When the Game Was Ours (3 page)

When Johnson learned Knight was coming to Everett High School to meet with him, he woke up an hour earlier that morning, unlocked the school gym, and shot an extra 100 free throws—just in case coach Knight asked.

"He was 'the Man' back then," Magic said.

Knight told Magic's high school coach, George Fox, that he would meet with Johnson when school ended. Half an hour before the bell rang, Fox was walking down the hall and was stunned to see Knight leaning against the wall near Magic's classroom.

"Coach, you're early," Fox said.

"I always am," Knight said. "When I recruit a player, I like to see him with his peers, check out his attitude with the other students."

The coach's clandestine observations of Johnson revealed a confident, outgoing kid who was clearly adored by his classmates and who patrolled the hallways of the school as the undisputed leader of the student body.

When Magic sat down with Knight and Fox in Everett's cafeteria, the swagger that Knight had witnessed in the corridor quickly vanished. Johnson felt his shoulders tighten. He was nervous. The man he'd seen on television pacing the Indiana sidelines was ferocious, intimidating. But when Magic tentatively extended his hand, Knight received it warmly.

The Indiana coach proved to be a jocular host of the recruiting session and within minutes set both Fox and Johnson at ease with his anecdotes describing his passion for the game.

"He had a great smile," Johnson said. "I don't think I had ever seen him smile before."

Knight laid out what he expected of all players who came to Bloomington: they were required to go to class and expected to graduate. He would not guarantee playing time or special treatment. "If you come," Knight told Magic, "you will be treated like everyone else. You will be expected to earn your spot. I don't give anybody anything. You have to prove to me you deserve it."

The message was appealing to Johnson, who had been courted incessantly for months by schools that promised him corner lockers, starting jobs, and a few other perks (clothes, cash, cars) that were in direct violation of NCAA guidelines. It was refreshing to have someone challenge him to back up his play.

Knight's tone was conciliatory until he sharply asked: "So, Earvin, where the hell are you going to school?"

Both Magic and Fox were taken aback by the sudden change of tone. Coach Knight was done fooling around. There were countless kids who were dying to play for the Hoosiers. If Magic Johnson wasn't one of them, then Knight didn't want to waste his time.

Johnson was silent for a moment, then conceded, "I'm not sure. I don't know about Indiana. If you started getting in my face, I'm not sure how I'd react to that."

Knight cocked his head for a moment, then stood up. The interview was over. Knight shook Fox's hand and left Lansing.

"That was it," Magic said. "I never spoke to or heard from him again.

"To tell you the truth, I regret not taking a visit. He was a tremendous coach. And just imagine if Larry had stayed and I had gone there. The two of us would have played in college together. Now that would have been something."

Unlike Magic, who was recruited heavily from his junior season on, many of Bird's suitors did not arrive until his senior year of high school. He quickly narrowed his list to Kentucky, ISU, and IU, although that did not deter other programs from pursuing him.

Louisville coach Denny Crum diligently tracked Bird even though Bird refused to visit the school. He liked Crum, though, and when he discovered the Louisville coach shooting baskets in his high school gym one afternoon, he stopped to talk with him.

"Larry, we'd like for you to come on a recruiting visit," Crum said. "We really think you'll like it."

"I don't want to," Bird answered plainly.

"Look," Crum said, "I'll play a game of H-O-R-S-E with you. If I beat you, you've got to come for a visit."

Bird agreed to the terms—and almost instantly regretted his decision. Crum was a former UCLA guard under Wooden who had maintained his soft perimeter stroke. He matched Bird basket for basket for over 15 minutes, and the kid started to realize he had been hoodwinked.

It ended like most shooting competitions Bird would compete in through the years: with his arms raised in victory. He finally eliminated Crum with a 20-foot bomb, and when Crum's last gasp rolled off the rim, Bird cheered triumphantly before noticing the agonized look on the coach's face.

"It wasn't until then that I realized he was serious about the bet," Bird said.

He shook Crum's hand, patted his shoulder, and said, "At least I don't have to go see your school."

