A soccer television crew for NBC that was dining at the Heathman Restaurant a couple of Thursdays ago provided the first confirmed visual sighting of

's summer visit to Oregon.

The San Antonio Spurs coach walked with a cane. He had dinner with a couple in their 30s. A friend in that broadcast crew texted, asking me, "Would he be in PDX for any reason?"

I'd been tipped off that Popovich would be in Oregon weeks before. Over coffee on a sunny day, screenwriter and friend Mike Rich remarked to me that he knew Popovich might make an appearance at a private wine event in the Willamette Valley.

"You should try to track Pop down and see what happens," Rich said.

This is how "Finding Popovich" was born.

This dispels the myth that all Rich does is write epic film scripts, play with his grandchildren, think about fantasy football and root for Oregon State. He's also a very gifted assigning editor, in part, because I think if Rich weren't so busy being Mike Rich, he'd have grabbed a notebook and a pen himself and tracked down the Spurs coach.

Popovich ate dinner at the Heathman. Others in the restaurant didn't approach him or make a fuss. His table wasn't surrounded by basketball fans who wanted face time with the man who is not only the longest tenured active coach in the NBA, but also every other major American sports league. In fact, the cane probably got more attention than the man using it.

---

The Spurs locker room at the AT&T Center has showers, carpet, and large wooden stalls for the players' belongings. It's a lot like the league's 29 other locker rooms, except for what's on the walls, both on the inside and outside in the long hallway that leads to it.

Directly between the lockers of resident stars Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili there is posted a framed quotation from social reformer and early 1900s journalist Jacob Riis.

It reads:

Down the hallway as you exit the locker room this same Riis quote is also posted in French, Spanish and Portuguese. It is the only quotation posted anywhere in the Spurs' locker room, making it a singular message for a franchise led by a man who doesn't like to risk anyone missing his point.

---

More than a decade ago, the Domaine Drouhin winery in the Dundee Hills had no tasting room, and a large unfinished mezzanine. Bill Hatcher, who ran the place from its inception in 1988 to 2001, figured this was the perfect spot to put a portable basketball hoop. And so on a trip through Oregon, a friend of Popovich recommended they stop by the low-profile winery with the basketball hoop, you know, to taste wine.

Hatcher, who has an MBA and a background in poetry, had abandoned the corporate world and Fortune 500 companies to get into the wine business with his wife, Deb. He and Popovich connected immediately, talking about world politics, business and wines.

Hatcher's wife, Deb, said, "At one point, Gregg got up to use the restroom and Bill leans over to his friend and said, 'Gregg seems like such a nice guy, what's he do for a living?'

"I think Pop liked that."

Popovich stayed in touch with the Hatchers over the years. They compared philosophies in coaching and in wine making. They had dinners, talked about the commitment to the process being the focus in both industries. They became friends, and visited him on the road in NBA cities. When Deb and Bill decided in 2002 to start their own winery with another couple, Popovich became the largest outside investor in the outfit now known as "A to Z Wineworks."

Popovich's visit to Oregon this month fell somewhere between a whisper and a state secret. But when I arrived at the tasting room on Saturday at Rex Hill Vineyards --- A to Z's prime label --- I located a display case down a hallway near a bathroom with a basketball in it autographed by Popovich. In the case, there were a line of four empty bottles of a wine, years 2005 to 2008, with a label I'd never seen or heard about before.

The label was a striking and simple illustrated image. The art featured a man in plain work clothes. He had his right foot on a giant boulder, and he swung a large hammer over his shoulder toward the mass. It looked like something you'd see on the cover of an Ayn Rand novel.

On the label, the words: "ROCK & HAMMER."

A staffer at the wine bar poured a 2011 Rex Hill Pinot Noir in the glass on the bar. I asked him where I could buy a bottle of Rock & Hammer. He said that wine wasn't ever for sale, and that it was kept under lock and key. He'd never handled a bottle personally, and didn't know of anyone at the winery who had.

Then, I asked, "Has Pop been here today?"

His eyes widened.

"There HAS been a sighting today," he said.

---

Popovich travels through Portland every NBA season when the Spurs play the Trail Blazers, but doesn't always stop at the winery.

Said Deb, "Watching how Pop runs the Spurs organization as well as how he's coaching... it's not a common corporate culture. It's just not common. You try to be an asset. He has this, 'Remember what your mother taught you' feel about him. It's 'Leave a place better than you've found it.'"

It's that attention to detail, and consistency in approach that connected the wine entrepreneurs at A to Z with Popovich in the first place. It's a shared philosophy and an appreciation for the painstaking process that ultimately creates both great basketball and wine. In fact, when the Hatchers acquired Rex Hill in 2006, one of the first moves was to pare down the 30-something offerings annually into seven or eight that were of the finest quality.

"You keep your eye on the end game -- the quality," said Deb. "No cutting corners... it boils down to this: You have to do every single thing, every day, with integrity and intention.

"All actions have consequences."

A couple of seasons ago, Popovich called the Hatchers to tell them that he wanted to bring his coaching staff to the vineyard. It was grape harvest season in the Willamette Valley. The Spurs had a rare day off in Portland before a game the following night. Popovich wondered if his coaching staff might have dinner at the winery, see some of the new construction and learn about that year's harvest.

The winery has a striking dining hall, built around what used to be a drying kiln for fruit before it was even a winery. "We have a chef who is from Le Cordon Bleu, we offered for them to have dinner in front of the fireplaces," Deb said. "They didn't want to do it."

Popovich wanted his staff to eat pizza in the tunnels with the harvest crew.

---

I did not encounter Popovich in person during his visit. I did find a trail of his appreciation and love for wine after he departed. He dined over the weekend at The Painted Lady in Newberg. Last Sunday evening, for a $750 charity donation, you could have joined a private gathering at Rex Hill that featured Popovich and Rex Hill winemaker Sam Tannahill.

It was a reception and Italian dinner, and probably well worth every penny given that Popovich stood, acknowledging his discomfort from his postseason hip replacement surgery, and said a few words to the crowd about wines. Also, Popovich pledged that he'd match everyone's donations from the evening.

Popovich told the group he likes a great pinot noir. He's also enthusiastic about some of the offerings from Spain. Also, a day earlier during that "sighting" at the winery he spent his Saturday privately tasting some of the components that could potentially go into the next offering of Rock & Hammer.

"We've been making all these wines for him all these years, but it's not often we've had a chance to sit, let him taste and find out what he prefers, likes and enjoys," Deb Hatcher said. "He's definitely into it. When he picks something to do, he goes all the way. He's an expert on Soviet history, and taught it.

"He's not a big drinker or a frequent drinker, but he has a connoisseur's approach."

When Popovich got interested in wine, for example, he started tasting and collecting. Eventually he had to build a separate building for his wine collection.

I asked Hatcher then, given that her winery made Rock & Hammer for Popovich, what it tastes like.

"It's a fine pinot noir. It's different, year to year. Full body, richness, some spice on the finish," she said. "It has a beautiful pinot noir nose. It has complexity. It's always a blend; we specialize in that."

Then she stopped.

"It just can't be done. I always believe you have to taste the wine to talk it."

Which brings us back to that Sunday dinner as part of the Classic Wines Auction event. Because not only did Popovich talk about the vintages from 2004 to 2012, and not only was he "gracious, smart and funny," according to a donor who was present, but he did the most remarkable thing at the end of the evening.

The Spurs coach brought out his personal cases of Rock & Hammer.

"He gave everyone there a bottle," Deb said. "It's the only time I know that any of them had gone out in all the years we've made them.

"But you know, it was typical of Pop."

---