HeartlandHeartland

In the fall 1974, Larry Bird, one of the greatest players to ever pick up a basketball, was lost, and in danger of slipping away. He 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. It could 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's life, King and Hodges convinced Bird to leave French Lick and play basketball at Indiana State University, a college that could not even fill its arena, much less compete with Bobby Knight. Then, while no one was watching, King and Hodges built a team of players around Bird who were just like him: they were castoffs and leftovers, ready to work.