Eggers

PENDLETON — Kerry Eggers, who visited Pendleton in 2018 to promote his last book titled “Jail Blazers,” is returning to talk about his latest release — a biography on the late, great Portland Trail Blazers forward Jerome Kersey.

Eggers will give a talk about the book, answer questions and autograph copies of “Overcoming the Odds,” which details Jerome Kersey’s journey from rural Virginia to the NBA, on Thursday, Oct. 28, at Mac’s Bar and Grill, 1400 SW Dorion Ave.

Social hour will begin at 5 p.m. with the presentation starting at 6 p.m.

About Jerome Kersey

Raised by grandparents in rural Virginia in the 1960s and ’70s, Kersey was among the least likely of all eventual NBA stars. A late-bloomer as a basketball player, he was overlooked by college scouts. He signed with Longwood College in nearby Farmville, Virginia, which was just making the transition from NCAA Division III to Division II. Kersey became a four-year starter and a small-college All-American but received little notice from NBA scouts. He was chosen with the 46th pick and taken in the second round of the 1984 draft by the Portland Trail Blazers.

Kersey wound up playing 11 of his 17 NBA seasons in Portland. He was a starter and key cog on a Portland team that reached the NBA Finals in both 1990 and ’92, and as a veteran reserve won a championship ring with the San Antonio Spurs in ’99.

Kersey’s story is one of perseverance and also of making a deep commitment to community and civic contributions. After his retirement as a player, he served many years as an ambassador to the Blazers and was working as the club’s director of alumni relations when he suffered a fatal pulmonary thromboembolism in 2015. He was 52.

About the book

Proceeds from the sales of the general edition of the book will go to both the Jerome Kersey Foundation in Portland and the Jerome Kersey ’84 men’s basketball scholarship at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

About the author

Eggers, who retired in 2020 after 45 years writing sports for Portland newspapers, is a Corvallis native whose father, John, was an all-state basketball player at Pendleton High. Kerry currently lives in Wilsonville.

Eggers served for 20 years as sports columnist at the Portland Tribune and is a six-time winner of the Oregon Sportswriter of the Year Award. This is his eighth book.

He’s also written: “Blazers Profiles” (1991), “Against the World” (1993, with co-author Dwight Jaynes), “Wherever You May Be: The Bill Schonely Story” (1999), “Clyde “The Glide” Drexler: My Life in Basketball” (2004), “Oregon State University Football Vault” (2009), “The Civil War Rivalry: Oregon vs. Oregon State” (2014) and “Jail Blazers: How the Portland Trail Blazers Became the Bad Boys of Basketball” (2018).