The Rivalry That Saved the NBA and Changed Two Lives: Larry Bird and Magic Johnson

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. The rivalry between Larry Bird and Magic
Johnson is considered one of the greatest in sports history,
single handedly saving the NBA from financial ruin in the

(00:32):
nineteen eighties. The two superstars, who were polar opposites in
background and playing style, clashed for over a decade, with
Magic winning five NBA titles and Bird winning three.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Here’s our own Greg Hengler with the story.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
It is Indiana State against Michigan State, the Bird against Magic.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
All of the superlatives have been used, and believe me,
all of them.

Speaker 5 (00:54):
It all began in Salt Lake City, Utah, on the
night of March twenty six teen, seventy nine. It was
the NCAAA Championship Indiana State versus Michigan State, a game
that still ranks as the highest rated college final ever
on television. A game that’s now remembered as a prologue

(01:15):
to a rivalry that transformed a sport and intertwined two legacies.
Here’s Larry Bird and Urban Magic Johnson just before the
big game. It would be the first time these two
would go head to head on a basketball court.

Speaker 6 (01:30):
Well, this is probably the biggest game I ever played
in my life, and I just feel like, you know,
I’m representing not only myself my team, but we’re representing
our school in our town.

Speaker 7 (01:38):
Terre Holt was a dream come true really for me.
I want to state title back in my home stay.
And then my next accountlident was going to the NCAA
and playing a game like tonight in the finals.

Speaker 5 (01:52):
There were two stars made to compete, but only one
of them had been groomed for the spotlight. Born August fourteenth,
nineteen fifty nine, Irvin Johnson grew up in Lansing, a
gritty industrial capital city of Michigan. He was one of
Christine and Irvin Johnson Senior’s ten kids. Christine was a

(02:13):
school custodian, while Irvin Senior worked two jobs nearly around
the clock. Here’s Magic Johnson my father.

Speaker 8 (02:23):
He got up early every morning, six o’clock or so,
and he went to work on his trash hauling truck.

Speaker 9 (02:29):
Every single day.

Speaker 8 (02:31):
Around noon, he would come home, catch a nap, and
then he worked for General Motors for thirty years, and
he won an award for never being late and never
missed a day.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
As a youngster, Irvin displayed his own strong work ethic
on the blacktop. Here’s Magic and his sister Evelyn.

Speaker 8 (02:50):
I was out there all day long before we went
to school. The bus leave at seven seven thirty. I
was out there at six six dirty working on my game.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
From a very young age, Irvin knew what he wanted
to do. He had all planned out.

Speaker 10 (03:08):
My dreams were the plan of the NBA and become
a businessman.

Speaker 5 (03:11):
Irvin was preparing to go to his neighborhood high school,
a basketball powerhouse. They’re predominantly black sext And High. But
when Lansing began busting to desegregated school system, Irvin’s journey
took an unexpected detour to the predominantly white Everett High
School across town.

Speaker 8 (03:31):
My first day at Everett High School, nobody white would
speak to anybody black, and nobody black would speak to
anybody white.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
Here’s Irvin’s high school basketball coach, George Fox.

Speaker 11 (03:45):
Whenever there was any racial problems, the principal would get
her running and go talk to these kids. I can
just see him with his big hands calm down, just
calm down.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
He’d break up fight talk with his friends. Told him,
you know, let it go. You can’t fight about everything.
Let’s just chill.

Speaker 10 (04:02):
Let’s play basketball.

Speaker 5 (04:04):
Irvin’s talent was so great that soon after his varsity debut,
a local reporter, dazzled by his exploits, gave the budding
star a nickname.

Speaker 8 (04:15):
In the beginning, I thought it was foolish and dumb.
You know, I didn’t know nothing about a nickname. Then
what happened was you start saying, wait a minute, it
fits my game. Hanging out with my boys on the
street corners, we used to sing Temptation song.

Speaker 9 (04:31):
They started saying, hey man, Magic.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
That’s cool.

Speaker 10 (04:33):
And then people on the street start saying, hey Magic.
And I said, he brought into it.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
And I think he felt he’d had to kind of
live up to that name. And I must say that
he did see that Jill reached the top.

