was kind to all and eager to help mentor any upstart journalist, future public relations professional or statistician.
“He had that kind of influence on the younger PR side of things,” son Eric Charnquist said.
Known as the “Answer Man,” Charnquist was a human version of NBA.com during his career. Ask him an NBA question, especially regarding the Blazers, and Charnquist’s mind would sift through embedded statistics — some from the 1,932 NBA games he worked — locate the information and present it like an internet server. If Charnquist didn’t know the information offhand, he would certainly look it up and get right back to you.
“He was the consummate PR professional,” Eric Charnquist said.
NUMBERS IN HIS BLOOD
Charnquist and his two sisters were raised by a single mother after his father left when he was 11. He struggled in math in school to the point where his eighth-grade teacher wrote on his report card, “Never get involved in a career that requires numbers.”
Charnquist ignored that advice.
A graduate of Portland’s Benson High School and a journalism major at Lewis & Clark College (Class of 1958), Charnquist worked for The Wall Street Journal as a local stringer soon after college and later the Oregon Journal newspaper. He later worked in sports information for the Portland State and then as the PR director at his alma mater in 1968.
When Harry Glickman founded the Blazers in 1970, he brought in a stats crew that included Charnquist, who ran the team’s first rookie camp, Larry Sellers and John Hilsenteger.
It was his part-time gig on game nights compiling statistics. He also worked for the Blazers during the draft, interviewing players and coaches and writing the press releases.
In 1987, Charnquist was let go by Lewis & Clark during a staff changeover, his son said. That led to more responsibilities with the Blazers, including a contract job producing the team’s annual media guide. He also spent two years as director of information services and sports information director at Linfield (1987-89). Later on, he helped with statistics for Portland State football.
“He was really big in the small-college scene on the sports information side of things,” Eric Charnquist said. “He had a passion for small-school college sports here in the local area.”
Years later, the Blazers hired Charnquist full-time. His duties included statistician, historian, archivist and helping with the media guide.
“They really took care of him,” Eric Charnquist said.
And Charnquist took care of those around him.
ASSISTING OTHERS
Jeff Wohler, former sports editor at The Oregonian, recalled how during the early days of his career he spent countless hours with Charnquist on press row at Memorial Coliseum keeping stats for Blazers games as well as high school state championships and other events.
A young aspiring journalist, Wohler said Charnquist served as a mentor and was always supportive of his dream of becoming a newspaperman.
“He helped me gain acceptance in the sports crowd when I was young, which gave me growing confidence,” Wohler said. “That can be a rough crowd. I once asked him if he really thought I’d be sports editor of The Oregonian one day. He just smiled. It would not have happened without his mentoring and support at an important growing time in my life.”
John Lashway, former communications director for the Blazers (1986-95), became the youngest person to hold that title in the league at age 26, replacing John White, who had been with the franchise since its inception. Lashway was nervous and maybe a bit clueless about some things at times, but he said Charnquist was there to guide him.
“Chuck really took me under his wing and taught me the dos and don’ts of how to be a PR director in the NBA,” Lashway said. “He had so much faith in me from day one.”
Charnquist frequently stood up for those he believed in.
He worked many years closely with John Hilsenteger for more than four decades from the Portland Buckaroos hockey team to the Blazers and more. Hilsenteger’s daughter, Julie Hilsenteger, became a member of the Blazers stats crew at a young age and today is the team’s head statistician.
Julie Hilsenteger went on to play soccer at Oregon. One fall, she sought to make extra money doing stats for the football and basketball teams. However, according to Julie Hilsenteger, someone in charge told her that women were not capable of doing statistics for those sports.
“Check actually wrote a letter for me,” Julie Hilsenteger said.
That letter detailed Julie’s experience and recommended her for the job. She was given a chance and excelled.
“Chuck paved the way for me there,” she said.
Mike Lund, associate athletics director for media and communications at Portland State, is also a Blazers statistician. He met Charnquist while a student at Lewis & Clark. Charnquist recommended Lund to the Blazers.
“Chuck was just a wonderful guy who was always willing to help,” Lund said. “He just showed you the right way to do things. He saw something in me and kind of inspired me and just really helped me along when I was young. And I always appreciated that.”
Aaron Grossman, Blazers director of content, said that Charnquist was a kind person who proved invaluable in helping him start his career with the organization.
“He infamously would sit down and tell story after story to anyone who would listen,” Grossman said. “He was a storyteller at heart and he wanted to pass along his wealth of knowledge to everyone that he interacted with. I was fortunate to be one of those people that got to sit down and hear a lot of those stories from him.”
GUY BEHIND THE GUY
Eric Charnquist said his father preferred to do his job and help others with anonymity.
“He loved being the guy behind the guy,” Eric Charnquist said. “He didn’t like the spotlight.”
John White, Lashway’s predecessor, had been a meticulous record keeper. Charnquist maintained the same level of dedication after White moved on.
“That was kind of his life,” Eric Charnquist said. “He loved that kind of statistical record keeping.”
Lashway said that in many ways, Charnquist was on par with legendary broadcaster Bill Schonely and Glickman in terms of what he brought to the organization. Though Charnquist’s efforts happened behind the scenes, Lashway said he shaped the organization from a communications standpoint and helped reporters tell good stories about the Blazers.
When Lashway took over media relations job for the Toronto Raptors in 1995, he flew Charnquist out to teach his stats crew how to be NBA statisticians. Lashway wanted his crew to respect the process at the same level Charnquist did.
“If he hadn’t been as diligent as he had been in that way, I’m not sure that all the stories could have been told as well as they were,” Lashway said.
Charnquist, Grossman said, is largely responsible for preserving basically everything that the organization has regarding its history.
“He just cared deeply about the history of the team and making sure that the city and the fans understood where the team came from, how it started and just how important that the team is to the city,” Grossman said.
When celebrating Charnquist’s anniversaries with the team, Grossman said the team would use themed cakes that represented Charnquist. One year the cake featured a photo of a copier in the media workroom named in his honor, the Chuck Charnquist Resource Room.
“It sounds ridiculous but the massive copier in the media room was like his baby,” Grossman said.
Another cake was a sheet cake with a handwritten box score from Game 6 of the 1977 finals.
“He wrote the literal championship box score,” Grossman said. “Those cakes sort of epitomized who he was. He was this incredible stats, media, reference guide for everyone in the company.”
Because of Charnquist’s efforts, Grossman said, the Blazers have a well-preserved museum’s worth of material to keep the organization’s history alive.
“The work that he put into preserving the history about the team and artifacts about the team will live on,” Grossman said.
Charnquist is survived by his wife, Carol, their two adult children, Eric and Susan, and two grandchildren.
POSTSCRIPT FROM WILDCATVILLE
GREAT story about Chuck Charnquist!
‘Numbers tell a story,’ Blazers statistician said
For future reference, a clarification. The story says,” He also spent two years as sports information director at Linfield (1987-89).”
In 2014, Chuck wrote a piece for the Wildcatville blog. Link to it here …
https://wildcatville.blogspot.com/2014/04/remembering-steve-davis-hes-on-my-short.html
… In that piece Chuck says, “When I went to work for Linfield in 1987 as the college’s director of information services (also wearing the hat of sports information director) …”
Yes, Chuck was Linfield SID 1987-89, but he was also Linfield director of information services the same time frame, 1987-1988 and 1988-1989.
