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"Hick from French Lick" is an easy description of Bird and his hometown, but unfair on a couple of counts. If the spa waters have calmed since the days when Franklin Roosevelt and Al Capone journeyed to southern Indiana for a sulfurous cure, French Lick continues to be a resort community of considerable grace. The leading citizen is identified on a circular standard, larger than a Gulf sign, marking LARRY BIRD BLVD. Every street's a boulevard in old French Lick. The location of the Bird residence is given away by a full blacktopped court, complete with two glass backboards, reclining in a grassy glen just a good stretch of the leg from a sunny country house.
Georgia Bird, a calico woman, has managed to raise five sons and a daughter, as her famous boy explains, "cooking in restaurants and such," having been something of a kitchen legend herself. Her husband Joe had a tragic thirst and killed himself in 1975 about a year after their divorce. From a dwarf named Shorty, the late proprietor of Shorty's pool hall, the boys first learned that their father had been a terrific basketball player and might have gone places had he not left school around the eighth grade to begin a life of work. Relating this memory, Larry's brother Mark, 31, conveys an understanding affection for the man who was at times the best finisher at the Kimball Piano & Organ Co. A shorter and fleshier version of Larry, Mark shares the features right down to the yellow mustache.
The youngest brother Eddie, the current flash of Springs Valley High, resembles him too. "The same mannerisms, the same temper--no, temperament," says Coach Gary Holland, whose first year at Springs Valley was Larry's last. "I was getting on Eddie the other day, and he was so upset he decided to put one in left-handed from the right side of the basket. We all just shook our heads." Last month, when the N.B.A. All-Stars were weekending in Indianapolis, Bird returned to the Springs Valley gymnasium, where his mural looks down like a chapel Madonna. He recollects, "I hadn't seen Eddie play since sixth grade," and they were both moved. "He had his best game of the year. When people are saying your brother is the greatest ever, how does an 18-year-old stand up to that?"
Larry was just 17 when he went off to Indiana University, 50 miles away. He lasted 24 days. A common and logical assumption is that he was terrorized by the undisciplined disciplinarian Bobby Knight, a coach who orders haircuts while throwing furniture. In fact, it was a roommate's brimming closet wardrobe that daunted Bird, an embarrassment of clothing. "I was a homesick kid who was lost and broke," he says. "If I knew then what I know now, I'd have run right back. Coach Knight and me wouldn't have had no trouble. He'd have loved my game."
A year with the city cutting grass, coating benches, striping streets and riding the famed garbage truck gave him confidence to start over at Indiana State, where the Celtics' crafty president Red Auerbach drafted him as an eligible junior. "Red's kind of like the daddy who was never there for Larry," his mother says. "He thinks that Red is just it." Auerbach sounds like a father: "If Larry ever did something bad, I wouldn't fine him. I'd just not let him play for a couple a games. That would be the worst thing you could do to him."