Timber Jim Memories - Hannah Serrill

This week, as we prepare for Timber Jim's retirement night at PGE Park at the season opener on April 17, I will recollect about four of the most memorable days for Timbers fans since Timber Jim returned from retirement to re-join the Timbers when they re-emerged in 2001 in the United Soccer Leagues. Today I will talk about Jim's daughter Hannah.

August 5, 2004
It was a lovely August day at PGE Park as the Timbers hosted the Minnesota Thunder. The Timbers were still at the top of the A-League standings, having spent most of the season there, and had just come home from two key road wins to host the Thunder on a Thursday night. Timber Jim had not been at all the matches that year, having split time between his work and the Timbers games, but had showed up for as many games as he could, in his “semi-retired” situation since the end of the 2003 season. And he was there this night, leading the cheers in front of Section 107.

Early in the first half, Timber Jim left the field and a few people in the stands did notice his absence, but a thrilling 3-0 win over the Thunder as Andrew Gregor scored his first two goals as a Timber kept the crowd engaged, and the big win had the Timbers faithful in good spirits after the match. But at the after-game gatherings, word started to spread that something had happened that had forced Timber Jim to leave, though we didn’t know until a few days later what had happened. Jim’s daughter Hannah, who was only 17 years old and had recently given Jim and his wife a lovely granddaughter, had been killed in a head-on accident on Oregon highway 18, which runs between the Portland area and the Pacific coast. The Timbers family was devastated by the news, and condolences and donations to a fund for Hannah’s daughter Keiana were set up, but hardly seemed adequate to express the grief of the Portland soccer community for their beloved Timbers icon.

Few expected him to want to step onto the field at PGE Park again, especially since that was the place where he had been told what had happened. So Timbers supporters were shocked but elated when at the very next home game, only a week after Hannah’s death, Timber Jim was there, along with his granddaughter Keiana, and was embraced in all of the love that the team and the fans could give him, without a dry eye in the stadium. The game, while meaningless in the context, was won with a late Fadi Afash goal, a fact that would come into more significance a few weeks later.

August 29, 2004
It was exactly one year to the day since Timber Jim had first attempted to put down the chainsaw as the official Timbers mascot, and the Timbers hosted a key game against the Milwaukee Wave United, with the chance of the Timbers securing top spot in the regular season with a win, as the second place Montreal Impact had already lost on this evening.

As the match entered it’s late stages, Jim brought Keiana onto the bullpen roof in front of the Timbers supporters, and the Timbers Army began to sing “You are my sunshine”, in honor of Keiana, and just as the song was ending, Scot Thompson made a nice overlapping run down the right side and centered the ball to Fadi Afash, who trapped the ball with his back to the net, then back-heeled in a shot past Milwaukee goalkeeper Jeff Richey as the 7,800 fans erupted, and Jim carried Keiana off the dugout as Afash ran in front of the section to celebrate. Forever known as the “Sunshine goal”, it sealed the regular season title for the Timbers in the 2-1 win, and to this day is probably still the most memorable goal in the USL Timbers’ history.

July 23, 2005
By the next year, Jim had returned to his regular spot on the sideline (and occasionally hanging from the rafters and still climbing the pole) during the Timbers matches, because the love he had received from the Timbers and their supporters helped him get through the grieving, but Jim’s loss and Hannah’s memory was never far from the minds of Timbers fans. So the next year, when Sunderland, an English Premiership team visited Portland for an exhibition game on a day when Jim happened to be out of town for a wedding, the story of Hannah was told to Sunderland supporters who had seen Jim’s portrait painted on the wall outside the Bullpen, a pub near the stadium. One fan in particular, Gary Lamb, was very touched by the story, and was going to make a difference in Jim’s life.

After receiving such a warm welcome in 2005, Gary invited Timbers fans to come over to Sunderland to visit the following spring, and 31 fans did make the trip in April of 2006. Gary later admitted that he tried very hard to get Jim to make the trip as well, but he was unable to. But Gary was not going to forget the story about Jim and his daughter and granddaughter, and at two special events over their time in England, through the hard work and generosity of many Sunderland and Timbers fans, over $2000 was raised to go toward Keiana’s trust fund. This was kept secret from Jim until the time came to present him the check.

May 5, 2006
The Timbers opened their home season against the Vancouver Whitecaps a few weeks after the Timbers fans had returned from England, and at halftime of the match, Jim greeted many of the 31 fans who had made the trip, not knowing what was going to happen. In an emotional ceremony on the field, Jim was presented with a check for $2,000 for Keiana’s trust fund (that would later increase by several hundred dollars when the final amount was calculated) and in what seemed like a fitting way to attempt to bring some closure to a year and a half of grieving, tears flowed openly as emotions poured out among everyone involved.

Now that Timber Jim and his family, all the way through his extended family that gathers at PGE Park many times a year to celebrate, had gone through all of the mourning together, and now celebrate her memory and embrace Jim (and Keiana) for as long as they chose to remain a part of the Timbers family.