The basketball legend from Indiana is Larry Bird. But Larry Legend wound up playing for small Indiana State, not at IU with Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight and the Hoosiers.
Naturally, at this point, the Sycamores are synonymous with The Hick From French Lick. The rivalries between Magic Johnson’s emerald greens and Bird’s powder blues are as legendary as anything in college basketball history.
However, how did one of the best basketball players ever come to play in Terre Haute, Indiana?
Alongside Bob Knight, Larry Bird enrolled to Indiana to start his college career.
The Legend performed for French Lick’s Springs Valley High School. According to Biography.com, he was the school’s all-time top scorer by the time he graduated.
After offering Bird a scholarship, the latter enrolled at Bloomington. But soon after, he took off, going home without a true strategy for his college basketball career.
According to IndyStar, the future Hall of Famer was back in French Lick at the age of 18, working as a garbage truck driver and satisfying his basketball addiction by playing against the resort’s kitchen workers.
A “down on his luck” college basketball coach named Bill Hodges happened to be watching the game unfold behind some bushes as Bird (supposedly) subjugated a plethora of chefs and waiters.
Hodges had a revelation: his career would be transformed if he could persuade Larry Bird to play collegiate hoops for him. (Or preserve it, as in Hodges’ instance).
With one sentence, Bill Hodges convinced Bird to commit to Indiana State.
In the story as told by The Star, Hodges’ coaching career was in danger. However, because he was born and raised in a small town similar to French Lick—Zionsville, Ind.—he returned home and approached Bob King, the head coach of the Sycamores at the time, with a big swing idea—Bird. Hodges encountered difficulties almost immediately because the people of French Lick were fiercely protective of their basketball star, making it difficult for the coach to speak with Larry.
But eventually, Hodges and Bird started talking, and the 6-foot-9 forward told his future coach about the “best player he had seen in high school,” who never played college ball and was now forgotten.
That’s when the light bulb went off in Hodges’ head, according to The Star and filmmaker Patrick Wood, who’s in the process of making a movie about the story.
