When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball Paperback – 2 Feb. 2010

Ho scoperto questo libro navigando in rete alla ricerca di qualche cosa da leggere che parlasse di basket, di cui sono un grande appassionato. Avevo letto un paio di libri simili che parlavano di pallacanestro NBA ed NCAA degli anni passati, ma questo è quello che mi è piaciuto di più, è molto ben scritto e pieno di aneddoti interessanti. Serve una buona conoscenza dell'inglese e qualche nozione sul sistema NCAA, ma per il resto scorre bene.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. These two will go down in the annuals of not just basketball history, but sports history, tied hand in hand. They revitalized the National Basketball Association with their fierce rivalry. But it started in an NCAA Division I college basketball championship game in 1979.In When March Went Mad, Seth Davis recounts how the irrepressible and talented Ervin Magic Johnson of the Michigan State Spartans squared off against the small school hero Larry Bird of the Indiana State University Sycamores in what will always be a storied NCAA Championship Game.In these pages Davis recounts the early lives of both of these young men, whose personalities and court styles were polar opposites. Bird, an introverted, hard working player who would have been just as happy cutting grass for the local Parks and Recreation Department as he was playing professional basketball, and the larger than life, happy go lucky, Ervin Johnson, with his huge smile and phenomenal basketball skills.Headed toward a collision course, these two would remake the NCAA and it's now wildly successful tournament. They were such great talents and good stories, they made the NCAA Championship Game must see TV before 24-hour news coverage and the over exposure of college basketball. In fact, outside die hard fans, few knew much of anything about Larry Bird, and not a great deal about Magic Johnson. Today of course we'd know what they ate for breakfast (and maybe even something about their bowel movements) during the tournament. In 1979, they created hoopla with their talent, as newspaper and magazine articles touted their exploits during the regular season.Davis does an outstanding job of delving into the personality of both of these athletes and their route to that 1979 championship game where Earvin Johnson will forever have one up on Larry Bird. He provides stories behind each player's team and teammates, how they interacted with the press, their peers, and their coaches, and how each lead their team to the showdown that changed the face of college basketball.Beyond the obvious, detailing the first collision between two of the greatest basketball players of all time, this book has a theme. How this rivalry, which saved even the NBA from the doldrums, revitalized college basketball and made it relevant, and launched the careers of two superstars.Highly recommended.

Comprato perché ne avevo sentito parlare bene dai giornalisti di Sky in una trasmissione. Il libro è di una noia mortale al punto che per leggere le 324 pagine di cui le ultime 47 di note e indice ci ho messo da agosto 2020 a giungo 2021. Scritto in un inglese tutt’altro che scorrevole, fatto quasi esclusivamente di frasi riportate tra virgolette (ovvero estratti di interviste, il che spiega le quasi 50 pagine di note e indice dei nomi ). Dovrebbe raccontare della partita che cambio il college basket, di cui per altro si parla di più e meglio in altri libri tipo “il basket eravamo noi”. Ma la partita in questione occupa a malapena 8-9 pagine , tipo dalla 200 alla 209. Il resto interviste e frasi riportate di personaggi che ruotavano intorno quella partita, tipo di due allenatori , presidi e direttori sportivi delle università, giornalisti , giocatori comprimari . Passano pagine e pagine senza che vengano citati magic o bird. In compenso ti raccontano come si vestivano gli allenatori o che sono finiti a insegnare storia al liceo . Classico esempio di quando si vuole per forza fare un libro su qualcosa in cui basterebbe un articolo su una rivista . Salvo solo la parte iniziale che racconta come bird e magic sono arrivati alle rispettive università E parte della stagione che li ha portati a giocare la finale . Il resto è inchiostro sprecato come i 6 euro che costa

The 1979 NCAA Championship game between Indiana State (33-0) featuring Larry Bird and Michigan State (25-6) featuring Magic Johnson was the game that catapulted college basketball and the NCAA tournament into the national consciousness, according to author Seth Davis.The game, played before "March Madness" swept the country, drew a 24.1 Nielsen rating, still the highest for a basketball game--college or pro. It was played in the days before every team and player was vastly overexposed by ESPN and national television. And, conferences were limited to just two teams in the NCAA tournament.Bird and Johnson would go on to become the signature players for the NBA, bringing new life to the league, whose championship games weren't even televised live in 1980.Davis does a great job of recounting the season for the two teams and painting a portrait of Bird and Johnson as well as their teammates and coaches. Bird and Johnson's relationships with their coaches are among the most interesting parts of the book. Davis keeps the pace of the book moving, never lingering too long on details of any one game.Bird and Johnson couldn't have offered a bigger contrast. Bird was very private and intensely shy, gave few media interviews and a "hick from French Lick." Johnson was outgoing, loved the media and was the product of the inner city.Both superstars, however, shared many traits. They were passionate about the game, competitive, winners, hard workers who did whatever it took to win and unselfish, determined to make their teammates better.Because Bird, Johnson and their teams were under exposed nationally in 1979, readers who watched the game 30 years ago will still learn a lot. Any basketball fan should have this book on their "must read" list.

It was inevitable that someone would get the bright idea of commemorating the 30th anniversary of the "Magic" Johnson-Larry Bird showdown in the NCAA championship game with a full-length book. What was not inevitable was that said book -- written by one of CBS' college hoops studio's talking heads, no less -- would turn out to be of such high quality. Seth Davis does an excellent job of painting the background scenery of the title clash between Michigan State and Indiana State, focusing (of course) on Johnson and Bird but not neglecting the other main characters, such as the opposing coaches -- MSU's gruff, sarcastic Jud Heathcote and ISU's country-bred Bill Hodges, who assumed the head-coaching position after the previous coach had fallen ill. The postscript is a little lengthier that one might expect but closes appropriately with Bird, that most reticent of superstars, returning to ISU many years after his great career to have his uniform number retired.When it came to talking about the championship game itself -- to this day, STILL the most watched basketball game in history -- Davis was faced with a dilemma: The game itself wasn't that good. MSU dominated pretty much from the off, with ISU staging only one mild rally in the second half, and Bird, bothered by MSU's tough zone, experienced a terrible shooting night. In point of fact, the only really good game that Final Four weekend in Salt Lake City (not counting the meaningless third-place game, which would be discontinued two years later) was the semifinal game between ISU and Ray Meyer's DePaul. (The entire game can be viewed at the TV4u.com Web site, so you can judge for yourself.) Meyer, the venerable, beloved coach whose quest for a national title was a main object of national attention during the late 70s and early 80s, was just as big a story that weekend as "Magic" and Bird. Ditto Penn, the fourth Final Four participant and only the second Ivy League team ever to make it that far. If I have a quarrel with Davis' approach to the Final Four games, it is that he didn't make it clear exactly how big of a deal these other stories were. Unfortunately for Penn, after being blown out by MSU in the other semifinal matchup, their amazing achievement (which included a win over #1 seed North Carolina in Raleigh) was blown right out of the water by the foofaraw over the "Magic"-Bird confrontation. It's probably unfair to criticize Davis for what he did not attempt, but surely Meyer and Penn contributed more than a mite to the excitement of that weekend.I encourage Davis to put down the mike more often and write additional stories about the history of college hoops. This first effort is well worth reading.