HALL OF FAME

[Dorine Pratt <norine@sover.net>]

This is rather long and I usually don't do this, but thought all Celtics
fans who didn't see it would enjoy it.
Dorine

Hall of Fame set to welcome Larry Legend

      (AP) - He came from a small Indiana town and went to a college
      not known for sports. His speech and dress were plain and his
      tastes simple -- shoot some hoops and hang out with buddies. But
      his basketball skills -- and his drive to improve -- were
      extraordinary.

      On Monday, barring perhaps the greatest oversight in sports
      history, Larry Bird will be named to the Hall of Fame in his
      first year of eligibility.

      "There's nothing better than that," said Red Auerbach, the legend
      who drafted the legend-to-be. "But when you come right down to
      it, it's not that much of a surprise."

      Not when you consider how Bird made the most successful team in
      NBA history even better. Or how his talent in every aspect of the
      game -- shooting, rebounding, passing, defense, intelligence,
      diving for lose balls -- led the Boston Celtics to three
      championships. Or how he carried Indiana State to the 1979 NCAA
      title game. Or how he and Magic Johnson led the NBA into the
      spotlight in the pre-Jordan era.

      Or how he loved the game.

      "Forget the Hall of Fame," said Tommy Heinsohn, already enshrined
      as a Celtics player and now a team broadcaster. "If he couldn't
      have played in the pros, he'd be one of the guys playing in the
      back yard."

      The parquet was Bird's playground. Boston Garden's famous floor
      was home to many Celtics who made the Hall of Fame in
      Springfield, Mass. -- Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, John Havlicek
      among them. But none played the game like Bird, who said he won't
      talk about the Hall of Fame until Monday.

      Bird's brilliance was matched by his dedication to team play. His
      smarts made up for his lack of speed. Jumping ability? Hustle
      compensated for the spring missing from his legs, leaving leapers
      wondering how Bird got the ball.

      But Bird needed more than instinct. He worked hard at the game
      from the time he was a kid in West Baden, Ind., just outside
      French Lick, to the end of a pro career cut short in 1991-92 by
      back problems.

      In his first NBA game, Bird had 14 points and 10 rebounds in a
      win over Houston on Oct. 12, 1979. The Celtics won 61 games that
      season, after winning just 29 the year before.

      Robert Parish and Kevin McHale arrived for the 1980-81 season and
      along with Bird formed perhaps the best frontcourt in basketball
      history for more than a decade.

      "By the end of that year I had a pretty good idea Larry would be
      in the Hall of Fame," Parish said. "I never really took a step
      back and realized how good Larry was or Kevin was or I was or how
      good we were collectively until I retired."

      The Bird-led Celtics beat the Houston Rockets in the 1981 and
      1986 NBA Finals and the Los Angeles Lakers for the 1984 title. He
      was on the 1992 U.S. Olympic team that won the gold medal.

      And there were personal honors -- Rookie of the Year in 1980, MVP
      in 1984, 1985 and 1986, Finals MVP in 1984 and 1986, an NBA
      All-Star in 12 of his 13 seasons. And last season, his first as a
      coach, he was NBA Coach of the Year. One day his boss, Indiana
      Pacers president Donnie Walsh, said Bird may join John Wooden and
      Lenny Wilkens as the only Hall of Famers named as a player and
      coach.

      For now, making it as a player will test Bird's ability to mask
      his feelings.

      "He'll try not to show any emotion. You know Larry," said
      Auerbach, the Celtics general manager who drafted Bird in 1978 --
      a year before he was eligible for the NBA -- and now a
      vice-chairman of the board.

      The emotions Bird drew from fans came from the way he played, not
      just his numbers -- 30 Indiana State records, 27 Celtics records
      and NBA career averages of 24.3 points, 10 rebounds and 6.3
      assists.

      Bird made the NBA an eye-catching product, a bonanza for a league
      seeking marketable stars. Johnson helped and -- had he not played
      32 games in 1995-96 after four years of retirement -- also would
      have been eligible this year. They were the cornerstones of the
      Celtics-Lakers rivalry of the '80s.

      In five of the last six years, at least six new members were
      chosen. Seven were added last year. The last shoo-ins were Kareem
      Abdul-Jabbar in 1995 and Julius Erving in 1993.

      And now Bird.

      "There are so many people who contributed to the game at all
      different levels. Not everybody can be like Bird," Celtics
      general manager Chris Wallace said. "There has to be room for
      mortals, too."