Strange how the pivotal moments sneak up on you. Sometimes it's not until 10, 20 years down the road, you realize what they mean. Like graduation day. You're 18 and saying, "Yes! I'm outta here!" You think you understand, but you don't.
Later, you find yourself wishing you could go back.
Here it is, 30 years today since Salt Lake hosted the NCAA championship game. Those who were at that Final Four knew it was special, but only in a sense. The actual game was no Rembrandt. Yet some call the Indiana State-Michigan State championship pairing the greatest of all time. It remains TV history's highest-rated college basketball game.
I had been at the Deseret News just over a year, when I was assigned along with Bill Ewer, Linda Hamilton, Ray Grass, Lee Benson and Doug Robinson to cover the 1979 Final Four.
We were kids, all of us still in our 20s or 30s.
I remember thinking, yeah, this would be cool, but not an all-time moment. I had my whole career ahead. I'd see a lot of stuff like that. And I did: other Final Fours, Super Bowls, NBA Finals, Olympics, major bowl games, championship fights.
Still, little did I know I was watching the game that saved the game.
Nor did I realize I'd learn a lesson I'd never forget.
I wondered, last week, if anyone else was trying to put that championship game into perspective. So I called Jud Heathcote, who coached Magic Johnson's Michigan State squad past Larry Bird's Indiana State team, 75-64.
He lives in Spokane now, and said even he didn't calculate the enormity of the game. I asked whether he agrees with those who say it put the Final Four on the map.
"It did," he said. "But I don't think we realized it then, except that it was the first time the media really descended on the Final Four. … I think it was the luster of Magic playing Bird and a little school versus a big school. So we didn't realize then that it was going to be as big as it has been, because I think Bird and Magic saved pro basketball."
They didn't hurt the college game, either.
The NBA was begging for attendance and short on stars. Along came the perfect players to change that.
The game in Salt Lake had all the dramatic elements, one unknown team, one from a big conference. MSU would go on to four other Final Fours and win one other title. Indiana State has only been in the NCAA Tournament twice since 1979, and won only one game.
But what made it work was the jarring difference in personalities. Bird was standoffish and unsmiling. Magic did nothing but smile and talk. Bird went virtually the whole season not speaking to the media, thanks to a nickname a writer had hung on him: The Hick from French Lick.
Though the NCAA ordered Bird to address the media a day before the championship game, it wasn't worth the trouble. I don't remember much from that, except he sullenly arrived for the press conference and did the minimum. The questions were timid and patronizing.
His counterpart was just 19, but already a one-man Magic Johnson megaplex. Yet even he had his limits. I didn't get to the Spartan locker room until almost 1 1/2 hours after the title game ended. I asked him what he planned to do to celebrate.
"Nothing," he sighed tiredly. "I don't know."
It was all sort of un-Magical.
Moments later, I could hear him singing in the showers. Only a handful of reporters and a couple of his teammates remained. A writer called in to see if he would answer a few more questions when he was dressed.
"I'm done with questions," Johnson responded.
"C'mon, just a couple more," said the reporter.
"I'm tired right now. I'm really just tired. I really can't enjoy it; it hasn't soaked in yet."
Reporters busied themselves with the other players but returned as he finished dressing.
"I can't answer no more questions," he said.
When someone persisted, he mustered the last of his Magic.
"OK," he said, offering a weak smile. "This is my last one tonight."
Not only did the game highlight Magic and Bird, but also Salt Lake. The city had never hosted anything so big. The Utah Stars' ABA championship game in 1971 was never on national TV. The Olympics, NBA Finals and NBA All-Star Game didn't come until much later.
It was Salt Lake's maiden voyage on the national sports scene.
I asked Heathcote last week if it helped in any way that the finals were here. He was largely a Western guy. He had grown up and coached high school in Washington for 14 years, also coached at Washington State and Montana.
"I think we were just happy to be going to the Final Four and it could have been in Timbuktu as well as Salt Lake City and the Huntsman Center; it would have been just as meaningful to us," he said. "We weren't going out there to socialize or think where we were or where we were playing. We were there to prepare for two games."
Meanwhile, as Heathcote said, the media descended. Big city and small town news representatives showed up, most of them wearing jeans and sport jackets and Sperry Top-Siders with no socks. They kept asking me about the street grid in Salt Lake. How come everyplace has two addresses?
One Chicago columnist was dressed the same as others, except he didn't have Top-Siders. He was barefoot. All day. It was his signature, like when Letterman used to wear Adidas with his suits.
You gotta have chutzpah to pull that off.
He went on to become a screenwriter, which takes some chutzpah, too.
In any event, it was a Final Four made for the media. More press credentials were issued than ever before. Penn was the Ivy League Cinderella, trying to think its way to a title. DePaul was gunning to get a championship for coach Ray Meyer, a widely respected icon.
I was with several others writers surrounding Meyer after his two-point loss to Indiana State in the semis. Someone asked if it was a tragedy to come so close but lose. The gentlemanly Meyer had been coaching at DePaul for 37 years; he was 65 years old.
He shook his head and smiled his gap-toothed smile.
"It's been gratifying to be here," he said humbly. "Of course, we were disappointed, but we didn't lose our lives; we didn't lose a war. We made some mistakes and it could have gone either way."
Even in the hour of his toughest defeat, the coach was still teaching.
I never admired a coach more.
To understand how good they were, even in college, consider this: Both Magic and Bird were named years later to the all-time NCAA Final Four team. The others were Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and Lew Alcindor.
Bird was beyond superb, slipping no-look baseline passes, posting up perfectly for turnaround bank-shots. His arch and rotation were as true as a whispered promise.
Although Bird didn't play his normal game in the championship — in fact, he went just 7-for-21 shooting, including an air ball on a five-footer — Magic was better, with 24 points. In the two Final Four games, he scored 52 points and made 68 percent of his shots.
It was easy to see both would go on to be stars. Bird, who made 16-of-19 shots in the semifinal game, was a classical musician, striking the sublimest notes. Magic was improvisational jazz, everything coming together in a fantastic, colorful blend.
When it was over, basketball had changed. It was still about passing, rebounding, defending and shooting, but on an entirely different level. It was based on fundamentals but spurred by creativity. And it was about stars, a game made for madness as it hurtled headlong into a new era.
Today's Final Fours are mega-productions, built on hype, which sometimes outstrips the talent. That wasn't the case back then. Other than a four-paragraph brief on the front page and a couple of photos, coverage in the Deseret News the next day began on page B-4.
It was buried inside, behind a story that said, "Bank celebrates opening."
Now we often run sports stories on A1.
Clearly, sports have surpassed bank openings in news value.
Which makes me think back on the Spartan locker room, in what is now the Huntsman Center, to Magic being too tired to talk. I was mildly annoyed at the time. Now I understand.
It gets heavy when you're carrying history.
Mostly, though, I remember one thing about that historic Final Four, and it involved neither Magic nor Bird.
It was Meyer, appreciating the moment.
All those mad Marches ago, he was right.
Losing is still no tragedy.
E-MAIL: rock@desnews.com