Speaker 11 (04:52):
He loved more attention he got, you know, he just
he wanted attention from anybody he could get it from.

Speaker 7 (04:59):
He did, I really have the game and I just
want to win, and skipped it over a basket.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
He jamped through urban Urvan loved to dress nice, sander
belt and pants and overcoats with the fur round the collar.
Always had to have his afro blown out. He had
to look the part, play the part.

Speaker 12 (05:23):
Urvan was the first guy to have a Potschi.

Speaker 11 (05:28):
He had only had a Possi a lot of black kids.
He had a lot of white kids and hanging around it.

Speaker 8 (05:33):
So my white friends was like, hey, man, we’re having
a keger tonight. Once you come on by and I’m saying,
what’s the keger? So he said, well, what it is.
We get this big keg of beer and you just
go for it. Okay, Well, what time does the keger start?
Because regular party time my neighborhood is ten eleven o’clock. Uh,

(05:54):
the keger starts at seven, I said, the party starts
at seven o’clock.

Speaker 9 (06:00):
That’s a okay man, I’m gonna come to the keger.

Speaker 10 (06:03):
We had a good time.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
The music was kind of bad, but we had a
good time, you know.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
In his senior year, Magic did at Everett what he
had planned to do at Sexton, win the state championship,
and when it came to choosing a college, he decided
to stay home in Lansing.

Speaker 9 (06:22):
Next year, I.

Speaker 7 (06:22):
Will be attended Mission State University.

Speaker 5 (06:28):
At MSU. Magic Star quickly went national, but at the
top of the college game, he soon discovered a certain
presence beside him.

Speaker 8 (06:37):
The first time I saw Larry Berry was actually in
a magazine, saw a stats. Blown away by his stats.
But let’s see if he can really do it against us,
and that’s always a mindset of black players.

Speaker 9 (06:54):
If he’s a great white player.

Speaker 8 (06:56):
It was blowing my mind because he’s dominating Jack Gibbon.

Speaker 10 (07:00):
It’s the player of the year in the college basketball.

Speaker 8 (07:03):
Larry Bird has eating him alive. I couldn’t wait to
call home to tell my boys, Man, this.

Speaker 10 (07:10):
Dude named Larry Bird is for real.

Speaker 8 (07:13):
This is the baddest white dude I’ve ever seen in
my life.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
When we come back, more of the remarkable story of
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Here on our American Stories.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
This is Lee Hbibe, and this is our American Stories,
and all of our history stories are brought to us
by our generous sponsors, including Hillsdale College, where students go
to learn all the things that are beautiful in life
and all the things.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
That matter in life.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
If you can’t get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to
you with their free and terrific online courses.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Go to Hillsdale dot edu. That’s Hillsdale dot edu.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
And we continue with our American stories and the story
of Bird and Magic.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Let’s pick up where we last left off.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
Here’s Larry Bird.

Speaker 13 (08:19):
Well, I thought he was very good, There’s no question
about it. I actually I thought he’s probably the best
guard on the team.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Ervin Johnson look at that.

Speaker 14 (08:27):
We didn’t get to play a lot, but you could tell.

Speaker 8 (08:30):
I think our first game was in Kentucky. We got
about a ten to twelve point league and they put
us in, went to twenty five thirty.

Speaker 10 (08:40):
Just that fast, fast break again, three on two.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Grip it, why.

Speaker 15 (08:47):
That’s real by Larry Bird.

Speaker 10 (08:48):
Take us out the league, go back down.

Speaker 14 (08:51):
Put us back in.

Speaker 9 (08:52):
That’s heard and Johnson, the.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Show start again.

Speaker 13 (08:55):
When you play with magic, there’s just something about it.
You want to make that extra pass, you want to
get that rebound and start to break.

Speaker 9 (09:03):
We came down a couple of times.

Speaker 10 (09:04):
I go behind my bag, No look to him, He
no look.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Back to me. And I’m laying it up. I’m saying, oh.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Man, here’s that last way magic.

Speaker 15 (09:12):
Johnson going in drops off the bird. Bird, what’s it?

