The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), July 20, 2007, Friday

Copyright 2007 The Oregonian

All Rights Reserved

The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)

July 20, 2007 Friday

Sunrise Edition

SECTION: Sports; Pg. E01

HEADLINE: Letting Portland in on a secret

BYLINE: BRIAN MEEHAN, The Oregonian

BODY:

SUMMARY: Merritt Paulson, new owner of the Beavers and Timbers, stages a "Grand Reopening" tonight at PGE Park

Merritt Paulson's friends and family quickly speak of the 34-year-old's energy when describing the new majority owner of the Portland Beavers. Paulson will need all that zeal as he begins the task of invigorating a franchise that has had three owners in six years and has struggled to find a better niche in a market dominated by the Trail Blazers and the Pacific-10 Conference.

Tonight at PGE Park, Paulson begins his work to change the image of the Beavers even as he weighs whether he should change the name of the team.

He devised tonight's "Grand Reopening" to raise community interest in his baseball and soccer teams. Players from the Beavers and the Portland Timbers will greet fans before the 7:05 p.m. game and distribute envelopes with cash or gift cards to the first 1,000 fans.

Trail Blazers guard Jarrett Jack will throw out the first pitch, and a fireworks show will follow the game against the Tucson Sidewinders. One preselected fan might have a chance to win $100,000 if a Beavers player hits a grand slam in the seventh inning. It's all part of Paulson's campaign to elevate the profile of a sports franchise he believes is Portland's best-kept secret.

"I don't like the fact it is a secret," he said. "The grand reopening will be an excellent opportunity to celebrate with the fans of Portland. . . . The idea is to welcome Portland to a new era of Beavers baseball."

But the Paulson era might proceed without the Beavers moniker, the team's nickname since 1906 when Portland won its first Pacific Coast League title. The club is conducting focus groups on a potential name change and will organize a fan poll on its Web site.

"It is important that we have our own identity," Paulson said. "It is something we are soliciting as much input from the community as we can before making the decision."

Paulson said preliminary research reveals some uncertainty in the community about the team's identity. He said fans can't identify the Beavers mascot during appearances, mostly because of confusion with the Oregon State Beavers.

The confusion is ironic because the Triple A baseball team was known as the Beavers when the mascot that represented the college was --depending on which sources you believe --either a coyote called Jimmie or a Presbyterian minister by the name of John Richard Newton Bell. The university didn't embrace the Beavers label until 1910, four years after the baseball team.

Paulson said the name won't change if the community clearly opposes a shift. But if he moves in that direction, he hopes to have a new name selected by September.

Four-year search

Paulson conducted a four-year search for a sports franchise before settling on the Beavers and Timbers. Part of his decision was formed by Portland, a city where he and his wife, Heather, wanted to live. Portland was 10th out of 16 PCL teams in attendance last season, averaging 5,649 home fans. This season, the Beavers are 12th at 4,654 fans a game.

Although the Beavers have far to go to match Sacramento, which leads in attendance at 9,924 a game, Paulson sees great growth potential in the second-largest market in Triple A baseball. (Baseball includes the Seattle metropolitan area in Tacoma's area, making it the largest market.)

"There were deals that made sense in other parts of country, but I love the Pacific Northwest," Heather Paulson said. "We love hiking and skiing."

The Paulson household --the couple bought a house in Lake Oswego --is not without accomplishment. Heather was valedictorian of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Before moving to Portland, she worked as a hedge fund investor in New York.

Merritt Paulson graduated from Hamilton College in upstate New York and from Harvard Business School. Before his plunge into sports team ownership, he was an executive with NBA Entertainment, helping launch NBA TV in New York.

He is the son of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, the investment banking house, and an ardent conservationist. Merritt Paulson grew up a Cubs fan on the family farm in Barrington, Ill. Honesty and hard work, Merritt Paulson said, are the bedrock values he learned from his father, who is a minority owner of the Beavers and Timbers.

"He just is so energetic," Jack Cain, a senior adviser to the Beavers, said of Paulson. "It is going to take someone like Merritt to make this work. He's young and can work those 18-hour days."

A leader in giving

Paulson also wants to make his organization a leader in philanthropic giving among minor league baseball and soccer. He is in the process of establishing the Portland Beavers and Portland Timbers Community Fund. To kick off this initiative, Paulson will present Hollywood Little League with a $10,000 check tonight to fund field construction.

"We are in a unique position to have a positive impact on our surrounding area," Paulson said. "And I could not be more pleased to announce plans for our community fund, which will play a key role in our efforts."

Paulson wants to enrich the entertainment experience for families in an affordable setting. He'd like to stage exhibition games with the San Diego Padres, the Beavers' parent club, and hold concerts and special soccer matches, such as the Timbers' July 28 match against Preston North End, an English team.

But to be successful, Paulson understands it is about more than ideas. Just as his ballclub needs to bunt the winning run into scoring position late in games, so, too, does Paulson have to execute.

"It starts and ends with execution," he said. "We have to make sure we follow through on things."

And ultimately whether they are called the Beavers or the Monograms, the name of a circa 1896 Portland ballclub, Paulson hopes to make Portland fans more familiar with the teams and the experience at PGE Park.

ILLUSTRATION: Paulson Is seeking "our

own identity"

Brian Meehan, 503-221-4341; brianmeehan@news.oregonian.com