My Favorite Celtic
The title of this piece comes from a realization that while I wrote about My Favorite Laker, I’ve never written about my favorite Celtic. That seemed like a hole that needed to be filled.
I’m not old enough to have witnessed the dynastic Celtic years of the 1950’s and 1960’s, but I was around for the 1980’s. Like any kid who grew up around Boston at that time, my favorite Celtic is of course the “Hick from French Lick” – Larry Joe Bird.
I could write about the 3 NBA Championships and all of those the classic clashes with the Lakers. I could write about Bird’s sixth sense, no look passes, the in-your-face clutch shooting or the non-stop trash talking and bravado. All of that made Bird into “Larry Legend”, but that’s not where my thoughts went on this one.
That would be fun and light – a walk in the park. Instead I’m taking the road less traveled. I am going to write about what it means that Larry Bird was white.
Conversations about race in America are scary. The fear, at least for some people, is that one’s words will be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Even worse, conversations about race might reveal a racism lurking beneath the surface that is normally tucked away and out of sight.
Today I say, “Fuck fear!” I’ve nothing to hide so I’ll write with boldness and let reader’s judge if I lay my head down on a Confederate flag pillowcase.
Discussions on racial matters are nuanced, a fancy word that means things are not simple. Slight differences in words can mean very different things. 2018 Americans are not very good at nuance. Our inability to see multiple sides of complex issues has created what legendary journalist Carl Bernstein has called a “Cold Civil War”. Our nation’s horrific racial past is very much a part of that.
But I digress, and I’ve no doubt the Relative Observer’s readers can handle the difficult topic of race. Let us proceed bravely without fear and prejudice.
The NBA had transitioned to black dominance in the two decades prior to Bird’s arrival in 1979. From 1960-1982, the seasons before Bird won his first of three consecutive MVP’s, only two of the 24 winners were white (Dave Cowens ’73 and Bill Walton ’78). On the eight all-star team’s Bird started on from 1981-1988, there was only one other white starter for the East and West squads (the Suns’ Tom Chambers in 1987).
Bird himself said that basketball, “is a black man’s game and will be forever.” He also said that, “he really got irritated when they put a white guy on me” because “it’s disrespect to my game.”
For 7 or 8 seasons in the 80’s basketball fans were watching a total anomaly – a white guy who along with Magic Johnson was in the two-player conversation for best player in the league. What did this mean to people?
It’s well known that Boston is a city with a pock-marked past when it comes to race and its sports’ teams. I’ve no doubt that Bird’s status fueled pride for the real racism that existed and still exists today. I’d like to think this was not the majority of people, but I have no way of knowing.
For a kid like me, it was a role reversal of sorts. Literally everywhere I went and in almost everything I observed, white people were the majority. It wasn’t until recently that I even understood the concept of white privilege, and as a white male I now understand how my path has been smoother than others who are not in the same demographic.
But back then, I saw in Larry Bird a guy who looked like me, who couldn’t jump very high just like I couldn’t, but was the best at what he did. There was a part of me that was happy to see that a fellow white guy, a minority in the NBA world, could achieve the label of the best player in basketball.
In some sense, this was white pride. These days it feels wrong to write that, but is it wrong when the tables are turned and the odds are stacked so high that a player like Bird would even exist?
My kinship with bird very much relates to the importance for people of color to have images and role models that look like them. For decades there were only white Barbie dolls and white Santa’s. Now we know that did real damage to young people.
I think there’s another factor at work too. I watched a lot of Sesame Street back in the day, and there was a recurring bit where viewers were asked which one of four images did not belong:
My young eyes were trained to see that which stands out from the rest. Larry Bird was different from all the rest of the players, a unique man floating in the sea of homogeneity. Bird was special and I can’t help but think we loved him a little more because of it.
This phenomenon is why people still celebrate the William “Refrigerator” Perry scoring a touchdown in Super Bowl XX. It’s why it means a little more when a 5’6” player like the Astros’ Jose Altuve wins the MVP and leads his team to the World Series. It’s why people still root so hard for Tiger Woods 21 years after he first won the Masters, personal failings aside. They want to see the standout – the one who is different from all the rest.
Maybe in time history will shine a brighter light on Barack Obama, the one US President who looks different from the 43 others?
At the end of the day, Larry Bird was an all-time great player and he would have been whether he was black or white. But his whiteness made him different than the rest, and that is something that people notice, whether they want to admit it or not.