When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [11]
The basketball climate in Terre Haute was about to change. Word of Bird's exceptional skills spread quickly. The team went 25–3 in 1976–77, his first season. I'm a Bird Watcher T-shirts sprang up all over campus. The tipping point was on November 28, 1977, when he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated surrounded by two cheerleaders whispering "Ssssh" so as not to reveal "College Basketball's Secret Weapon." The cover transformed Bird into an overnight celebrity on the college basketball circuit. The avalanche of attention was an unwelcome development for a shy, understated country kid who preferred not to be noticed at all.
"That cover changed my life," Bird said. "People were all over me. There were some days I wished I had never been on it."
Magic Johnson, a freshman at Michigan State the day Bird became a cover boy, thumbed through the pages of Sports Illustrated in search of the story. He couldn't afford his own subscription, so every Thursday after practice at Michigan State he'd run into the coaches' lounge and pilfer their copy to see who was featured that week.
The day Bird graced the cover there was no accompanying feature. Larry had declined to be interviewed. Still, Magic found the brief blurb on the forward's hardscrabble life to be as eye-popping as his basketball numbers.
"Are you kidding me?" he said to Heathcote. "This guy is averaging 30 points a game, but before that he took a year off and told everybody, 'I'd be okay working the rest of my life.' Then he decides, 'Okay, well maybe I'll play after all.' Who does that?
"Unbelievable. I'm telling you, man, this guy is one interesting cat."
Magic identified with the pressure Bird felt to play basketball in his home state. Johnson had also narrowed his college choices to a larger, more prestigious university (Michigan) and the state school (Michigan State) preferred by his family. And like Bird, he had a multitude of other options: Maryland, Notre Dame, North Carolina State, and Indiana, to name a few. Each day dozens of schools inundated the Johnson family with letters, phone calls, and "coincidental" interactions. Finally, Earvin Johnson Sr. changed the phone number.
One cold winter morning, Detroit coach Dick Vitale showed up in Lansing just after 6 A.M. He knocked on the door of Magic's house and was told politely by Christine Johnson that her son had already left. He was up the street, shooting jump shots in the snow before school.
It was a common occurrence for recruiters to show up at odd hours of the day or night. NCAA regulations regarding contact with a student-athlete were far more lenient then, and Magic often waited at the bus stop for school in the morning with three or four suitors. When he went to lunch at Burger King, the assistant coach from Maryland loitered in the parking lot, hoping for a "chance" encounter with him.
Johnson was particularly flattered when he was contacted by UCLA coach Larry Farmer, and he bragged to his friends about "going Hollywood."
But Magic soon experienced the downside of big-time recruiting. Shortly after he cleared his schedule to fly out to Los Angeles, Farmer called back and told him to hold off. The Bruins were in hot pursuit of Albert King of Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, New York, who had been rated the top prep player in the country, ahead of both Magic and another top senior, Gene Banks.
For the first time in his young life, Magic was relegated to second-class status. He moped around the house, cursing the Bruins, vowing to make them pay for snubbing him. When Farmer called back and tried to rekindle his relationship with Magic after King chose Maryland, the proud young point guard told him he was no longer interested in UCLA.
Another West Coast school, the University of Southern California, also invited Johnson out for a visit, but at the last minute Magic decided against making the trip. There