When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [10]
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.
"Have you been putting up hay?" King asked.
"Yes, sir," Bird replied.
"I bet your arms are pretty tired," King said.
"I can barely lift them," Bird admitted.
King was noncommittal about his interest in Bird before the game, but after the supposedly exhausted forward dropped 43 points and 25 rebounds on the state of Indiana's finest players, King's approach changed considerably.
"Hey, Larry," he said when the game ended. "We need to get you up to Terre Haute."
Hodges arranged for Bird and Beezer's brother, Kevin Carnes, to make a visit to Indiana State. Mark Bird also came along, and the three young men worked out for the coaches in jeans and tennis sneakers.
"This is how we play at home," said Bird when he refused the offer of gym shorts and basketball shoes.
Bird enrolled at ISU that fall and was required to sit out the season to be eligible under NCAA guidelines. He faithfully attended practice every day, tormenting the ISU players with his arsenal of basketball weapons.
The Sycamores were working on a defensive drill in which they would put three seconds on the clock and have their starters defend the last-second shot. Six times in a row, Bird beat the buzzer with an improbable bomb. The next day, when the starters were working on their full-court press, Bird took the ball to the middle and began shredding it.
"Bird!" King said. "Sit down!"
Larry was confused. Why was his coach so angry with him? He was putting on a show out there. No team in their right mind would press them with him handling the ball. It took him several minutes on the sidelines before it dawned on him why King was so irritated. Bird was making his team look bad.
He grabbed his sweats and marched out of the gym. Hodges, the assistant coach, followed after him and confirmed Bird's suspicions.
"Larry," Hodges said, "you're killing their confidence. We're losing them because of it."
"Well, I gotta go home and think about this," Bird replied. "I'm here to play ball. I need to play ball."
Hodges explained that his presence was demoralizing to the starters, who posted a 13–12 record that season. They were intimidated by him. Bird countered that practices were his games until he was eligible and his future teammates needed to toughen up.
"After that, I practiced all the time," he said.
Almost a year after watching, and waiting, Bird scored 31 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in his college debut against Chicago State. He was heartened to see nearly 5,000 people in the stands, especially since his teammates had forecasted a low turnout.