Few Cavaliers fans have enjoyed the ride of the last three NBA Finals like a couple of members of the Cavaliers stats team for they have been in their jobs essentially as long as the franchise has been around.
Chuck Broski of Willoughby Hills is the crew chief in charge, his brother was the team’s original scorer dating back to when the Cincinnati Royals would play ten games a year here before the city landed its own franchise.
So when the Cavs prepared for their inaugural season in 1970 Chuck went down to apply for one but he was told the positions were filled but a member of the front office invited him to join them at a scrimmage that night at Bowling Green.
“So I went along and the people that they had lined up for the most part didn’t know anything about the game,” Broski recalled. “So I stepped right in and since then I’ve been head of the stats crew.”
Having a friend working for the team was a good thing thought Bob Maver Sr. who called Broski one day and asked if he could score him a couple of tickets.
“He says yeah c’mon down,” Maver recalled. “So I watched the game and then after the game he said ‘are you interested in working down here?’ I said 'doing what?' You know, he said 'keeping rebounds' I said 'yeah I’ll try it,' I got on and I been on since.”
For their kids having Dad’s that worked for the Cavs was pretty cool as well.
"First game he took me to I met Lenny Wilkins when he was a player here before he was a coach in '72," recalled Bob Maver, Jr.
The two have 93 seasons of Cavaliers basketball between them watching countless games as the team and the league grew into its own moving with them from the Arena on Euclid Avenue to the Coliseum in Richfield to the “Q” in downtown Cleveland.
"We're on our way out pretty soon," Broski said.
Fortunately for them, they not only have been able to help train the next generation on the stats crew, they changed their diapers. Yes for Broski and Maver the Cavs have become a family operation with Chad Broski, now the Cavs official scorer joining his Dad in 1998 and Bob Maver Jr. joining his Dad two years later.
Oh and they’re not alone, you can also find the only father – son battery of Larry and Jay Kletecka on the stats team. In 2004 Jay was living in California when his father Larry was diagnosed with cancer.
"I kind of made the decision I wanted to come home and spend time with him," he said landing a job with his father in the copying room distributing the latest numbers to the media and others as they come in during the game. In the 13 years since joining the Cavs Jay has seen his father through four bouts of the disease, "I worked through the cancer and never missed any Cavs games," Larry added.
Living on the east side they are able to commute into games together, that’s not the case with the Broski’s and Mavers. "We live on different sides of town,” said Bob Maver Jr. “so instead of seeing him once in a blue moon I get to see him about 55 times a year."
There’s something that all of these fathers and sons share in common said Jay Kletecka, “Game to game just being here with my Dad is just a special moment and I think it was just magnified last year when the Cavs won the championship,” he said.
Oh that little thing, the moment shared by fathers and sons across Northeast Ohio and the country last year. A victory that came appropriately enough on the third Sunday of June, otherwise known as Fathers Day.