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April 27, 2003
Memories Of Larry Legend
Over at ESPN.com, Bill Simmons has written a great look back at the career of Larry Bird, and what it meant to him as a young basketball fan growing up in Greater Boston. Reading it, I couldn't help but remember my close encouter with Bird. Back in the Fall of 1990, I was working as a low-level PR drone for COMSAT Corp. -- a company then better known for launching the world's first commercial communications satellite. Only a few months before I came on board, however, the company had taken a dive into professional sports when it bought the NBA's Denver Nuggets. The purchase was part of a longer term strategy by COMSAT executive Bob Wussler. He wanted to establish the company as the leader in the then nascent satellite television market -- and do it years before current market leader DirectTV ever got off the ground. Wussler was better known in the business for his accomplishments first at CBS Sports (he was generally credited as the mind behind The NFL Today in its heyday), and then as a co-founder of CNN. Essentially, Wussler was looking to use the Nuggets as the programming centerpiece for a satellite network in much the same way Turner had used the Atlanta Braves as the program anchor on Superstation WTBS. Unfortunately for Wussler, the rest of COMSAT failed to generate enough cash to make his dream a reality, and he made a quiet exit from the company. Of course, this left a satellite company with a basketball team that was actually a subsidiary of its hotel room movie business. Later, COMSAT would go even further, and purchased the Quebec Nordiques and moved them to Denver where they became the Colorado Avalanche. In time, COMSAT also added a small movie studio, and another hotel movie subsidiary and spun them off into an independent company. Whether any of these moves actually made any money for COMSAT or its shareholders is a question I'll leave up to the accountants and the "smart money," on Wall Street. Needless to say, I suspect they didn't make a dime. In any case, back then at COMSAT, I was more or less the editor of the bi-monthly company newsletter. And one of the features that my bosses wanted for an upcoming issue was a season preview of the Nuggets. The Fall of 1990 was shaping up to be an exciting time for the team, as it had just hired a new GM in Bernie Bickerstaff, as well as a new head coach in Paul Westhead. Westhead, who had coached the LA Lakers to the first of their titles in the 1980s before getting pushed out the door by Magic Johnson, was getting his second shot at NBA success by dint of his work at NCAA Division I Loyola Marymount. It was only the season before that Westhead had led the team to the Elite Eight -- carried on the back of Bo Kimble, and fueled with inspiration following the on-court death of Hank Gathers. As you might recall, Westhead played a kind of basketball that could best be described as the run and gun on steroids -- better known back then as "Paul Ball." The result was final scores that often made the NBA look like a titanic defensive struggle by comparison -- and Westhead was determined to see if his system could work at the professional level. In any case, I was off to Denver to meet the coaches, the front office staff, and a smattering of players in order to put my article together. It was as fun a business trip as I've ever taken, especially for an absolute sports fanatic like myself. The folks at the Nuggets treated me better than I deserved to be -- granting me time with everyone -- including part-owner Peter Bynoe, a man who became the first African-American to ever be an owner of a major league franchise. On the last night of my stay, the Nuggets were scheduled to play an exhibition with the Celtics at McNichols Arena. Since I was officially on the inside, the team gave me one of those "all-access" passes that basically let me go anywhere in the arena other than the locker rooms. I arrived at the game a couple of hours early, and just wandered around the empty arena. It was then that I got a chance to see Larry Bird up close -- for the first and last time. For a while, I absent-mindedly wandered around the concourse -- that was until I looked up one of the runways and saw a solitary player taking jumpers from just outside the three point arc. As I got closer, it was easy to see that it was Bird. As you might expect, he was just a machine, dropping shot after effortless shot through the cylinder. As I got closer to the court, I made sure to stay as quiet as I could while staying out of Bird's line of sight. All I could think was that I wanted to make sure I did nothing to disturb him. By this point in his career, Bird had a reputation of being all business -- and I was determined not to disturb him. I settled into a seat a couple of rows from courtside, and just watched him. He never said a word, and certainly didn't do anything to acknowledge my presence as he drained one shot after another. After about 30 minutes, I got up and left as quietly as I could. A few years later, a friend asked why I didn't ask Bird if I could rebound for him. For me, the answer was easy. I was only a guest visiting Bird's office that day, and I didn't have any business sticking my nose into his. It was a privilege just to be there to watch, and I was just lucky that he didn't ask me to leave.
Eric
06:06 PM
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