Larry and Magic at the 1979 NCAA men's basketball championship game held at the University of Utah.

With March Madness approaching, it's never a bad idea to reflect one of the most seminal moments in the history of an incredible sporting event. 

The NCAA Tournament is a thing of beauty, even when it's overrun by commercialism. But back in 1979 it was definitely something different than it is now. In a word, it was "purer" back then. It was more about the basketball than brackets, corporate sponsorship and the sleaziness of the NCAA. 

Looking back on the 1979 tournament with modern hindsight, which of course included Magic Johnson's Michigan State Spartans and Larry Bird's Indiana State Sycamores in the championship game, it's almost impossible to overstate what that singular event did for not only the NCAA Tournament, but indeed the game of basketball as a whole. 

Michigan State wound up winning the game 75-64 inside the University of Utah's Special Events Center, which later became known as the Jon M. Huntsman Center. Magic finished with a triple-double: 29 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. Bird scored 35 points, 16 rebounds and nine assists. 

On a personal note, the NCAA Tournament was my favorite sporting event, and in 1979 I was certainly caught up in the Larry vs. Magic hype. I was 17 at time time and of course watched every minute of the finals. Little did I know that one day I'd be a student at the U of U and would become intimately acquainted with Special Events/Huntsman Center. I covered numerous games there as a sports reporter for Utah's student newspaper, the Daily Utah Chronicle. I'd go through graduation ceremonies there, and I'd spend countless more hours there covering the Runnin' Utes during my nearly 25 year career as a sportswriter and columnist for the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah. 

I came to love that place, and still do. 



And I still love the NCAA Tournament, just as I did as a teenager growing up in Plano, Texas. In those days I harbored a dream of becoming a sports journalist. That's all I wanted to do, there really wasn't a "plan b."

But getting back to the '79 finals in particular, it served as a launching pad for Bird and Magic, who were already college basketball legends. In the coming years and decades, Larry and Magic became the faces of an foundering NBA beset by poor ratings, rampant drug use and underlying racial issues. As Bird ended up with the Boston Celtics and Magic with the Los Angeles Laker, the NBA underwent an unimaginable transformation. Bird and Magic would become the fiercest of rivals, then remarkably, the dearest of friends. 

I became a Celtics fan as a 12-year-old watching the incredible 1976 NBA finals featuring Boston and the Phoenix Suns. Game 5 of the eventual six game series was a triple-overtime thriller played at the Boston Garden. I remember watching the game and being memorized by the Celtics' mystique as they pulled off an amazing 128-126 victory. From that point on I became a huge Celtics fans and that continues to this day. I was already a Larry Bird fan by the time he got to the Celtics he was my favorite player. 

As a Larry Bird guy, I didn't like Magic or the Lakers. I despised them, actually. But as the Larry-Magic rivalry turned into a friendship, I have become a big Magic fan, partly because he came with Larry's stamp of approval and secondly because I learned to appreciate the historically significance of their rivalry and in particular what it did for the NBA. 

With that amazing 1979 NCAA Tournament final and the Larry-Magic rivalry now things of the past, I've become one of those old guys who complain that the game now is a mere shadow of what it used to be. It's frankly not even the same game.

So, yeah, it goes without saying (but I will anyway), "Get off my lawn!!"

But I digress ...       

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