The Associated Press Model 20 teletype machine clattered incessantly, spitting out literally reams of paper every day. If an editor didn’t occasionally rip the copy along the sharp edge of the glass cover on top, the paper would pile up, like a 6-inch-wide ticker tape.
Lying on the floor would be news from everywhere. But on Feb. 27, 1979, we in the newsroom of The Indiana Statesman were looking for one particular story. It was Tuesday, and that was the day the latest college basketball polls would be released.
On the campus of Indiana State University, we’d had the same apprehension the week before, fearing the coaches and writers whose highly subjective votes determined college basketball royalty would somehow slight the best team few people had seen play.
The Indiana State Sycamores appeared to have come out of nowhere. In those days, that was pretty easy. Cable TV barely existed, and ESPN wouldn’t go on the air until later that year. Only a handful of games a week were telecast on the major networks. And of course, the internet was only a distant theory. So, it was possible to get within two weeks of the start of the NCAA tournament without barely having heard of Larry Bird.
But we knew. Most of the student body — around 10,000 back then — attended every home game. Three friends and I would pile into a buddy’s heater-less 1965 VW Beetle and travel to places like Normal and Carbondale, three-hour drives one way on icy roads and the last of our money already spent on our tickets. By late February 1979, the Sycamores were 26-0, and they had finally ascended to No. 1 in the rankings two weeks earlier. (They also had just made their first appearance on national TV and didn’t disappoint, rolling to a 109-84 win over Wichita State.)
So, in the newsroom of the school newspaper, we waited anxiously for the Tuesday polls.
That season 40 years ago is fixed in sports lore. Most of it is because of the irresistible allure of the 13-year rivalry — and lifelong friendship — that was born on the night of the championship game March 26 in Salt Lake City. Books have been written about Bird vs. Magic and when “March went mad.” A number of very good documentaries have been made. That game, in which Bird’s Sycamores played Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s Michigan State team, gets a lot of credit for creating the modern fascination with March Madness.
But none of that has ever completely captured the, well, magic of that winter and early spring of 1979. Every year at this time, I ponder the nearly mythological quality of 13 young men — 10 of whom were from Indiana high schools — and how solidly they are frozen in time. Purdue probably won’t celebrate its team that went to the Final Four the next year, 1980. Indiana University probably will mark the 40th anniversary of its 1981 NCAA championship two years from now, but will it feel as special as the commemoration now taking place? Will almost every member of that team gather at a local watering hole, as the 1978-79 Sycamores did two weeks ago in Terre Haute, to hold court?
The Sycamores were an underdog team from an underdog town. (The next year, the comedian Steve Martin would famously declare that Terre Haute was the most “nowhere” town in America.) Many ISU students, like one of the greatest basketball players of all time, were first-generation college kids of modest means and background. They came from places like French Lick, Clay City, Linton, Churubusco, Eminence and Greenfield. Kids from families who felt their children should be in college but who weren’t really sure how it all worked. Sportswriters like Skip Bayless, then of the Dallas Morning News, made fun of our fans because we looked like farmers and threw reams of toilet paper like confetti to celebrate wins.
Maybe that explains it. Maybe it was a glorious accidental-ness that turned into a lifetime moment. A bunch of kids showed up and did something unexpected. Like make a dean’s list. Get a degree. Work on a garbage truck, as Larry did before enrolling at ISU, and then become an All-American. Go 33-1.
Later that Tuesday afternoon, the Model 20 teletype rattled as the letter bars pounded against the ink ribbon and the paper advanced into view line by line. Indiana State was still ranked No. 1 and would remain at the top of the polls and undefeated until that landmark game against Michigan State three weeks later. On that afternoon 40 years ago, anything seemed possible.
David Hill welcomes comments on this and any other story in the Daily Reporter. You can write to him at [email protected].
