Bob Gross: Moving Without The Ball (cont.)

The next season, Bobby Gross, one of the stars of the Blazer championship, was unemployed until San Diego called him in February. He played 27 games for the Clippers, averaging 3.1 points per game.

Then his NBA career was over . . . at the relatively young age of 30.

It may have been a bittersweet ending of an NBA career, but Bob Gross doesn't seem concerned about it today.

Basketball, he says, was good to him; it gave him perspective about the ups and downs in life and helped him succeed in his business pursuits.

In the spring of 1984, after building, with contractor help, his first home, Gross decided that home-building was an exciting venture. So he formed Bob Gross Enterprises, Inc., a residential home-building company that earned respect quickly among the building trades professionals. Indeed, one of his high-end homes was seen by thousands of patrons at Portland's annual Tour of Elegance home show.

"I hired an architect and an accountant and then sub-contracted everything else out for each home we built," Gross said. "But we usually used the same people in the construction process."

Gross folded his construction company in 1999 as the economy soured and interest rates soared. He later joined Belfor Company, which specializes in disaster restoration work (rebuilding homes and businesses damaged by floods, fire and windstorms).

"It's interesting work -- working with insurance companies and working with the owners, writing estimates, and then using a team of contractors to do the restoration work," Gross said.

Today, Gross works for Lorentz Bruun Construction Co. in its restoration division.

His marketing development assignments kept him active in one of his favorite pastimes -- golf -- where he got to meet a lot of his business contacts. But a severely damaged left knee has kept him off the links in recent years. So much so that Gross says that soon he will undergo a left knee replacement.

Gross was not a great golfer when he came to Portland as a rookie Trail Blazer in 1975. "I played a little golf growing up in California (San Pedro area), but never regularly or seriously. Baseball was my sport early," he says.

Yet as a demonstration of his superb natural athletic ability, Gross once stunned friends and colleagues by shooting a 73 in the first charity tournament he played in. "Golf is such a humbling game," he says.

Gross and his wife Cindi, who have been married for 31 years, have a busy life in Happy Valley, even though their two daughters, Traci, 30, and Kristin, 26, have left the nest. Last month (November), the Gross family went to Las Vegas for a weekend to attend Traci's wedding.

Bob and Cindi chose to stay in Portland after basketball "because it's a much better place to raise a family than, say, San Pedro would have been. The weather may be better in Southern California, but we love those gray days here," he said.

"It took some time, but I've become an Oregonian," Gross confessed.

Cindi works for the Blazers as a season ticket service manager, while Bob is still active in the restoration business. He also follows the Blazers whenever he can, having attended several games this season.

"I like the makeup of the team," he added, "They have a lot of young, hungry guys that remind me of the group we had when we opened the 1976 season -- never really knowing how great it was going to be in the end."

The way new Trail Blazer rookie Rudy Fernandez moves around without the ball, runs defenders ragged, jumps well and finds open spots for his jump shot, is reminiscent of the 1976-77 Bobby Gross. That comparison brought a chuckle from Gross, who seem humbled by it. "I like the way he speeds the game up," Gross said of Fernandez. "He seems to know more about how to play than a lot of guys, especially young guys entering the league. But he has a lot more offense than I ever did."

When they hoist Bob Gross' No. 30 to the top of the Rose Garden rafters, Dec. 18, the organization's tribute to its one great championship run will be complete.

For Bobby Gross . . . well, he's just moving along in life without the ball -- or the need to have it -- as he always has.

1 || 2 || 3