In truth, Bird couldn't imagine leaving his native state of Indiana—with the exception of one place. Kentucky, which happened to be Louisville's chief rival, was steeped in history, and Bird and his father had watched the Wildcats demolish some poor overmatched opponent on television once.

"Now that's a first-rate program," Joe Bird had said.

When Joe B. Hall contacted Bird, Larry brought along his parents for his official visit. All three Birds sat wide-eyed in the stands of Rupp Arena and listened to the explosion of sound when the basketball team sprinted onto the court. It was easy to be swept up in the energy and the tradition that was synonymous with Kentucky basketball. When Larry glanced over at his father, he could see that Joe Bird was suitably impressed.

Larry was too. His father still preferred Indiana State, and his mother was fascinated with Indiana, but Bird briefly daydreamed about what it would be like to wear Kentucky blue. The university was only 135 miles from his home. The campus was beautiful, and the athletic facilities were top-notch. Yet before he ever had a chance to give the Wildcats serious consideration, Gary Holland, his high school coach in his senior year, intercepted Bird in the hallway and informed him that Hall had concerns about him being able to get his shot off in the Southeastern Conference.

"In other words, he quit recruiting me," Bird said.

Although Bird's outer reaction to the news was muted, he was upset and angry. He never forgave Hall for giving up on him before he had a chance to prove himself.

"I don't know if I would have gone there," Bird said. "I liked it. They ended up taking Rick Robey instead of me. He was 6-foot-11, and they got who they wanted and went off and won a national championship. So I guess they were fine with their decision."

With his choices narrowed to the two Indiana schools, Bird was swayed by the same no-nonsense talk Knight would deliver to Magic two years later: no shortcuts, no guarantees, and no special treatment. He was speaking the boy's language—as well as his mother's. Georgia Bird won out. Her son Larry chose IU.

Since the Birds didn't have a family car, Larry's uncle, Amos Kerns, tossed Bird's lone bag into the back seat of his Ford and drove him 49 miles north to Bloomington when school began. Kerns stayed for a while, then stretched his arms and told his nephew, "Good luck, man. I'll be up to see you."

Suddenly, Bird was alone. He was not well traveled, having been content for most of his young life to stay within the confines of his county and play ball and hang with his friends. When he glanced around his dorm room, which he shared with fellow basketball recruit Jim Wisman, a wave of uneasiness overtook him. Although Wisman was by no means wealthy, when he unpacked his clothes and personal effects, Bird realized, "Man, I don't have nothing."

As he walked the grounds of the Indiana campus, he couldn't help but notice the well-dressed students who looked nothing like his pals back in French Lick. Mindful that basketball always raised his comfort level, Bird showed up each night at Assembly Hall with Wisman and another IU freshman, Wayne Radford, with hopes of getting into the games with the varsity players. The newcomers rarely did. The regulars played game after game without including them.

Bird and Wisman (who would later become noteworthy as the player Knight pulled off the court by his jersey on national television during one of his famous tirades in 1976) finally switched venues to the outdoor courts on campus. When word got out that there was some pretty good basketball being played there, IU varsity players Bobby Wilkes and Scott May began showing up and playing 2-on-2 with them. May, already an All-American, rained jumper after jumper over Bird, beating the young forward repeatedly with his outside touch. It was both frustrating and humiliating.

Bird studied him carefully and realized that May had a knack of creating space for himself by leaning in as if to launch the shot, then stepping back ever so slightly when he finally did. He never shot beyond 16 or 17 feet and was meticulously mindful of his range.

"He couldn't beat people off the dribble, so he was a spot shooter," Bird said. "I started thinking, 'If I can add that kind of shooting with the movement and the drives and the rebounding and the other stuff I'm doing, I might be pretty good.'"

Although IU star Kent Benson pointedly ignored him during the pickup games at Assembly Hall, Bird hardly felt like an outcast. His school work was difficult, but he knew once the basketball season started he'd have tutors available to assist him. The classes were large, in some cases over 100 students, but Bird minimized his initial sense of feeling overwhelmed by sitting in the front.

