While the Indians and the Browns were both mediocre when I arrived in Cleveland, the Cavaliers were just turning the corner to success.

Led by Austin Carr, who I knew from my days covering Notre Dame, the Cavs were about to make a big run to the NBA Eastern Division Finals in my first year in Ohio.

Bill Fitch, who eventually made it into the NBA Hall of Fame, had coached the Cavs since the expansion franchise began play in the 1970-71 season. The team had finished last in its division in each of its first three years and, as the team added talent from the NBA draft and good trades, things got better. They won 40 games in the 1974-75 season, setting the stage for my arrival.

The Indiana Pacers teams I had covered for five years were perennial winners, going deep into the playoffs each year I was there and winning two championships. The Pacers were a close-knit team led by a charismatic coach (Bobby "Slick" Leonard) and it was a great experience watching them play and spending time around the players.

I was pretty much a total stranger when I showed up at the Cavs' training camp for the first time _ actually my first day on my new job.

During a lull in the action, I walked up to Coach Fitch to introduce myself. He shook my hand and gave me a hard, quizzical look.

"You look different than I thought you would," he said.

I had no idea what he was talking about and he could see that I wasn't processing what he was saying.

"Slick called me and told me not to be too hard on you,'' Fitch said, smiling. "He said you are a pretty good guy, most of the time."

Fitch's reputation was that of a very good coach with a really sharp sense of humor, and that's exactly what I found as we dealt with one another over the next five years.

As for the team, like the Pacers it was loaded with characters, really good guys and a whole lot of talent.

The downside, at least at first, was that the team was playing it's second season in the Richfield Township Coliseum, which was located about halfway between Cleveland and Akron and near the confluence of three Interstate roads _ I-77, I-271 and the Ohio Turnpike.

My usual schedule on the day of Cavs' home games began with the drive from my home on the near east side of Cleveland to the AP office in the Plain Dealer building, near downtown. After taking care of mail and any writing I had to do before the game, I drove the 30 minutes out to the Coliseum.

After the game, I jumped on I-271 and drove 25 miles to the far eastside of Cleveland before heading back west on surface streets to our neighborhood. It was a lot of driving, with most of it in the winter in Cleveland, where it has been known to snow.

I was pretty lucky not to get stuck overnight at the Coliseum because of snow and ice, although there were a couple of times I had to be pushed to get out of the parking lot.

And, in five years of covering the Cavaliers, I only missed one game due to weather. It was snowing hard that night when I left the office, but I didn't think much of it until I got within about a mile of the exit off I-77 near the Coliseum and saw the backup of cars.

The ramp was on an upslope and was a sheet of ice. A couple of cars had not made it to the top and were bottling up the traffic. I tried to slither my way through and nearly wound up in a ditch. The safest way to proceed was back, so I returned to the office and covered the game by radio.

Thankfully, my stringer, who grabbed quotes and official statistics for me, made it to the Coliseum and phoned me with everything I needed. I actually never told New York Sports that I covered the game by radio _ so I'm sure you'll keep my secret.

That first Cavs team was special. Besides Carr, the team's stars were sharpshooting guard Bobby "Bingo" Smith, power forward Jim Brewer, small forward Campy Russell and center Jim Chones. Point guards Jim Cleamons and Foots Walker, shooting guard Dick Snyder and veteran center Nate Thurmond also played key roles in the breakthrough season for the young franchise.

They won 49 games and the catalyst to the great season was the trade for Thurmond, the 35-year-old star who spelled Chones during the regular season and became something of a father confessor to the younger players.

The four-player trade between the Cavs and the Chicago Bulls came 13 games into the season. And it was announced on Thanksgiving Day.

Judy and I were at a Thanksgiving dinner with friends in the late afternoon when someone turned on the news on the radio and I heard about the trade. I called the office to see if they had all the info they needed and found out the only person in the office had not "had time" to write a sports story.

"I don't know who that Thurmond guy is anyway," he said. "Is he important?"

No problem. I had the number for Coach Fitch at his Coliseum office and got lucky, catching him before pregame practice. The Cavs were playing at home that night against Kansas City and the coach was happy to talk about the acquisition of Thurmond.

I called the office and, much to the displeasure of the guy on duty, dictated a story to be sent to New York. Then I went back to dinner.

The next week, I was talking with Thurmond after a game and told him the story of my interrupted Thanksgiving dinner. He laughed and began calling me "Turkey." That was my nickname around the Cavs for the rest of the season. At least it wasn't "Jive Turkey."

The other inside joke I shared with those guys was about being a Midwesterner. I was interviewing Minnesota grad Brewer one day at practice and mentioned I had gone to Wisconsin. Campy Russell, who had gone to Michigan, was in the next locker over. He leaned in and said, "Hey, we got a Big Ten connection."

We became the "BT (Big Ten) Team," with Ohio State grad Cleamons eventually joining in the silliness.

Chones, who went to Marquette, was peeved that he couldn't belong, so we made him an honorary BTer.

That team won the NBA's Central Division title and went into its first-ever playoff, a first-round battle with the Washington Bullets. The series, known to Clevelanders as "The Miracle of Richfield," went seven great games.

The Cavs made miraculous comebacks to win games five and seven of that series, both in Richfield. In both games, it came down to the final seconds.

