The First Chapter in the Bird-Magic Rivalry

---

---

I find it ironic that the college basketball national championship game in 1979 is still, 35 years later, the highest–rated college basketball game ever televised.

Because I didn't see it. I've never seen it — only highlights.

In those days, I was working at a self–serve gas station, and I had to work that night. I remember listening to the game on the radio at the station, but I didn't see any of it. I could only imagine what was happening in the host town, Salt Lake City, based on what I heard.

It was between Michigan State and Indiana State, the first matchup of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in what became a classic NBA rivalry. As USA Today observed five years ago, it was the start of something special.

But that is the sort of observation that can be made in hindsight. Those are easy.

For example, it is easy now to say that Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana were destined to be four–time Super Bowl champs, but I remember when they both broke into the NFL. All eyes were on others, but, in the course of their careers, Bradshaw and Montana turned struggling franchises into winners.

The same is true of Magic and Bird. At the end of the '80s, it was possible to look back at their epic postseason confrontations and realize that their rivalry had been the kind of thing you rarely find in team sports — a rivalry between two individuals. There were other players who played, of course, but Magic and Bird got the attention.

I guess every NBA team has been a rival of the Celtics since the days of Bill Russell, and every NBA team has been a rival of the Lakers for nearly as long, going back to the days of Wilt Chamberlain. Likewise, fans have to choose sides when the two teams meet, and most of them are likely cheering for a team they never support during the regular season.

I'm not an NBA fan — in fact, I'm really not much of a basketball fan — so I was spared having to make that choice and could simply enjoy watching them play.

You know, it is kind of amusing when I think back on that first encounter between Magic and Bird 35 years ago.

I don't recall the hype that preceded the game. I'm sure it was marketed as some kind of duel between future NBA legends, the kind of hype that accompanies many collegiate confrontations.

That kind of buildup doesn't always prove to be true. At the time, of course, it probably doesn't matter, and few probably remember it years later. Potential doesn't always coincide with reality.

But, in this case, it did.

It's Been a Long Time Coming

---

---

I grew up in Arkansas, and I got my B.A. at the University of Arkansas so I was indoctrinated into Razorback culture early.

Initially, my interest was exclusively football, but then Eddie Sutton came along, and I — along with hundreds of thousands of Arkansans — began following college basketball as a result.

He certainly made it interesting — and it wasn't as if we fans were doing much between football seasons, anyway.

A couple of years after his arrival, he had the Razorbacks in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nearly 20 years. They were one and done, but that was enough to give Razorback fans a taste of the Big Dance.

The next year, Sutton coached the Razorbacks to the Final Four for only the third time ever. They lost to the eventual national champion, then beat Notre Dame in the third–place game, and Razorback fans were hooked. Expectations the next season, in 1979, were higher than they had ever been in my lifetime, even though many of the stars of that Final Four team had graduated.

It was because of those absent stars that national expectations weren't high at all. In fact, Arkansas was unranked when the season began.

But the Razorbacks still had Sidney Moncrief, who became the school's all–time leading scorer and was a consensus All–American in 1979. Larry Bird was an All–American, too, and his undefeated and top–ranked Indiana State Sycamores were waiting for the Razorbacks 35 years ago today in the Elite Eight in Cincinnati.

The winner would face DePaul in the Final Four in Salt Lake City.

You would be hard pressed to find a tighter ballgame than the one that was played on that St. Patrick's Day. Arkansas led by two points at halftime, then late in the game with the score tied, U.S. Reed was called for walking, and Indiana State was in position to take the final shot.

Everyone expected Bird to take that shot. He had scored 31 points that afternoon, more than double anyone else on his team, but, as the seconds ticked off the clock, teammate Bob Heaton took the shot, made it and sent Indiana State to the Final Four.

It was a heartbreaker for Arkansas fans. Indiana State went on to beat DePaul a week later, then lost to Michigan State in the championship game (which was the first meeting in the now–storied rivalry between Bird and Magic Johnson).

Arkansas and Indiana State haven't faced each other in a basketball game since that day 35 years ago.

