Big names, Big Fight

Ali, Fox among the stars coming for Grant’s Parkinson’s fundraiser this week

By Kerry Eggers

The West Linn Tidings, Jul 29, 2010

Brian Grant of West Linn, former star power forward for the Portland Trail Blazers, is hosting a two-day benefit in Portland this weekend for Parkinson’s disease research.

SUBMITTED PHOTO / MIKE MAEZ, GETTY IMAGES

If you ask me, it’s going to be the event of the summer in Portland. It’s a two-day benefit for Parkinson’s disease research, and to say the event will be star-studded doesn’t do it justice.

Muhammad Ali. Michael J. Fox. Pat Riley.

They’re coming to Portland because Brian Grant asked them to.

West Linn resident Grant, the former NBA standout who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2008, has re-started the foundation he formed during his time as a Trail Blazer from 1997-2000.

His foundation is behind the event scheduled for Aug. 1 and 2 in the City of Roses.

On Aug. 1, there will be a celebrity dinner gala at the Rose Garden arena sponsored by Spirit Mountain Casino, with Ali, Fox and Riley among those in attendance.

On Aug. 2, there will be a celebrity golf scramble at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club’s private Witch Hollow course sponsored by VTech phones, with current and former Blazers participanting.

For information, check the event’s website at www.shakeittillwemakeit.com.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Grant says, “and I hope we’ll be able to raise a lot of money.”

Not long after Grant was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he was put in touch with Fox, the actor who, with Ali, is the face of the fight against the disease. Fox answered the ex-NBA great’s questions and counseled him on what to expect in the future.

When Grant decided to stage the August event, he contacted Fox’s people.

“His wife (Tracy Pollan) and caregiver said they’d love to support it, and that Michael would come,” Grant says.

Grant ended his 12-year career in Phoenix in 2006. His real estate agent there knows Ali’s family. After Grant’s diagnosis was made public, “they reached out to me,” he says. “We’ve been friends ever since.”

During the past year, Grant has attended a pair of Ali events in Phoenix – a fundraiser for the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center Movement Disorders Clinic and a Celebrity Fight Night that Grant says raised more than $4 million.

Grant played for Riley for four seasons in Miami, from 2000-04.

“Coach Riley told me a long time ago if I ever needed him, to call,” Grant says. “I called him about this event, and he said, ‘I’m there.’”

There will be a three-item auction during the dinner gala. For now, Grant is keeping those items secret. But, they’re going to be knock-your-socks-off items.

The goal – “which I feel comfortable with,” Grant says – is to raise $500,000 over the two days.

Since Grant’s new foundation is in its formative stages, the plan is to turn most of the funds over to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

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