In game five, Washington's Elvin Hayes missed two free throws with his team leading 91-90. Cleveland got the ball back with six seconds left. A foul took one second off the clock and Bingo Smith then missed a short running jumper. But Cleamons took the rebound and bounce it off the backboard and in as the clock ran out. That gave the Cavs a 92-91 win.

Game seven was even more exciting. With the score tied 85-85, Snyder took an inbounds pass with nine seconds remaining and drove past gigantic Wes Unseld and threw in a runner. The Cavs held on for the final four seconds for an 87-85 win.

In both games, the arena was pandemonium. The crowd was so loud at times that, sitting a courtside, it seemed like there was no noise. It was like a vacuum.

I was trying to dictate on to the office on my phone and I just had to trust that there was someone on the other end because I certainly could not hear them.

The Cavs moved on to the Eastern Division Finals against the Boston Celtics.  Unfortunately, Chones, who had been playing at a very high level, broke his foot during the final practice before Game One of the series.

Interviewing Jim Brewer 

With Thurmond playing far more minutes than he was capable of at that point in his career, the Celtics won the series in six games.

As disappointing as it was to not make it to the NBA Finals, Fitch told me in an interview a few days after the season ended that "this season was the most fun I've ever had as a coach."

That was the peak during my time covering the Cavs. They made it to the playoffs each of the next two years, but lost each time in the first round. After that, the team began to slide back to mediocrity, making the playoffs only once between 1978 and 1987.

I also had the privilege of burying two professional hockey teams during my time in Cleveland.

When I arrived in 1975, the Cleveland Crusaders of the World Hockey Association were playing their home games at the Coliseum. The team and the league were struggling financially and things weren't that much better on the ice.

The Crusaders finished second in their division the year I arrived, but they did it with a losing record and then lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Hartford Whalers.

In 1976, the California Golden Seals of the National Hockey League became the Cleveland Barons and virtually forced the Crusaders to leave. They became the second incarnation of the St. Paul (MN) Fighting Saints.

The Barons arrived in Cleveland with lots of hype and even more arrogance, basically telling the people of northern Ohio how lucky they were to have an NHL team. Barons officials and players did very little to promote their team or their sport and it showed in the attendance, which hovered below 10,000 a game in an arena that seated just over 20,000 spectators.

The hockey was good, but nobody was watching and the team finally merged with the Minnesota North Stars, leaving Cleveland without a professional hockey team after just two years.

During their short stay in Ohio, I thoroughly enjoyed covering the Barons. Hockey players in general are very nice people and easy to deal with. My favorite on that team was Dennis Maruk, a nifty center who scored 68 goals during his two years in Cleveland, 36 of them in 1976-77 season.

Dennis, who stood just 5-foot-8 and weighed about 165 pounds, looked like a man among boys in the dressing room. We pretty much saw eye-to-eye and he became my go-to guy for quotes before and after most games.

During one mid-season game, this little guy with a big chip on his shoulder got shoved around once too many times by the other team's enforcer. He dropped his gloves and challenged the other guy to a fight.

The other guy started laughing and Dennis was on him like a lion on its prey. He gave as good as he got before the officials broke it up.

After the game, I walked up to Dennis and, as he turned toward me, I saw a very black and blue rim around his right eye and a big cut on his chin. He was grinning from ear to ear and said, "You want a play-by-play of the fight? I think I won."

I like hockey and I hated to see him and the rest of the players leave, although the team officials were definitely not missed.

During all my years covering sports, I found team public relations people to be tremendously helpful and usually really decent people. The PR staff of the Barons left a whole lot to be desired, never getting any of the players involved with the community or with local charities.

More important, in two years they never called me once to suggest a story or pass on information. And one of them could never remember my name, calling me Dave. So I wasn't sorry to see them go,

The strangest day I ever spent at the Coliseum was in 1977 when the Barons and the Cavaliers played a doubleheader, with the hockey game in the afternoon and the basketball game that same night.

I thought it would be a fun day and asked Judy to go with me. We got a baby sitter and off we went.

She sat with me in the grandstand as I took notes on the hockey game until I finally had to head for the press box with about five minutes to go. She had a book and some crocheting with her and I just said, "Stay here and I'll get you fed in the media room after I'm done filing the game."

What I had no way of knowing was that security cleared the building between games. Judy could not convince them that she needed to wait for me. They tossed her out into the frigid January afternoon. I had the car key and this was long before cell phones.

After walking around the outside of the building for a while, she finally managed to convince one of the security people to come to the press box and find me. I had just finished sending my last story and ran to the door where she was waiting - still outside.

I told the security people who I was and showed them my credentials for both teams and they still would not budge. Finally, I left Judy standing there, still in the cold, and went to find the Cavaliers' PR person.

When I told her what was going on, she dashed to the gate with me and brought Judy in, apologizing over and over to my shivering wife. I was pretty apologetic, too.

We went into the media room and found all they had for dinner was hot dogs and chips, which is exactly what we had eaten six hours or so earlier for lunch. Then, I had to go sit at court-side at the press table, while Judy sat by herself in the stands.

This time, after the game, I went and got her and made sure she had a warm, comfortable place to wait. But, by then she wasn't a happy camper and wasn't too fond of me. I think it was more than a year until she went with me to another game.

The Coliseum was actually a very nice building, even if it was in the middle of nowhere. But it was finally torn down in 1994, replaced by a new arena, much more conveniently located in downtown Cleveland.