Expectations were for the Razorbacks to return to the NCAA Tournament, thanks to a season sweep of Kentucky and a strong finish to the regular season. But that finish was marred by a season–ending loss at Alabama and a loss to South Carolina in the SEC Tournament apparently knocked the Razorbacks out of the NCAA Tournament.

Not long after the pairings were announced, it was announced that Arkansas had accepted an invitation to play in the NIT. Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that their first opponent will be Indiana State tomorrow night — 35 years and a day since that disappointing defeat.

Razorback fans have memories that are longer than elephants'. One wrote on Facebook today that Heaton walked just before making the game–winner. It wasn't called and, to be honest, I don't remember it. But it just goes to show how raw that wound is.

How different would that game have been if college basketball had a shot clock and the three–point shot, neither of which existed at the time? We'll never know. This is a different era with different players and different coaches.

But the fans are the same. Some have died and others have been born since that St. Patrick's Day in 1979, but the loss lives on in the collective memory of Razorback fans. They want revenge.

The game will be televised by ESPN at 8 p.m. (Central). I'm hoping for a more satisfying finish this time.

A Truly 'Super' Super Bowl

---

---

In its first 12 years of existence, the Super Bowl was a blowout more often than not.

A few games were relatively close (i.e., victory margins in single digits). The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts by nine points in Super Bowl III; the Colts turned back the Dallas Cowboys with a last–second field goal in Super Bowl V; the unbeaten Miami Dolphins topped the Washington Redskins by a touchdown in Super Bowl VII; and the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Cowboys by four points in Super Bowl X.

But those were the exceptions.

That made what happened 35 years ago today in Miami so remarkable.

There was no shortage of compelling storylines. The game was the first–ever Super Bowl rematch. The winner would be the first franchise to win three Super Bowls. The Cowboys were the defending Super Bowl champions, looking to repeat.

The Steelers were favored by 3½ points. The oddsmakers clearly expected a close game.

And the oddsmakers were right. The Steelers prevailed, 35–31, inspiring more than one sportswriter to observe that Super Bowl XIII lived up to the hype. It really was super.

Pittsburgh's Terry Bradshaw threw four TD passes and was the game's MVP. Roger Staubach had three TD passes, but he would have had four if Jackie Smith hadn't dropped a sure touchdown in the end zone in the third quarter. Staubach wouldn't let Smith take all the blame. "The play was wide open, so I tried to take a little off the ball and I think I threw it too low," he said after the game.

---

---

Perhaps the pass was a little low, but Smith knew that wasn't the whole story. "I just was wide open and I missed it," he said.

That dropped pass forced Dallas to settle for a field goal instead of scoring a game–tying touchdown, and the Cowboys never led again. They only led once all afternoon as it was — and briefly at that — after Mike Hegman stripped the ball from Bradshaw and rambled 37 yards to give Dallas a 14–7 advantage early in the second quarter.

The Steelers tied it up about a minute and a half later when Bradshaw hit John Stallworth for a 75–yard touchdown strike. They seized the lead in the closing seconds of the half when Bradshaw hit Rocky Bleier for a touchdown, capitalizing on Staubach's only interception of the day.

Dallas' Tony Dorsett led all rushers with 96 yards, but Pittsburgh's Franco Harris had the game's only TD run.

The victory — and the one the following year — sealed the Steelers' place as the team of the decade. They, along with Miami and Dallas, had two Super Bowl championships to their credit when the game began. They finished the decade with four Super Bowl titles in six years.

---

---

When did the Steelers wrap it up? I think an argument can be made that, when Smith dropped the pass and the Cowboys had to take a field goal instead of a touchdown, that was when the Steelers began to believe they would win, and the Cowboys began to believe they would lose.

Then Pittsburgh broke it open with two touchdowns in a 19–second span midway through the fourth quarter. Harris scored his touchdown run, then Pittsburgh recovered a fumbled kickoff and built the lead to 35–17 with 6:57 to play on Bradshaw's 18–yard strike to Lynn Swann.

Dallas managed two late touchdowns, but the deficit was simply too great to overcome.

A Rivalry Like No Other

---

---

This year's Super Bowl is a little more than a week away.

The Super Bowl has been played every year for nearly 50 years, usually in southerly, sun–splashed climes. It's been played often in California, New Orleans, Miami, and it is not a complete stranger to Texas. It was played in Houston twice.

