Larry Bird Will Die Young, Just Ask Him

Many NBA big men believe they are cursed by the very trait that brought them glory. And the emerging science around extreme size suggests they’re right.

- Jackie MacMullan

INDIANA PACERS COACH Larry Bird wasn’t even sure which play his team was running because his damn heart was kicking out again.

He wondered if anyone noticed him sweating profusely, his shirt drenched under his suit and tie, an all-too-familiar symptom whenever his heart started rattling around his chest like a basketball in an empty trash barrel. The waves of nausea and dizziness overtook him next, muddling his concentration and leaving him feeling light-headed. When the sudden arrhythmia would occur during his training sessions in his playing days long before he’d informed any medical personnel about it he would always lie down immediately and nap for several hours, because if he didn’t, he risked losing consciousness.

But on March 17, 1998, the 41-year-old coach of the Eastern Conference - contending Pacers, in the thick of a hotly contested game with the defending champion Bulls, could hardly recline and sleep it off. “Oh god,” Bird thought as he tried to steady himself on the Indiana sideline. “Please don’t let me pass out on the court.”

Instead, the referees whistled the customary television timeout, allowing Bird to sink into the chair his team dragged onto the court for him during stoppages in play. When Bird had been hired in 1997, he’d made the unorthodox decision to entrust assistant Rick Carlisle with drawing up offensive plays in the huddle. Now, as Carlisle diagrammed Indiana’s next move against Michael Jordan and the Bulls, Bird wiped the sweat from his brow (and his wrists and neck) and tried to regain his composure.