It's pretty rare when an athlete, coach or anyone else in professional sports gets to leave the field at or near the top of his game and on his own terms. Larry Bird is not your typical jock, though, and he seems to have developed a penchant for impeccable timing, whether on the court in the front office or in his personal life. After all, Bird left behind a legendary NBA playing career in 1992 just in time to become a founding member of the Dream Team, and, in 2000, stepped down as Indiana Pacers head coach after having led the team to its first and only NBA Finals berth. As a Pacers fan, I was thrilled when he came back to the team's front office in 2003, even though it was unclear how well he fit in that role. Well, after successfully rebuilding a Pacers franchise that nearly crumbled to the ground in the mid-2000s, Bird proved that he has what it takes to run a team, as evidenced by his NBA Executive of the Year award in 2012. I guess his past should have clued us in to what was to come next, but I was still taken aback this week when the Pacers announced that Bird had resigned from his post as team president.
Bird has been hanging around on a year-to-year basis, anyway, and he withstood a heap of criticism from the fan base and media over the past few years as he tried to rebuild the team to a consistently competitive level. Until the Pacers finally broke through last year with a playoff appearance, many observers regularly called for Bird to step down or to make his way back to the bench as coach. With Frank Vogel's emergence as a steadying influence from the sidelines, it started to become clear that Bird had indeed assembled a talented bunch capable of giving fits to any team that they face. A very strong regular-season record and a second straight playoff appearance cemented Bird's status as a front office heavyweight and quieted most of the boo birds around town. With the new hardware sitting on his mantel, Bird's exit this week has a whiff of "I-told-you-so" mixed in with his usual humility, and it leaves us to wonder what might have happened between him and owner Herb Simon in recent years.
One certain bright spot here is that Bird will remain on board through August, and he will orchestrate this year's draft. That means that the Pacers will get one more dose of the plan that has brought them back into the upper tier of Eastern Conference competition. From there, Kevin Pritchard and old favorite Donnie Walsh will take over and guide the Pacers into the future. There is some talk around town that Bird may stick around in some sort of consulting capacity, perhaps giving him a chance to stay in touch with the local basketball scene while still attending to his health.
I, for one, hope there is more Bird in the Pacers' future, because it's been a fantastic combination for 15 years. And no one understands basketball better than Larry Legend, a Hoosier hoops son through and through.
Adam Hughes was raised, and still lives, in rural Indiana. He has been a Pacers fan since the early 1980s and has witnessed the rise and fall of a great NBA franchise. He follows the current club closely and is happy to see the Pacers begin their next ascent.
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