Speaker 5 (09:15):
Back off inside to Johnson. Super bad Evan, this guy
got game. They had some wonderful moments on the court,
but the two had no meaningful conversations. Such brevity was
hardly strange coming from Larry Bird, who was not only
one of college basketball’s greatest players but also its biggest enigma.

(09:37):
Larry Bird grew up in southern Indiana in the tough,
working class town of french Lick, population two thousand. Tiny
and remote, it was one of the poorest places in
the state. Arriving Pearl Harbor Day on December seventh, nineteen
fifty six, Larry was the fourth of six kids born
to Georgia and Joe Bird. Early on, he and his

(10:01):
four older brothers earned a reputation around town. Here’s older
brother Mark and Larry.

Speaker 16 (10:08):
We were always considered troublemakers. We’re either fighting amongst ourselves
or there was always one of us fighting somebody. Larry
was always one of that kind of instigated things.

Speaker 13 (10:20):
You know, if I get my brother in a fight
with somebody, his age as have as hell, so I’d
like to see him get beat up. And that’s just
where it was.

Speaker 14 (10:28):
If I got in a.

Speaker 13 (10:31):
Scrape with some kid and my brothers didn’t come to
my side. They knew that when he got home, my
dad was going to whap them.

Speaker 16 (10:38):
Larry and my dad were best of friends. They done
everything together. When my dad would go out to my
grandma’s house, Larry would always go with him. They’d go
fish and do a lot of things together.

Speaker 5 (10:51):
Larry’s father battled his whole life against the demons caused
by PTSD, which stemmed from a tour of duty in Korea.
A talented craftsman, Joe Byrd struggled to hold steady jobs.

Speaker 13 (11:05):
My mom sometimes worked late, and sometimes she had two jobs.
But that’s the way it was. I worked at school
during my launch hours, worked at the local grocery store,
put up pay in the summer. I mean, if you
want the money, you had to get it on your own.

Speaker 5 (11:20):
To young Larry, actions spoke louder than words.

Speaker 16 (11:25):
He was very quiet, kind of hung to himself a
little bit.

Speaker 17 (11:29):
I saw Larry take an f in an English class
because he had to get up in front of his
peers and give a speech.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
So I won’t do it.

Speaker 17 (11:38):
But he just could not get on front of his
friends and talk.

Speaker 9 (11:41):
He was out shy.

Speaker 16 (11:43):
Of course. Next thing, you know, when he knew it
was time for all of us together at the jim Nasum,
Larry’d be the minute he’d get a basketball in his hand,
things were totally different.

Speaker 5 (11:55):
He was good enough for Indianna University’s most revered and
feared Coachbby Knight to come calling late in his senior year,
and since the Birds didn’t own a car, Larry’s uncle
tossed Bird’s loan bag in the back seat of his
Ford and drove forty nine miles north to Bloomington to
play ball for one of the best college teams in

(12:15):
the land.

Speaker 13 (12:17):
Once I got the EU, it didn’t take long to
realize that I was out of my cocoon, had over
thirty some thousand students, that I didn’t have the funds.
First week and a half, I thought, Man, this ain’t
gonna work.

Speaker 5 (12:34):
After twenty four days on campus, Bird packed up his
duffel bag and hitchhiked back to French Lick. He did
not tell any one of his plans, not even Coach Knight.
Let down, reverberated throughout the entire community.

Speaker 13 (12:49):
Let my mother down. She didn’t talk to me for
two months. But it didn’t matter what other people says.
To this day, I don’t care.

Speaker 5 (12:57):
Back in French, Lick Bird went to work for the city. Meanwhile,
that winter, his father’s demons had taken him to an
even darker place. Here’s Jackie McMullen, author of the book
on Bird and Magic. When the game was ours.

Speaker 12 (13:11):
By this point, Joe and Georgia were divorced and he
was behind in his payments to the family. The police
came by, and of course they all knew him. So
Joe said, hey, I need a few hours to get
my affairs together before you take me away. So he
called Georgia and he said, you guys will be better
off without me, and I’m going to take my life.
And he put the phone down and he killed himself.
He shot himself.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
Here again is Mark Bird and Larry’s high school coach,
Jim Jones.

