“For fifty years we told this story one way,” best-selling sportswriter Keith O’Brien says. “We weaved the stories of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson together. I understand why we do that. They are inextricably linked. But when you tell the story that way, there is something that you lose—the incredible underdog story of Larry Bird.”
O’Brien is the author of the recently released book Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird. I had a chance to speak with him at the Gaithersburg Book Festival, an annual event in Maryland that attracts thousands of readers, publishers, and authors.
O’Brien’s skill as a storyteller and doggedness as a reporter contribute to making Heartland one of this year’s most compelling reads. Basketball legend Bird did not talk to O’Brien in preparing the book, but no matter. O’Brien logged weeks in French Lick, Indiana, Bird’s hometown, talking to Bird’s friends, teachers, coaches, opponents, and employers. Too many journalists these days are lazy, which O’Brien is not.
He also took a novel approach in chronicling Bird’s life. Before Larry Bird became a legendary NBA player with the Boston Celtics or was linked to his opponent and eventual friend Ervin “Magic” Johnson in the 1980s, Bird was a player for the unknown Indiana State Sycamores in the late 1970s. A garbage collector and son of an alcoholic father who committed suicide in 1975, Bird loved basketball but had trouble finding direction. He got into Indiana University in 1974 with the chance to play for legendary coach Bobby Knight, but, facing financial problems and intimidated by the huge campus, he hitchhiked home after just three weeks.
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