Natalie Zito (nee Gilbert) was 13 years old in 2003 when she won a contest to sing the national anthem before an NBA Portland Trail Blazers playoff game with Dallas.
She stepped up to the mic and began to sing our anthem, acapella, with no accompaniment. Then, about 20 seconds into the song, Natalie faltered. She had forgotten the words. The crowd went dead silent.
Then, the coach of the Trailblazers, NBA Hall of Famer Maurice Cheeks, stepped beside the terrified girl and began to feed her the words.
His hand rested gently on her shoulder as he guided young Natalie through the anthem while encouraging the crowd to join in.
It was an incredible moment. But that's not the end of the story.
On Wednesday night, Natalie returned to the Portland arena once again to sing the anthem. In the audience was Maurice Cheeks, beaming like a proud father.
Maurice Cheeks once jumped to singer Natalie Zito's aid in a moving display before a 2003 NBA playoff game. https://t.co/G2JSqFFjHu
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) March 13, 2025
This time, she nailed it.
“That’s a hard time in a young child’s life, where something like that happens on national television,” Zito said. “That moment really stuck with me.”
On Wednesday, the moment came full circle. With Cheeks on the sideline as an assistant coach with the New York Knicks, Zito stood at half court and belted out “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There were no hiccups, no pauses, just full-throated perfection.
“I’d give it a solid nine,” Zito said.
Near the end of her rendition, the video board flashed to Cheeks, who was smiling from ear to ear, proud as he was that day 22 years ago.
For Zito, Wednesday wasn’t so much closure as it was a celebration of that moment 22 years ago. It was, as Cheeks likes to say, just a moment. But it was a moment that she believes helped define her.
Natalie Zito was back in Portland on Wednesday, performing a stunning rendition of the national anthem.
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) March 13, 2025
It's the same song that threatened to haunt her had it not been for Maurice Cheeks.
And 22 years later, they reunited.
✍️ @jwquick https://t.co/R4jt23DQy8 pic.twitter.com/ondmOJcHlj
Did she regret her anthem experience from 2003?
Referring to her '03 performance, she said, "This moment changed my life and I wouldn't have had it any other way," Zito said. "I would not go back in time and change it at all."
“It made me a much stronger individual,” Zito said. “I can face adversity or anything that’s coming at me. I just push through now because that’s probably the worst thing that can happen to you when you are 13 and in middle school.”
"Seeing [Cheeks] and seeing that he's still a standup today that he was back then -- amazing!"
After the anthem fiasco in 2003, it was not all sunshine and roses for Natalie.
Even as she became a national story, appearing on national talk shows, she said she was hazed first at Waluga Middle School in Lake Oswego and later at West Linn High. She said she was “picked on” and when she walked down the halls, students whispered. She would seek comfort at lunch by eating in the privacy of a bathroom stall.
“Awful, right? The kids were brutal … brutal … all the way through high school,” she said. “But I feel like it really made me a stronger person, so I wouldn’t change a thing.”
After high school, she moved to Southern California and took voice lessons. She became a professional performer at the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert and also sang at weddings, birthdays and corporate events. Later, she moved to San Francisco and met her future husband, Michael.
Working for a recycling company in Boise, she visited Portland often, and she got the opportunity to tell the Blazers who she was and her history after her company began to sponsor the team. They invited her back to sing the anthem on Wednesday, when Cheeks, an assistant coach with the New York Knicks, was in town.
Where would that terrified 13-year-old girl have ended up if Maurice Cheeks hadn't stepped up and helped her sing the anthem? Thankfully, we'll never know.
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