Speaker 16 (13:37):
When dad passed, you know, it hurt Larry. I mean,
that was his best friend that’s gone now. And but
Larry didn’t show it a lot.

Speaker 17 (13:47):
He just didn’t say much and all. He just kind
of held it with in. I’ve never heard him speak
out about it at all.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
Here’s Larry.

Speaker 13 (13:59):
I was mad when I heard about it, and as
a matter after the funeral because I thought he sort
of cut out on us during a tough time. But
you know, he went through a lot in his life.

Speaker 14 (14:16):
He did what he had to do.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
Here again is Jackie McMullen.

Speaker 12 (14:21):
If Bill Hodges hadn’t been as persistent as he had been,
Larry Bird might never have existed in any of our minds.
I believe that with all my heart. I really do.

Speaker 5 (14:31):
It was Bill Hodges, the persistent young assistant coach from
Indiana State University, who convinced Bird to give college hoops
another shot. So, with the promise to his mom to graduate,
Bird headed to ISU, a school that never so much
had been to the NCAA tournament. This fact did not
phasee Larry Bird.

Speaker 14 (14:52):
Once I started playing. It’s the same old thing.

Speaker 12 (14:54):
You know.

Speaker 13 (14:55):
He’s a small school and any playing against anybody, which
is fine. Still dominated.

Speaker 5 (15:01):
By the time he had led tiny ISU as a
senior to a thirty three and old record and a
spot in the seventy nine title game, Larry Bird had become,
alongside Magic Johnson, the talk of college basketball. The day
before playing in the most widely anticipated college title game ever,
Magic couldn’t wait to greet his old playmate here’s Magic.

Speaker 9 (15:25):
In the end.

Speaker 8 (15:26):
State was on practicing and we were waiting in a tunnel.
We got there early. I wanted to definitely say hello
to Larry. You know, when they came through, it was
like nobody would say nothing. I wanted to go toward him,
like his guys like made sure that he didn’t say nothing,
and then they kind of start snickering, like missing State,

(15:47):
you in trouble, We’re gonna kill you guys tomorrow.

Speaker 13 (15:50):
I probably did snub him. I don’t remember it, but
I’m sure I did. I didn’t want any you know,
like I call it fast hugging and slapping high fives
with opponent.

Speaker 14 (16:04):
You’re there for a reason. You’re there to win a game.

Speaker 10 (16:07):
That just said this on now.

Speaker 5 (16:09):
Heading into the tournament, Magic was the bigger star, but
by tip off it was Bird, having hardly missed a
shot in the semi final, who had become the focus
for the fans and more importantly, Michigan State.

Speaker 10 (16:23):
We actually had two men on Larry everywhere he went.

Speaker 18 (16:26):
Look at the pressure around it.

Speaker 5 (16:27):
Two three that any short I.

Speaker 13 (16:30):
Didn’t play well at all. The biggest game of life
didn’t play well all over.

Speaker 11 (16:36):
State University National champion to see nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 14 (16:42):
Toughest loss ever took.

Speaker 8 (16:47):
I knew it was going to hall to him forever
because we were going to see each other a lot.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
And you’ve been listening to the story of Magic and
Bird and the story.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Behind the story.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
You know, we learned that Irvin grew up with a
mom who was a school custodian, a dad who worked
two jobs but was always there, tough, working class neighborhood
of Lansing. And what’s remarkable about Magic. He could have
gone anywhere, and he stayed right in Lancing and brought
Lansing a national championship and started Michigan State University on
this heritage that the great Tom Izzo has carried for decades.

(17:24):
And of course there is Larry with a slightly different childhood,
working class or less, but his own dad, his best friend,
killed himself.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
And I don’t know how you get through that.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
But for the persistence of Coach Hodges, who knows, Larry
Bird would have never been heard of. And then came
that big showdown in nineteen seventy nine, and well, magic prevailed,
and as Larry Bird just said, it was the biggest loss,
the toughest loss, of his life. When we come back,
the story of Magic and Bird continues here on our

(17:56):
American Stories. This is Lee Habib and this is our
American Stories, and we continue with the story of Bird
and Magic.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Let’s pick up where we last left off.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
A National Basketball Association and its thirty third season is
troubled by diminishing crowds and declining television ratings, signs that
fan interest may be waning.