This year, however, it will be played in Dallas — for the first time.

Lately, the folks in Irving and Dallas have been unrolling all their new facilities and vehicles and gadgets that are intended to accommodate the needs and desires of visitors in town for the big game — and earn local entrepreneurs a neat profit in the process.

Back in the summer and into the early fall, North Texans harbored hopes that the Dallas Cowboys might host their own Super Bowl, but those hopes were dashed rather rapidly.

I figure that, in the long run, that will be good news for local merchants, who are counting on the revenue from visitors from two cities. If the local team had made it to the Super Bowl, logic tells me that approximately half of the out–of–town visitors would have been eliminated.

So it's a good thing for all those folks who want to make money from this — especially the ones who run the hotels and the motels, who would have lost the income from all those out–of–towners who will need rooms for several days.

People are always going to have to eat, even if they're from a nearby community and only in town on the day of the game, so restaurateurs wouldn't have been affected quite as severely, but they, too, would have had to lower their expectations.

But the Cowboys went into a tailspin early. Between the Cowboys' and the Longhorns' declines, football dropped from sports fans' radars around here, and, remarkably, the sports talk in this area in October did not focus on football but on baseball, as the Rangers advanced to their first–ever World Series.

I grew up in Arkansas. I have lived in this area for most of the last 25 years. Until a few months ago, I never thought I would see a time during football season when baseball was the leading topic of conversation, but that is exactly what happened here.

It was gratifying for baseball fans, but it often felt, to me, as if the natural order of things had been disrupted.

There have been times when it's felt like one of those alternate reality episodes from the Twilight Zone. It was astonishing to witness the vacuum that was created when the Cowboys and the Longhorns crashed to earth. Talk about tumbling into a black hole.

Only recently, it seems, have people around here remembered that they were going to have a Super Bowl here in early February. It is almost as if the plan to host a Super Bowl locally depended upon whether the Cowboys would be in it — and, when it became clear that the Cowboys would not be in the playoffs, the right to host the Super Bowl defaulted to some other city.

It's probably going to be a good thing for the economy that Cowboys Stadium (known locally as Jerry World for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones) will host two cities, but I can't help thinking of what might have been.

Assuming that everything else would have been unchanged — if the Cowboys had been the NFC's representative in the Super Bowl, who would have been waiting for them from the AFC? None other than the Pittsburgh Steelers — and, if you've been following football as long as I have (or longer), you know what magic that matchup conjures up in one's mind.

---

---

There are all sorts of rivalries in football, but the Dallas–Pittsburgh rivalry in the Super Bowl is unique. I guess you could say it's been a rivalry of milestones.

It began 35 years ago, on Jan. 18, 1976, when the teams met in Super Bowl X. The Cowboys, as I mentioned earlier this week, became the first wild–card team to play in a Super Bowl on that day, but the Steelers won the game, 21–17.

Even if you aren't old enough to remember that day, if you've watched any Super Bowl highlights shows in the last 35 years, you're all but sure to have seen Lynn Swann's amazing acrobatic catch from that game.

---

---

Some folks will tell you it was the greatest catch ever made in pro football.

Then, three years later, on Jan. 21, 1979, the teams met in the first–ever Super Bowl rematch.

Superstitious people tend to be wary of the number 13, but Super Bowl XIII was far from unlucky for football fans. Not only was it the first rematch of a Super Bowl, but it would also mark the first time that a team won its third Super Bowl title, no matter who won the game.

Once again, the Steelers were victorious. The final score was 35–31, and, as one weekly newsmagazine declared in its headline on its game story, "This one really was Super."

---

---

Part of what made it super was a fantastic fourth–quarter comeback by Dallas that was brilliantly captured in NFL Films' wrapup, which can be seen above.

In hindsight, that game featured many of the greatest football players of my youth — Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Franco Harris, etc., etc. But the play that will always stand out in my memory is of Jackie Smith, a tight end who played much of his career for woeful St. Louis Cardinals teams, dropping a pass in the end zone that could have altered the outcome.

I think everyone watching the game, whether they were pulling for the Steelers or the Cowboys, felt bad for Smith, writhing in agony in the Orange Bowl end zone after dropping that pass.

