most people believe that the first time they met
Larry and magic was the nineteen seventy nine NCAA championship but you write in your book 0:00:06.930,0:00:09.139 that's not the case no it wasn't actually
the the summer before that they both played on an all-star team
that was a a classic
made-for-television event it was called the W IT the world invitational tournament and
what it was was a group of college all-stars playing international team's
well they picked
Joe B. Hall the Kentucky coach to be the coach of that team because his Kentucky team had just
won the national championship
just days before that
so Joe B Hall picked his team and of course picked five of his own players
and then Dave Gavitt and some others filled in some of the other players
larry bird got chosen
earvin Johnson got chosen darryl griffith james bailey some big names
in in college basketball sidney moncrief was on the team
so earvin and larry met for the first time at that event
but barely spoke to one another as again typical larry larry would get on the bus and
say hello and nothing else
earvin would get on the bus with his boom box dancing he was the youngest player on the
team
but clearly the most precocious nonetheless
now as magic put it larry and
magic dominated and embarrassed the starters during practices but why were they
relegated to the bench during games well you know it's interesting joe b hall was
convinced that his Kentucky team they had just won the championship they were the best
players
and it didn't matter that in practice
larry and magic were really embarrassing
some of those starters
%uh kyle macy and rick robey to be specific those two players in particular and they
would kill them in practice yet when the starting line up came out
macy and robey's names were always written in
and it used to really frost larry in particular he was really ticked off but he figured well
you know what
the heck with this guy I'm just going to have my fun in practice so that's what they had
to settle for
how did current boston globe columnist Bob Ryan
get larry on that team
well you know
it was funny larry was playing for Indiana state and of course putting up
big big big numbers back then
and
but remember
this was the year before the national championship the undefeated season
so people are
paying attention but not really 'cause they they figured that conference that Indiana state
played in wasn't a very big conference
but ryan is a basketball genius
he knew better he kept hearing from the celtics about this kid larry
bird
so when he was covering the NCAA tournament nearby he took a drive out to Indiana
state and watched them play in the NIT
he watched larry bird play for three minutes
and said oh my god
this guy's unbelievable
now the funny part is
most of the rest of the country
thought larry bird was African-American cause they'd never seen him play on tv he was never on
television
and what was the boston connection to that tournament
the boston connection well red auerbach showed up at that tournament
and %uh
he was walking down the steps
and the players were walking up the steps
and Michael corn nudged larry bird and said look look
there's red
and larry said red who and he said that's red auerbach he's the president of the celtics
and larry said oh okay whatever but larry didn't realize was that red was there to see him play
he never knew it he didn't know who red auerbach was larry
didn't know anybody outside of french lick
now it could have happened that larry and magic would have played together on the same college
team we all know how larry left Indiana twenty four days after
starting but how did bobby knight lose magic to
well I'm not sure if Bobby knight lost magic magic might have lost bobby knight you know bobby
knight did want to come talk to earvin 0:03:22.520,0:03:24.160 came to his high school
told his high school coach I'll be there at I think he told him two o'clock
and of course showed up at one o'clock and started roaming the halls and he wanted to see earvin johnson
in his own setting and watch this
this kid who was supposed to be this great player
and what he saw was the pied piper all the kids following him
you know really
a lot of adulation going on in the hallways but
clearly could see that earvin was a leader a born leader
so they get them to sit down in the cafeteria and earvin's a nervous wreck
okay because he's seen this guy on TV
crazy going yelling and screaming at everybody throwing stuff and he was nervous about meeting
coach knight
but the coach knight that showed up at his high school was affable and friendly
and funny
went out of his was way to make
both earvin and his high school coach feel very very comfortable George Fox
remarked later he couldn't believe how nice he was
so they were sitting there talking very amiably with with each other and
lot lot of small talk and then finally
%uh bobby knight's tone changed immediately and he said okay earvin where the hell are you going to school
so this caught
both magic and his coach a little
he wasn't really prepared for that
and you know earvin told him the truth he said you know coach I don't know if I could play for you I I see you screaming
at those other players and
I don't know if that's really what I want I don't know if that's something I can handle
so knight kinda looked at him a little bit and cocked his head and
straightened out his shirt stood up
shook the coaches hand and left