Speaker 5 (18:28):
College basketball was flourishing at the end of the nineteen seventies,
but after the golden era of Bill Russell and Jerry
West in the nineteen sixties, the pro game was crumbling.
But on a balmy afternoon in June, while Larry Bird
was playing golf in Santa Claus, Indiana with his longtime
friend Max Gibson, a stranger hollered to them, Larry Birr,

(18:50):
You’ve just been drafted by the Boston Celtics. What does
that mean, Bird asked, hell, I don’t know, he said.
Indiana State season had just ended in heartbreak in Salt
Lake City at the hands of Michigan State, and the
Celtics made a pitch to sign Bird for the final
eight games of their season. The young forward opted instead

(19:14):
to teach flag football, baseball, badminton, and dodgeball at the
local Indiana High school. His duties also included teaching mentally
disabled children, a CPR course and a driver’s education course.
It was an unbelievable experience, Bird said. One evening that summer.

(19:35):
Bird was playing baseball and positioned in left field when
a hard rolling ball smashed his finger and bent it backward.
I looked down, Bird said, and my finger was all
the way over on the other side of my hand.
Bird had to have surgery. How long is it going
to take before it’s healed, Bird asked the surgeon, Son,
I’m not sure it will. He was right today, Bird concede.

(20:00):
I never could shoot as well again. Bird finished his
senior year at Indiana State, and then in the spring
of nineteen seventy nine, the NBA’s six selected draft pick
arrived with great hopes for the city of Boston. Here’s
Walter Cronkite.

Speaker 15 (20:18):
There’s hope he can help solve professional basketball’s difficulties, which
some say are compounded by a question of black and white.

Speaker 10 (20:27):
The great white hope.

Speaker 8 (20:28):
What does that mean?

Speaker 6 (20:30):
Well, you know, it’s very hard to say, because there’s
a lot of great white players around it, and I
just hope that I can just fit in as well.

Speaker 14 (20:38):
Some of them has fit in.

Speaker 6 (20:40):
You know, the great players are the black players, and
they’re the best.

Speaker 5 (20:44):
Such regard meant little to Black Celtics, guys like Cedric Maxwell,
who looked at Bird and saw not the great white
hope but another case of great white hype.

Speaker 18 (20:55):
I think that you would say that most black players
at the time were racist in the sense that we
did not think that you could find a white guy
who could play better than any black guy.

Speaker 14 (21:07):
I want to walk.

Speaker 13 (21:08):
In the first day of camp, them guys were on
the floor stretching, and here comes the white savior. Here
comes this, here comes that. I sort of enjoyed it
because I knew I was gonna battle him all day.
So that was et Cedric.

Speaker 18 (21:20):
I’m thinking, Oh, he’s slowly, can’t get off a shot.

Speaker 10 (21:24):
He’s not that strong.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
It’s gonna be a layup.

Speaker 18 (21:28):
Bail knocks down the jump shot.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Maybe that was Luck.

Speaker 18 (21:34):
Gets the ball again, Bam knocks down another jump shot.
Now I’m thinking like, okay, hey, you know what up
in the dates guy up, I’m just showing his life.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Twenty feet away. Bayo twenty five feet away.

Speaker 18 (21:48):
Bail in my mind just goes, damn, this white guy
could play.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
It was a good thing too. The storied Celtics might
have been the winning his team in NBA history, but
they were fresh off their worst season in thirty years,
and in Bird, they not only had a player who
was supremely talented, but tough enough to take on any challenge.

Speaker 13 (22:11):
Larry Bird plays it to the hilp.

Speaker 5 (22:13):
Maybe talent, toughness and confidence aside. Boston also liked winners,
and when Bird led the Celtics to the NBA Championship
in just his second season, he was finally one of
those two. Larry Bird is right in the middle.

Speaker 8 (22:29):
He’s the eye of the hurricane known as the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
Boston loved Larry Bird, it just wasn’t so clear at
first how much Bird loved the city back. Here’s Bird
speaking at the city parade celebrating their NBA championship. There’s
only one.

