Glory Days by L. Jon Wertheim

Author:L. Jon Wertheim [Wertheim, L. Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781328637901
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

15

The Dream Team

In Indianapolis, a popular 1984 parlor game entailed coming up with the best comparison for the Hoosier Dome, the white monstrosity that had sprouted to blight the city’s skyline. It’s like a giant biscuit made from scratch. No, it looks more like a giant pile of white deer crap. The indoor venue was built with the intent of enticing a professional football team to relocate to town—and on those grounds, it was stunningly successful. On March 28, 1984, the Colts organization had loaded up a fleet of moving vans, left Baltimore under cover of darkness, and decamped to Indianapolis.

But with the 1984 NFL season still weeks away, the first event held inside the Hoosier Dome was, appropriately, a basketball game. As Bob Knight, the unofficial emcee, told the crowd that night, July 9, 1984, “I heard today that basketball was invented in Springfield, Massachusetts, and that is true.” (Pause for effect.) “God had it invented there so we could import it to Indiana.” Deafening applause followed.

Knight and his minions had come to Indianapolis as part of a pre-Olympic summer barnstorming tour. In order to help the team coalesce into a unit, in order to simulate real competition under international rules—and in order to get them the hell out of southern Indiana in the summer—USA Basketball had arranged for a series of games against makeshift teams of NBA players. Like a summer concert tour, the circuit threaded its way through an assortment of cities, some (Minneapolis) more logical than others (Iowa City?).*

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