About the author:
\nKeith O&rsquo\;Brien \;is the \;New York Times& nbsp\;bestselling author of \;Charlie Hustle\, \;Para dise Falls\, \;Fly Girls\, and \;Outside Shot. \;He has won the 2025 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld award for biograp hy\; has been a finalist for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports writin g\; and has written for \;The New York Times\, \;The& nbsp\;Washington Post\, \;The \;Boston Globe\, \ ;The \;Atlantic\, \;Rolling Stone\, NPR \, and \;This American Life. A native of Ohio\, he lives in N ew Hampshire.
\nIn Heartland\, in the fall 1974\, Larry Bird&mdash\;one of the greatest players to ever pick up a ba sketball&mdash\;was lost\, and in danger of slipping away.
\nHe had dropped out of Indiana University\, spurning legendary Hoosiers head coach Bobby Knight. He returned home to French Lick\, a tiny town in the second poorest county in Indiana\, and he got a job hauling trash.
\nIt co uld have ended right there for Bird\, were it not for two men: Bob King\, an old coach with bad knees\, and Bill Hodges\, a man who knew what it was like to be poor and overlooked. In the spring of 1975\, during one of the darkest chapters of Bird&rsquo\;s life\, King and Hodges convinced Bird t o leave French Lick and play basketball at Indiana State University\, a co llege that couldn&rsquo\;t even fill its arena\, much less compete with Bo bby Knight. Then\, while no one was watching\, King and Hodges built a tea m of players around Bird who were just like him: they were castoffs and le ftovers\, ready to work.
\nFour years later\, in March 1979\, this u nheralded team would put together one of the greatest seasons in American sports history. By the time it was over\, more than 50 million people woul d tune in to watch the Indiana State Sycamores play in the NCAA finals aga inst Magic Johnson and Michigan State.
\nWhat happened that night wo uld change college basketball and the NBA. Perhaps more importantly\, it w ould change the members of this hardscrabble team\, binding them together forever. In some ways\, their one shining moment would never end.
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