Speaker 15 (22:44):
Place I’d rather be French Lit.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
Thank you, He proudly dubbed himself the hicck from French Lick.

Speaker 11 (22:52):
One of the great ways I think of winding up
with no money in your pocket is to think Larry
Bird is dumb.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
Syntax is not intelligence. Unlettered is not stupid. He did, however,
allow the public one small indulgence.

Speaker 12 (23:07):
You could come out on Saturday and watch him MOA’s lawn.

Speaker 14 (23:10):
Huge crowds toward the stop.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Larry Birds couldn’t grasp him from the house. He’s mowing
his lawn in the springtime.

Speaker 12 (23:19):
Larry is about doing things himself, and I think it’s
one of the things that made him so beloved in Boston.

Speaker 15 (23:26):
It is now exactly twelve no. The draft is officially open.
The first pick, the Los Angeles Lakers select Urban Magic
Johnsonian State six eight, two hundred times.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
In the stoic Kareem Abdul Jabbar. The Lakers had talent,
but what they were lacking in was energy. Urban Magic
Johnson was only too happy to provide it. Here’s Brian Gumbeo.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Lit the place up.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Change the franchise, changed the temperament. I changed it from
the very first game.

Speaker 5 (24:04):
Style Laer’s what here.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
It was the.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
First game of a long season against the lowly Clippers,
and Magic was embracing Kareem as if they’d just won
their tenth straight championship. It was like man This is
a different kind of dude.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
Here’s Magic’s close friend Arcinio Hall from the day he
arrived he became the prince of the city. He reminded
me of a guy who wakes up without an alarm clock.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
And that’s what I used to always say.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
I want to be happy enough to wake up without
an alarm clock, because I want to go into my world.

Speaker 5 (24:44):
Here’s former Lakers head coach pat Riley.

Speaker 19 (24:48):
He had it what it is as far as I
was concerned. The It was not his ability or his size.
The it was his attitude, was his leadership, was his mind.

Speaker 5 (24:58):
In his rookie season, Magic led the Lakers to the
nineteen eighty NBA Championship. But what Bird couldn’t possibly have
known was that he had inspired Magic’s performance when he
was named Rookie of the Year that same day. Here
again is Jackie McMullen.

Speaker 12 (25:16):
The pr person from the Lakers says, hey, Irvin, the
Rookie of the Year voting has come out, and Magic says, okay,
well who won? He said, well, Larry Bird won, And
Magic says, what was it close? And he said, oh no.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
Bird won the award by a sixty three to three margin.
Magic received the remaining three votes. Bird won the title
the next year, and soon after that, black kids began
showing up at the playground wearing Bird’s number thirty three. Jersey.
Magic was surprised the first time he saw it, especially
because it was on the Blacktop in Los Angeles. Bird

(25:51):
also had a close eye on Magic.

Speaker 13 (25:54):
I’d get up in the mornings and see what he did,
because their games came on Lady.

Speaker 14 (25:58):
Then you look at the box score. I had to have.

Speaker 13 (26:01):
Him there for some reason. It’s like a crutch somebody
can compare myself to.

Speaker 8 (26:07):
I hated what was being said that Larry was better
than me, and I’m just a guy who can control
the game my first four or five year. That bothered
me a lot. I didn’t tell nobody that bothered me,
but it did.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
And you’ve been listening to the story of Magic and Bird.
One of the great rivalries personally and one of the
great franchise rivalries of all time. And my goodness, the
NBA was in the tank, terrible ratings, terrible attendance, and
these guys come in and resuscitate the league. Bird resuscitating
the Celtics. They’d been in a long losing streak, and

(26:43):
of course Magic Johnson providing that energy, that it factor
that the Lakers desperately needed and Kareem Abdul Jabbar needed
more than anybody. What happened next, well, my goodness, Bird
started to get the early accolades, and this only fuel
Magic’s desire to topple Bird and topple the Celtics. When

(27:06):
we come back more of the story of this great rivalry.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Here on our American stories, and.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
We continue with our American stories and the story of
one of the greatest rivalries, if not the greatest, an
NBA history, the story of Bird and Magic.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Let’s pick up where we last left off.

