AS INDIANAPOLIS BRACES for its ninth hosting of the NCAA Men’s Final Four, writer Keith O’Brien has given us Heartland: A Forgotten Place, An Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird, which reminds us that long before Indiana had Butler men’s basketball from 2009 to 2011, it had the 1978-79 Indiana State Sycamores. They were led by Indiana State University’s Larry Bird, who took the country by storm by going 33-0 before finally losing in the championship to Magic Johnson and the Michigan State Spartans.
While there is plenty of play-by-play in the book to appease the hardwood junkies, at the heart of the story is something of a character study of Bird as a young man. “I do like sports stories that transcend the game,” O’Brien, who has now published five books, said in a recent phone interview. “I’m really not interested in the balls, the strikes, the box score, and even maybe the final score. There would be a lot of sports books that I wouldn’t want to write. I’m only interested in a sports story if it’s going to say something bigger.”
Heartland certainly does say something bigger. It would seem that Bird’s life and career almost never got off the ground. He had walked away from Indiana University before ever playing one second in a game for Bob Knight, endured his father’s suicide, married, had his first child, and divorced before the Sycamores’ run to the Final Four.
“I don’t think Larry quit on himself,” O’Brien clarified in a recent phone interview about the confusing stint at IU. “He was just lost. … Today, a talented player like Larry Bird, even in a poor rural community, would have a whole team around him by the age of 16. Handlers, agents, and lawyers, people who are funneling him to all the right tournaments and the right places. That infrastructure didn’t exist in 1974-1975, in most places in the country, but certainly not in rural America. … In high school, Larry Bird just wanted to be as good as his older brother, Mark. What makes it a more compelling story is that it’s not just like he was a great star who was touched by the hand of God with talents and then just immediately became great. He needed people along the way who believed in him, maybe more than he believed in himself. I think we all need that.”
This brings the reader to Bill Hodges, the man who recruited Bird to Indiana State, against the odds, and then, after two years of being an assistant coach, fell into the head coaching role when his predecessor became ill. Taking a mid-major to the title game at the age of 36 is the stuff of fairy tales, and it almost goes without saying that it was the highlight of Hodges’ coaching career. But perhaps a strong hand in the making of Larry Bird would be enough of a life contribution for anyone.
It was in Hodges’ interest to land Bird, who was playing for Hancock Construction, an amateur athletic union team, while finding work on a garbage truck by the time his recruiting war was heating up.
O’Brien explains in the book: “Hodges had never lived in French Lick, but he had put up hay before, back home in Rosston. Hodges had never driven a garage truck, but like Bird, he had worked odd jobs in hard times, selling those Electrolux vacuum cleaners door to door.” If there hadn’t been a recruiter who really understood not just basketball but how to connect with a rural, Indiana kid, would the Boston Celtics’ stardom have ever happened? Would there have been the rivalry with Magic, the NBA Championships, or the brief stint coaching the Pacers? It’s impossible to say. Bird was tall and he could hoop; no one disputes that. But he still needed Hodges to coax him out of his hometown so he could show the world who he is.
Not just Bird, apparently. O’Brien says people on his book tour love telling the story of their role in the whole phenomenon, how it all made them feel, what they remember about the big games and shots, and people who met spouses on that Indiana State run.
Dr. Kim White-Mills, an associate professor of communication studies at Indiana University Indianapolis, isn’t mentioned explicitly in the book, but she has her own reason for remembering the run: she was a cheerleader for the team that season (and has a picture with Magic Johnson to show for it). She hasn’t read Heartland yet, but she says she will.
“You know, he was responsible for my first job,” she remembers. “When I graduated, the city knew all about Larry Bird, right? They knew that I had gone to school at the same time he was there, and doors were just opening like crazy. There were sports fans everywhere, and I could have gotten a job anywhere, wherever I applied. People were calling me out of the blue because they had seen me on the news or in some commercial.”