"Bless his heart," I remember an announcer saying, "he's got to be the sickest man in America."

It took nearly 20 years, but the Cowboys finally got their revenge in Super Bowl XXX, which was played 15 years ago today. It really wasn't a surprise. Dallas went into that game favored by nearly two touchdowns.

With that victory, the Cowboys pulled even with the San Francisco 49ers in total Super Bowl victories with five. At that time, the Steelers had won only the Super Bowls in which they played in the 1970s — their two wins over Dallas along with wins over Minnesota and Los Angeles. Pittsburgh has won two Super Bowls since that time and now leads all other teams in that category with six Super Bowl titles.

It was also the first time that a football team won its third Super Bowl in four years. That's an accomplishment that has been matched only by the New England Patriots.

Steeler fans probably don't like to think about that game too much. Pittsburgh has been to seven Super Bowls, more than any other team, and the one they played in 15 years ago today was their only loss — so far.

As a Packer fan, I hope that will not still be the case a week from Sunday.

Football Memories

---

---

I've been writing at my other blogs of my friend Phyllis, who died last week.

I think it shall be hard for me, this fall, to watch a football game without thinking of Phyllis.

Last night, I was on the phone with a mutual friend, also named David, who is in my hometown making preparations for Phyllis' memorial service. We only recently reconnected through Facebook — largely because of Phyllis' illness and death — and much of our conversation focused on people and places and things I really hadn't thought much about since I was in high school.

Sports played a modest role in my relationship with Phyllis. She was in the marching band for many years so she was always performing at football games. I wasn't in the band, and, to be honest, I rarely went to my high school's football games when I was a sophomore or a junior — but I will admit that my attendance rate did go up considerably when I was a senior and I was dating a girl who also was in the band.

Phyllis enjoyed sports, but we didn't always share the same passions — in her later years, for example, she apparently became a NASCAR fan, which seems to be a very Southern thing even though it is a sport I've never really been able to appreciate. Phyllis tried to tell me about it, and I'm going to try to watch it in the future. And, when I do, I will pull for Jimmie Johnson — Phyllis' favorite driver — but I doubt I will ever be able to work up the kind of enthusiasm for NASCAR that Phyllis had.

At one point, our conversation turned to Phyllis' mother, who told David to ask me if I remembered staying at their house one New Year's Eve when I was in college. I had been visiting my grandmother in Dallas during the Christmas holidays, and an ice storm came through at the end of December.

My parents were living in northwest Arkansas. Before the year was over, I made the decision to transfer there, but on this occasion, I was going to college in my hometown, and, when the dorms were closed, I had no place to stay.

That put a lot of pressure on me because the dorms were set to reopen the day after New Year's. At some time on New Year's Eve, I made the decision to drive to Conway (with my car loaded down with my stuff) and spend the night at Phyllis' house.

(I figure I must have had at least one phone conversation with Phyllis before I left my grandmother's home, but that memory escapes me now.)

As I recall, it was a pretty low profile New Year's Eve. I didn't drink any champagne — guess I was still too young to buy alcohol in those days, and I was tired from my 300–plus mile trip, anyway. I don't think any of us stayed up to see the new year in.

But the next day, I remember watching the Cotton Bowl game on TV with Phyllis' mother — and marveling that I had driven from Dallas to Conway the day before.

The game was a classic. Joe Montana led Notre Dame to a stirring come–from–behind victory over Houston. Notre Dame scored 22 points in the final quarter, including a touchdown on the final play, and I remember watching it all with Phyllis' mother — and yelling until we were practically hoarse.

---

---

A year later, I was living in Fayetteville, Ark., where I finished work on my bachelor's degree.

But, before I left Conway, I returned to Phyllis' home that fall to watch the Arkansas–Texas game with Phyllis, her mother, and a friend and high school classmate named Ellen. Others may have been there, too. I simply don't remember.

We were all Arkansas fans, and the Razorbacks had lost to Texas for seven straight years. But they prevailed that afternoon.

The way we all yelled and hugged, you would have thought we were on the sidelines or at least in the stands and not watching in Phyllis' living room.

Those are memories I will always cherish.