Speaker 5 (27:50):
Their competitive dislike emerged from a greater truth that on
the court they were two of a kind basketball prodigies
who few the substance of the sixties with the style
of the seventies to create a new and exciting, yet
selfless way to play the game. In the nineteen eighties,
but with continued low television ratings and tape delayed finals,

(28:13):
the NBA was struggling to get the word out. After
the NBA signed a new TV deal with CBS before
the eighty two to eighty three season, the rescue plan
was simple, sell more Magic and Bird. In nineteen eighty four,
when the Celtics and the Lakers both reached the finals,
just a year into the TV deal, the superstar investment

(28:34):
was about to pay off. It came down to Game seven.
It was like college in nineteen seventy nine for Magic
and Bird. Magic and the Lakers flew into Boston for
Game seven.

Speaker 8 (28:46):
The plane pull in, like the whole airport just stopped
and turn and just stared as and guys running up Magic.

Speaker 10 (28:57):
Larry’s gonna kill you.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Larry, I want to kill you.

Speaker 10 (29:02):
And so just looking at everybody.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, I was gonna kill you Magic.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
Game seven of the eighty four series was the highest
rated game the NBA had ever produced. But Magic was
not rejoicing the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 15 (29:17):
All of the NBA World champions.

Speaker 12 (29:26):
Well, it was a big deal, and I remember asking
Quinn Buckner about it. Afterwards. They had a celebration in
downtown Boston after they won the championship. And you know,
it was unusual for Larry to have these little outbursts,
as Quinn would call them, but you know, about eleven
thirty at night, finally he turned to Quinny goes I
got him. I finally got him, and he was talking
about Magic.

Speaker 5 (29:48):
The two teams met again in the NBA Finals the
following season, but in the nineteen eighty five finals, Magic
flipped the script, winning the clinching game at the Boston Garden.
But the significance of their rivalry and the relationship was
about to change. Converse had convinced Magic and Bird to
shoot a sneaker commercial in the summer of nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 8 (30:12):
You crazy, I said, you’re crazy. I’m not shooting no
commercial with Larry. So I said, okay, what we’re gonna
shoot it in La.

Speaker 13 (30:25):
I would never went to La to film it. What
are we gonna shoot it? Do you want to shoot commercial?
Come to my house?

Speaker 10 (30:38):
I was like, oh No.

Speaker 8 (30:45):
One stopped laying and I thought Lancey was small. I
think the plan was I’m gonna go here, I’m gonna
do what I’m sposed to do, and I’m trying to
get up out of here.

Speaker 10 (30:55):
My plan was that.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
The ad was to be shot at the home Bird
built for his mom just outside French Lick, Indiana. It
featured a full length basketball court, the day’s first shooting location.

Speaker 8 (31:08):
So they say, okay, you’re playing one on one and
I’m looking at Larry and he’s looking at me like
is this real?

Speaker 9 (31:15):
Are we playing playing?

Speaker 10 (31:17):
Cause you know this is this is magic and Bird.

Speaker 16 (31:21):
I could just hear Larry, you know, starting it on. Well,
you bring it to the basket, I’m gonna send it
thirty rows up.

Speaker 8 (31:27):
So the guy was like, no, no, not like that
a fun game. We were both like oh okay, like
like you can see this relief coming over both of
our face.

Speaker 10 (31:38):
We sat down next to each other. How is your summer?

Speaker 9 (31:42):
It’s going good?

Speaker 10 (31:43):
How is yours? It’s going great? He said, man, it’s
a nice spread.

Speaker 9 (31:48):
You got it?

Speaker 13 (31:49):
And he’s asked, mes, is where you play? I said, yeah,
let’s play here. If it’s not Wendy, if it’s rain
or Wendy, I go to the gym. But this is
where I do all my work.

Speaker 8 (31:58):
See that tractor you work on the on a tractor,
He said, Man, we’re on this tractor every day.

Speaker 5 (32:04):
Larry Bird, we’re on a tractor.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
He said. Yeah.

Speaker 16 (32:07):
It’s just them two walking and talking, and every once
in a while they’d stop and one of them’d say
something and then they’d start laughing.

Speaker 8 (32:15):
Then they said, okay, break it’s lunch break time. I
was going to my trailer. He said, no, my mother
has prepared lunch for us up at the house.

