O say, can you see?
After Wednesday I can. I can see how compassion endures and how acts of kindness leave a long, sparkling trail. I can see how moments of distress can shape a lifetime of character.
Little Natalie Gilbert persisted on that night in 2003 so the full-grown Natalie Zito could inspire us more than two decades later.
A tip of the cap to the Trail Blazers. By inviting Zito to sing the national anthem Wednesday in front of former coach Maurice Cheeks, the Blazers won before the game even tipped off.
She belted it with confidence and on the New York Knicks bench, Cheeks beamed.
It was the reunion we didn’t know we needed. An unexpected gift that is tonic for our times.
That fleeting moment of deer-in-the-headlights panic may have been the defining moment of Gilbert’s childhood. It certainly was of Cheeks’ four-year Blazers tenure. When he wrapped his arm around the 13-year-old Gilbert, Cheeks lifted us all. He showed remarkable leadership and grace, and gave her the courage to finish singing.
It was a profound moment that led to the pair appearing on “The Tonight Show” and CNN.
And then life moved on.
On Wednesday, Zito, now a mother with daughters of her own, described how the encounter with Cheeks changed her life. She was bullied at school. Hazed and teased. She told The Athletic that she would eat her lunch in a bathroom stall to find a moment’s peace.
In a conversation with The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Aaron Fentress, Zito said, “The way he stood up for me really set a path for me to follow in those footsteps.”
She says now she helps others when she can.
“Anybody at any moment,” she said.
The Portland Trail Blazers brought back Natalie Gilbert, now Natalie Zito, to sing the national anthem prior to a game against the New York Knicks on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. Former Portland coach Maurice Cheeks was also in attendance as an assistant coach for the Knicks.Portland Trail Blazers
Cheeks, now 68, had a tumultuous tenure with the Blazers from 2001-05. He guided the franchise through the final years of Rasheed Wallace and Bonzi Wells, and was fired before Portland drafted Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. He went on to coach the Philadelphia 76ers and Detroit Pistons and has been an assistant in Oklahoma City, Chicago and, now, New York.
Maybe you’ve forgotten one or two of those stops or lost track entirely. But there’s little chance you forgot what he did for Natalie Gilbert.
Cruelty so often begets more cruelty that we can forget, particularly in this American climate, that the best way to combat it is with decency.
Cheeks understood that two decades ago. Zito gave us a reminder on Wednesday.
She wasn’t the first, last or only singer to forget the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In 2018, I watched a singer make it halfway through the challenging song before a Lakers game in Brooklyn. She paused, and stood stoically for 10 seconds … 20 … 30 … a million.
Finally, she began again and made it through to the end.
That singer? Cynthia Erivo, who just delivered an Oscar-nominated performance in the film version of “Wicked” and at the time already had three-quarters of an EGOT — an Emmy, Grammy and Tony.
In that moment, I remember thinking of Natalie Gilbert. Standing there alone, Erivo, a massive star of film and stage, was no different from that little girl in Portland. She was flustered and frozen.
“For a split second, which felt like 20 years,” Erivo told an interviewer last year, “I could not remember a damn thing.”
I bring this up not to shame Erivo, but to demonstrate that for as much as that moment changed Zito’s life, it was not unique. She was not as alone as she must have felt out there on the court before Cheeks arrived.
The edifying reunion came together organically. Zito trained as a singer before becoming the vice president of Environmentally Conscious Recycling, her father’s company, which became a Blazers sponsor this year. At the team’s corporate kickoff prior to the season, Zito’s brother approached Blazers director of game operations Todd Bosma and asked if he remembered the girl who forgot the words to the anthem.
“Natalie Gilbert!” he blurted.
Years earlier, Bosma handed that little girl the microphone. Suddenly, he was face-to-face with her again. Bosma asked if she would ever be interested in singing the anthem at another Blazers game. If she’d like to try again. The wheels were in motion.
At the risk of being overly sentimental about this, Wednesday’s reunion represented everything that is good about people and sports. There was redemption and joy. There was love. It was proof that sports are about more than games, and that they can be the backdrop for humanity in its most natural state.
It is so rare we encounter anything that is just purely good, without agenda or pretense, that when one presents itself you want to hold onto it and never let it go.
Zito has held on. And Cheeks’ smile told me he has too.
The Blazers and Knicks played a thrilling game on Wednesday. The 42 leads changes were the most in the NBA this season and before losing on a Mikal Bridges buzzer-beater, the Blazers played with the kind of effort that makes you believe that good things are on the horizon for the franchise.
But goodness is all around us. Hope can be found beyond the Blazers' lottery odds or Scoot Henderson’s true shooting percentage.
Sometimes you might have to look a little harder for it, and other times it walks right out onto the court and smacks you in the face with a powerhouse rendition of a song you know — but just might forget if 20,000 people were staring back at you.
That is courage. It lived in young Natalie Gilbert and roars through mother Natalie Zito.
On Wednesday night, the Portland provided a stage for a familiar anthem singer. And a home for the brave.
-- Bill Oram is the sports columnist at The Oregonian/OregonLive.
