Madness by Mark Mehler

Author:Mark Mehler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sports Publishing
Published: 2018-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

The Road to Salt Lake

Both teams entered the 1979 NCAA tournament on a roll, Indiana State with a perfect 29–0 record, and Michigan State at 21–6, but winners of 10 of their last 11.

MSU, ranked seventh at the start of the season, jumped to No. 1 after a 17-point drubbing of Indiana in late December brought their record to 7–1. The fast start obscured some pesky personality issues. They included player resentment over Heathcote’s frequent tirades and a feeling among some players that their cantankerous coach was tamping down an offense with the potential to be a lot more explosive. In addition, senior Greg Kelser, the team’s all-time leading scorer, was chafing just a bit about having his leadership role usurped by the younger Magic Johnson. This was hardly a fault of Magic, who couldn’t very well put a lid on his own superior skills and infectious personality, which captivated all his teammates, including Kelser. Moreover, according to his coach, Magic was virtually without conceit when it came to his individual accomplishments.

“He never looked at his game stats,” said Heathcote. “The only thing Earvin cared about was the score. He loved publicity, for sure, and he loved playing to the crowd, but he was never a showboat. He was probably the least arrogant guy I ever coached.”

Guard Terry Donnelly cites two other irritants: the pressure that comes with high expectations, as the previous season Michigan State was achingly close to going to the Final Four, losing a tight game to eventual champion Kentucky in the regional final; and, having been together for five or six months since embarking on a preseason South American tour, the players were itching to get a break from one another.

“We’d been together a long time,” says Donnelly, “and after a while, all that togetherness gets to be too much.”

As happens often in the course of a sporting season, relatively minor distractions like these hardly matter at all until the losing sets in. MSU lasted at No. 1 for only two weeks, dropping back to No. 6 after consecutive road losses to Illinois and Purdue. And in late January, MSU hit a rougher patch, losing to archrival Michigan by one in Ann Arbor and getting trounced 83–65 by lowly Northwestern (which finished the season 2–16 in the Big Ten). This was more than a loss; it was awfully close to a humiliation. Magic, for whatever reason, was not playing with his normal swagger, and, perhaps following his lead, all his teammates appeared to be enervated on the court. Heathcote and his coaching staff were appalled by the seeming lack of effort.

Indeed, if there was any point in the 1978–79 season where things could have permanently unraveled, it was at this crucial juncture. Fortunately for Michigan State, they had a reserve point guard named Mike Longaker, whose on-court contributions may have been miniscule but who possessed an extraordinarily keen mind and whose opinions carried considerable weight among his peers and coaches.

After listening to his teammates gripe about their over-restrictive, blustering coach at a team meeting, Longaker had heard enough.

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