Speaker 13 (32:26):
We went up to the house and we sit down
there and we talked, and my mom my brothers thought
the world of him.

Speaker 8 (32:32):
His mother was so nice, making sure I had enough
to eat.

Speaker 10 (32:37):
I just saw my mother. It was crazy, he charmed her.

Speaker 13 (32:42):
Meek sid But that’s Magic. He makes everybody phil welcome
and warm, and he’s.

Speaker 14 (32:48):
A con man.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
By the dawn of the nineties, Magic win five titles,
played in eight finals in equaled Bird’s MVP Tallly of
three and then Magic received a phone call.

Speaker 8 (33:05):
I’m sleeping, really laying down, just waiting on the game,
and their phone rings and the voice says, hey, you
gotta come back to La. And I said, okay. Why well,
I can’t tell you until you get to La. So

(33:30):
I said, okay, doctor Melman, and he starts to tell
me that you know, through the physical that I took, that.

Speaker 10 (33:46):
They discovered that I had HIV.

Speaker 12 (33:53):
The first person I thought of was Larry. I wonder
what Larry thinks.

Speaker 13 (34:00):
The day that I heard about Magic, it just sort
of changed my love for basketball. It shook me up.
You know, you gotta get that feeling proby the same
type of feeling I had when my father died.

Speaker 9 (34:16):
Called me.

Speaker 8 (34:17):
We’re talking, you know, it’s just how you doing. I
heard about it, and you can almost hear both of
us with some tears and eyes, and I’m choked up
because he did call me.

Speaker 9 (34:31):
And you know, when something happens.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
To you.

Speaker 8 (34:53):
And then you find out who really your friends are
and people who really care about you, you figure all
those battles, all those.

Speaker 9 (35:10):
Things we had to go through as warriors.

Speaker 8 (35:13):
As competitors, then as men, and here’s this man says, hey,
you know what, man, you’re okay, And so that was
the greatest moment for me too, you know, to have
him check on me and to make sure I was okay.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
Magic retired immediately, and Bird’s ninety one ninety two season
was his last in the NBA. To his delight, Magic
was invited to play in the nineteen ninety two NBA
All Star Game. He stole the show and won MVP honors,
But that was just a warm up for the encore
Magic had up his sleeve. Here’s Larry Bird.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
He’s not done yet, because we’re gonna go to Barcelona and.

Speaker 13 (36:03):
Bring back the gold for everyone here in United State.

Speaker 5 (36:06):
For the first time ever, NBA players would be competing
in the Olympics on the first Dream Team with the
likes of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley. The irony was
that magic felt incredible, but Bird, with his bad back,
could hardly move.

Speaker 10 (36:22):
But you know what didn’t matter. We were still.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
Together today, decades removed from the height of their rivalry.
Their bond endoors two impossibly different men with a connection
only they can fully grasp.

Speaker 13 (36:37):
Always get this good feeling when I know almost see
him because it makes you feel good.

Speaker 14 (36:43):
You know, he really does. He’s unbelievable.

Speaker 8 (36:48):
He’s very private, but if he’s your friend, man, you
got a friend for life. And Larry Bird is a
straight shooter. He’ll tell you what he don’t like you.
That’s one thing I wish I could have that he
has that I don’t have.

Speaker 10 (37:04):
I wish I had that.

Speaker 13 (37:06):
I mean, he walked in here, this whole room of change,
and maybe that’s what I always wanted to be but
just couldn’t.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
A terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by
our own Greg Hengler, and what a story about two
men so different, grew up in such different ways, and
their approach to the game, the style part very different,
but on the fundamental level, these were working class ballplayers.
They played hard, they played gritty, and they played great

(37:36):
pure basketball, as good as it was ever played and
may ever be played again. And that they had that
personal relationship that started all the way back in that
Converse commercial. And imagine Magic, mister city Slicker, popping into
French Lick and seeing the little town with one red
light and ultimately being invited into that kitchen. The story

(37:59):
of two of the NBA greats, their relationship which transcended basketball,
transcended race and geography, the story of Magic and Bird.
Here on our American stories