Bird: Coach of the Year

["Starke R. Farrell" <sfarrell@dixie-net.com>]

Bird to be named Coach of the Year
                   Associated Press




                   INDIANAPOLIS -- Larry Bird, whose minimalist approach
to coaching turned
                   around the Indiana Pacers, will be named the NBA's
Coach of the Year on
                   Tuesday, The Associated Press has learned.

                   It is only the second time in league history
                   that someone has won the NBA's rookie
                   and coach of the year awards.

                   The Indiana Pacers will hold a news
                   conference Tuesday for a "major
                   announcement" regarding the team and the
                   NBA, Pacers spokesman David Benner
                   said. He and league spokesman Brian
                   McIntyre declined to discuss the nature of
                   the announcement.

                   But the NBA had planned to announce its
                   IBM Coach of the Year award on
                   Tuesday, and Bird has been considered a
                   frontrunner.

                   When Bird took over the Pacers' helm last
                   year, there were doubts that the superstar
                   player would have the patience to coach players with
ordinary skills in a league
                   whose flashy style differs greatly from the
blue-collar game that Bird was famous
                   for.

                   "I'm not asking for that," Bird said after he was
named to coach the Eastern
                   Conference squad in this season's All-Star game. "All
I want is hard work in
                   practice and for about 25 minutes in a game. ... If a
guy can't give that, he
                   doesn't belong in the NBA."

                   In his first year, Bird took a Pacers team that
missed the playoffs for the first
                   time in eight years to its best winning percentage in
franchise history. The team's
                   58 wins were second-best in the NBA's Eastern
Conference.

                   "Who in their right mind wouldn't listen to what
Larry Bird tells them?" Pacer
                   Reggie Miller once said. "He knows what it takes to
be a successful player, and
                   he's letting us do the things to have the success."

                   Bird had already cemented his future as a Hall of
Famer before taking over the
                   Pacers last year after coach Larry Brown moved to the
Philadelphia 76ers. The
                   12-time All-Star was the league's MVP three times and
took the playoff MVP
                   award in 1984 and 1986. He also was named the MVP of
the 1982 All-Star
                   game.

                   Bird joins fellow Celtics great Tom Heinsohn as the
only two people to win both
                   the rookie and coach of the year awards. In 1980,
Bird was named Rookie of
                   the Year after leading the Celtics to a league-best
61-21 record, a 32-game
                   improvement over the previous season. Heinsohn won
the rookie award in 1957
                   and the coaching award in 1973.