(10 of 12)
Gretzky's formal education ended short of twelve full grades in, of all places, Indiana, where he was a 17-year-old Carmel High School student and, for eight games, a professional hockey player for the fading Indianapolis Racers. They ended up selling him to Edmonton. "I can tell you that high school basketball is a lot bigger than pro hockey in Indiana." Two of his brothers--Keith, 18, and Brent, 13--appear to be following him. "They say Keith will be drafted in the first round this year. He handles the comparisons pretty well, better than I would. Brent's quite good, and he loves the attention. He's the first to tell people he is my brother."
Of course, new wunderkinds with different last names have been toddling out steadily for years, and Gretzky is sadly conscious of them. "It's too bad they get compared. Thankfully, my family always played that down. The funny thing is, it's most often the mother and father who are disappointed if he doesn't make it. The kid is usually relieved." Brent, the world-champion kid, pledges unobnoxiously, "Wayne doesn't know it, but I'm going to be better than he is." Phyllis Gretzky will be pleased if Brent just keeps his mouthpiece in. The only four teeth Wayne has lost were chopped off when he was ten, "in the last minute of the game," she well recalls, "after all that orthodontia, all those nights wearing the retainer." Braces on a young hockey player must be the definition of positive thinking.
Literally an unflappable woman, Phyllis is cooking dinner while a yellow canary swoops freely overhead, a balm for Brent in the wake of a recently deceased cat named Morris. Gazing at the window, she sighs, "It's going to be awfully quiet when all of a sudden there's no hockey in the backyard."
The Edmonton Oilers and the Boston Celtics have each won 45 to 50 games and lost around 15. In addition, the Oilers have tied seven. This puts Edmonton in utter charge of its division, though goalie injuries have intruded recently. While the Celtics are also in first place, as usual they are resigned to teeter-tottering into April with the Philadelphia 76ers, their Eastern archrivals. A startling November fistfight between the 76ers' Julius ("Dr. J") Erving and Bird, who sometimes taunts his victims, mortified both men thoroughly but summarized the rivalry rather well. "People who have to fight tooth and nail can't go out and eat together," Bird explains. "Take Magic Johnson. They say I don't like him and he doesn't like me, but I just don't believe that. We're all so competitive. Dr. J and I will miss each other some day, probably look over our shoulder and wonder where we've gone." Erving simply says, "Bird is the consummate player, the best in the game today."
Fresh from a nine-game tear of 30-point games, Bird is averaging 28 points and 6.5 assists, but he is unmoved by numbers. In one game, when statisticians realize he is a stolen ball from double figures in points, rebounds, assists and steals, Bird declines the invitation to re-enter a lopsided victory. Winning the 1984 foul-shooting title (88.8%) purely delighted him, since Springs Valley's dawn shooter still regards free throws as a measure of honesty. But maybe rebounds gratify him most of all. "Rebounding," he says, "is an art, a talent, a hustle play."