When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [89]
Bird was already obsessed with basketball when his father died, but after that it became a welcome escape from the sadness that enveloped his family.
From the start, the blond white kid in French Lick and the gangly African American from Lansing exhibited unusually disciplined work habits. While other boys were playing stickball, riding bikes, sipping a soda down at the drugstore, or lounging in the nearest swimming hole, Bird and Magic were on the court, outlasting whoever had joined them that morning to shoot a few hoops.
Bird's childhood friend Tony Clark recalled numerous times when his mother would drive him past the outdoor courts and Bird would be there alone, shooting in the rain. "He had this drive none of the rest of us had," Clark said.
When he was young, Bird would go along with his brothers and his mother to the grocery store at the start of the week. They would fill four baskets full of food, and Bird assumed they would eat like royalty for weeks. Instead, by Thursday, all that was left was some peanut butter and stray pieces of bread.
"If you got a piece of that bread on Friday, you were doing pretty good," Bird said.
He was in the fourth grade when the principal came in looking for volunteers to work in the cafeteria. Everybody raised their hands, but the principal picked Bird. He worked during most of the 45-minute recess for his neighbor, Phyllis Freeman, handing out milk, wiping tables, and busing the dishes. In return, he got a free lunch and a check for $5.50 every other week. Most days he'd catch only the last five minutes of recess. His friends asked him, "Where you been? You missed all the games."
"I felt bad about it until I got that check," Bird said.
He ran home with his pay stub and the refunded lunch money Mrs. Freeman gave him and proudly showed them to his mother. Georgia Bird congratulated her son on his hard work and let him keep the check, but took the lunch money back from him. "That's my hard-earned pay," she said. Later that evening, when Joe Bird came home, he scooped up the lunch money. "That's my hard-earned pay," he said.
While Bird exhibited a wry sense of humor like his father, he was also proud and stubborn like his mother. He occasionally had trouble containing his emotions and could be surly if he felt he was slighted.
Larry weighed only 130 pounds as a high school sophomore at Springs Valley High when he broke his ankle in practice with the junior varsity team. He knew immediately he had injured himself badly because he couldn't put any pressure on his foot. Coach Jim Jones, figuring it was a sprain, took the boy out back and taped up his ankle, right on the skin. Then he told the scrawny forward, "You'll be all right. Just get out there and move a little bit." Larry did what he was told. His foot swelled so badly that it took three weeks for it to calm down enough for the doctors to cast it.
"Jonesy cost me almost a month of playing time for that," he said.
He spent most of the season propped up on crutches, shooting free throws and working at Agan's Market in West Baden. When tournament time rolled around, Larry was healed but still limping slightly. Jones added him to the postseason roster anyway, and when the coach tapped him on the shoulder to go into his first varsity game, Bird galloped onto the court and promptly launched a 15-footer. It dropped through. He went on to win the playoff game for Springs Valley with two free throws from the line in the final seconds.
"That was it," said Jim Jones. "Larry was hooked."
Jones dropped by the outdoor courts each summer to see who was refining their skills. Jones told his players, "I'll be back to check on you." Sometimes he came back in 15 minutes. Sometimes he came back after 18 holes of golf. Each time his prized player was still there, working on his game.
As a 6-foot-7 senior in high school, Larry led Springs Valley to the regional finals, where they lost to Bedford. Bird went home