"For the most part, everything was cool," he said. "I just didn't have any money. At night, if the guys wanted to go get something to eat, I had no money to do it. I couldn't buy a pair of pants or a shirt. Jimmy was pretty nice. He let me wear whatever I wanted of his. But it started to get to me, just never having any money."

Two weeks into school, Bird started to rethink his strategy. Maybe he should withdraw from IU, get a job, then try again when he had some financial security. He didn't share his concerns with any of his new friends on campus or his parents back home. The few times he called, Georgia could sense he was homesick, but she encouraged him to study hard and stick with it. Bird's interaction with Knight was minimal, particularly since the team's workouts had not yet officially begun. He occasionally bumped into Knight at the gym, but the coach was an intimidating figure, and Bird was not one to initiate a conversation.

Bird might have made it if not for the night he broke his toe during a pickup game on the outdoor courts after another player landed on his foot.

The injury was painful and left Bird limping all over campus. He got up 40 minutes earlier in the morning so he'd make it to his first class on time, but was consistently late getting to the next one.

"I'm sitting there saying to myself, 'I'm hurt, I can't work, I'm going to be in trouble for being late to class, I don't have any money, and they won't let me play in any of the games,'" Bird said. "'Time to go home.'"

After 24 days on campus, Bird packed up his duffle bag, closed his dormitory room door, and hitchhiked back to French Lick. He did not tell anyone of his plans—not even the coach who had recruited him.

When Larry walked into his house, his mother, who had just finished her waitress shift, was washing dishes at the sink.

"What are you doing home?" asked Georgia Bird.

"I'm done. I'm not going back," her son answered. "I'm going to work."

Georgia Bird's voice cracked. She was a strong, proud woman, but this news crushed her. "I thought you were going to be the first one to graduate college," she said. "This was a great opportunity for you. Don't you understand? I'm so disappointed."

"Mom," Bird said, "I don't have any money. I can't do the stuff everyone else is doing."

"You never had any money before, and you've always managed," she snapped.

"But this is different," Bird said. "I can't make this work until I get a job and earn some pay."

"You were going to be the first one," Georgia Bird said bitterly as she turned her back on her son.

Bird's mother said nothing more. She did not speak to Larry for nearly a month and a half. Bird moved in with his grandmother Lizzie Kerns and avoided Georgia completely. By then his parents were divorced, and while Joe Bird was not happy with his son's decision either, he advised him, "If you are leaving school to work, then you better get on that job—now."

Ten days after he left the IU campus, Bird borrowed Amos Kerns's car, corralled his childhood friend Beezer Carnes, and drove back to Bloomington to officially withdraw from class. He did not stop in to speak with Knight, Jim Wisman, or the other guys who would have been his teammates. He simply left as quietly as he came.

"I have no clue when Coach Knight even realized I was gone," Bird said. "I never heard from him. They had a great team. I'm sure he was thinking, 'The hell with Bird.' I can't say I blame him."

Word of Bird's departure from Bloomington spread quickly in the small towns of French Lick and West Baden. He had not just disappointed his family; the letdown reverberated throughout the entire community. He was pressured into briefly enrolling in Northwood Institute, but after two weeks of practicing with their team and finding the competition underwhelming, Bird withdrew from there as well.

He took a job working for the town of French Lick cutting trees, painting street signs, sweeping the roads, collecting garbage, and unplugging the sewers. He later worked for a company delivering mobile homes.

Through it all, he continued to play basketball in pickup games, summer leagues, and AAU tournaments. Although he was no longer part of the mainstream of college basketball, recruiters kept calling. Bill Hodges, the persistent Indiana State assistant, was among the suitors. Hodges repeatedly showed up, unannounced, at Bird's home, the local laundromat, and the Villager, one of the restaurants where Georgia Bird waited on tables.

One night both Hodges and Indiana State head coach Bob King appeared at one of Bird's AAU games in Mitchell, Indiana. The opponent was an Indiana All-Star team that included future Celtics guard Jerry Sichting. Bird had put up 1,300 bales of hay that week and barely made it to the game on time. He left the fields and changed into his uniform in the car while his brother drove him 25 miles to Mitchell. When Bird arrived, King immediately guessed the source of the scratches up and down Bird's arms.