The strong start to 2026 for my reading continues with this excellent book on Larry Bird’s time at Indiana State and stories about his teammates there as well.
Title/Author:
“Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream and the Miracle of Larry Bird” by Keith O’Brien
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review:
Before Larry Bird became a legendary NBA player with the Boston Celtics, he was an All-American player for the Indiana State Sycamores, a basketball program very few knew about before Bird’s arrival. The story of Bird’s path to the Terre Haute campus and the Sycamores’ magical 1978-79 season is told in this excellent book by Keith O’Brien.
Much like his other books, most notably his biography of Pete Rose, O’Brien conducts hundreds of interviews with people involved in Bird’s life. They can be family, teammates, other acquaintances or even someone who had a brief encounter or event with Bird. An example of this is that O’Brien interviewed the two Indiana State cheerleaders who appeared with Bird on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1977. At that time, getting on that cover was very prestigious. Getting the perspective of that event from these two women is just one example of the depth of the book.
O’Brien has also shown in other books that storytelling is one of the strengths of his writing and this book has plenty of stories. Whether these are from coaches such as Bob King and Bill Hodges the two coaches for Indiana State during Bird’s time there (King had to give up coaching due to health issues and Hodges, who was on King’s staff, took over those duties), from teammates such as Carl Nicks and Bob Helton, or even people from Bird’s hometown of French Lick, Indiana, these paint a fascinating picture of Bird during this time frame.
The book not only covers the Indiana State basketball team, but also a deeper look at Bird’s life before he reluctantly agreed to go with King to visit the campus. It is known that he originally intended to attend Indiana and play for legendary coach Bob Knight there, but he grew depressed and lonely there and did not play a game for the Hoosiers. This, along with other parts of his personal life such as a short marriage that resulted in a daughter being born, his father’s suicide and his time working for the town as a garbage collector are also chronicled here. No matter what Bird was doing at that point, O’Brien describes it well and completely.
The book is an easy read and is broken up into many smaller chapters, making it easy to digest and finish in a short amount of time. Any basketball fan will enjoy this book on one ofn the true legends of the game.
I wish to thank Atria Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
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