If you’re around Michigan State long enough, you’ll witness some good reunions. But this one was different.
A 40-year span makes it different.
Maybe all reunions are as good as the one we were a part of at Breslin Center on Saturday when Michigan State’s 1979 National Championship team came together again. But this one seemed different to me.
Maybe the reunions which have honored Michigan State’s football National Championships of 1965 and ’66 were as good or better, for you. Those championship seasons took place before my time. I have no connection with those great teams.
But 1979 was special. If you lived it, you know.
I didn’t grow up in a Michigan State household. My parents and siblings didn’t dislike Michigan State. We just didn’t give Michigan State much thought.
I grew up an hour away from East Lansing, but might as well have lived 500 miles away. That’s the way the mid-to-late ‘70s were, at least in my experience in a small town about an hour north of Detroit.
By 1979, Michigan State football had been off of television for basically as long as my 10-year-old brain could recall. In my house, we had some Notre Dame fans, some Michigan leanings, some Tennessee and Kentucky fans. Michigan State was barely talked about. If Michigan State got any coverage on Channel 2, 4 or 7 in Detroit, or WJR, or the newspapers that I had access to, I didn’t notice.
I was the biggest college football fan in my elementary school, and back then I could tell you the entire starting backfield for Oklahoma. Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame and USC - but not Michigan State. Just an hour away, but a world away. That was the effect of Michigan State’s NCAA probation, still the worst example of punishment failing to match crime in college sports history.
One day I was coming down the blue carpeted stairs at the house of my youth when I heard a basketball game on the radio. The man on the radio yelled, “Oh the Magic man really put on a magic show that time!”
My dad was listening to a game. He had it on in the background while he was doing something else. He always had a radio on.
I don’t remember much about that game, except that it was being played at night. My dad, from whom I inherited great enthusiasm for sports, came around the corner and said, “That’s that Magic Johnson kid from Lansing! He’s putting on a show!”
My dad liked this Johnson guy? Okay, then naturally I liked him too.
My dad owned a gas station in Pontiac, and one in Lake Orion. He worked most Saturdays.
I had three older sisters. Invariably on Saturdays, I was whisked away with my sisters to some godforsaken place like the Pontiac Mall for shopping. By 1978, I was old enough to gain permission to walk away from my mom and sisters at the mall, to the area where televisions were sold. That’s where I could watch sports while my sisters tried on shoes or dresses or whatever.
I was in the area of the mall where they sold televisions when I saw Magic and his team playing Kentucky in what I gathered was a big, big, big game.
I knew Kentucky basketball. My dad grew up in Kentucky, the son of a coal miner. My dad was all-county in basketball as a junior in high school in the early 1950s. He didn’t make all-county as a senior.
“They forced me to my left when I was a senior,” my dad used to tell me.
When teaching me to handle a basketball, he would always say, “Make sure to work on your left.”
He was a Kentucky fan. You know the type. Big Blue Nation, although I don’t think they called it that back then. He grew up listening to UK on the radio. He didn’t go to any Kentucky games, except for one time when Rupp’s team played an exhibition game against a small-division school near my dad’s neck of the Appalachian Mountains.
My dad migrated north with the auto industry boom, but remained a Kentucky follower. At our home in northern Oakland Country, on dad’s scratchy AM radio, I would sometimes hear faint reception of Kentucky basketball games. My dad would listen to the the legendary Cawood Ledford calling the play-by-play. That’s what I grew up on. Basketball was big. But Kentucky basketball was big-big. I never cared much for Kentucky. That was one of the few things my dad and I disagreed about.
On Saturday, March 18, 1978, my dad must have been at work, because I had to go to the mall with mom and my sisters. I went to the place where they sold televisions, and watched Magic against Kentucky.
The game had already started. I think it was late in the first half. The score was close. Michigan State was doing well. Real well. I was surprised.
A guy wearing a tie walked by quickly. He stopped when he saw the game.
“Is State winning?” the guy asked.
“State?” I wondered to myself. I didn’t answer.
Then State scored.
“Yeah!” yelled the guy in the tie.
And just as quickly, he walked away, fast.
That was the first big Michigan State fan I had ever met. I never looked at his face. And I had never heard someone refer to Magic’s team as “State.”
I didn’t watch much of the game. Mom and my sisters showed up, took my hand, and we were off to the car, then home. I can’t remember if I asked my mother to try to find the game on the radio. I never saw the end of the game.
I didn’t think much about the game until the following weekend when we watched Notre Dame and Kentucky in the Final Four, and an eventual Kentucky National Championship.
The next winter, things were different. I was older, in more control of TVs and radios, and curious about “State.”
My mom took my sisters and I on a rare trip to Detroit to see this new building, the Renaissance Center. I think we took a train. I remember buying a college football season preview book during the trip. It was not a magazine. It was a soft-cover book, with Notre Dame’s Joe Montana on the cover.
I read that book cover-to-cover, several times. I even read the stuff about Cornell and VMI. I read it so much that the binding broke.
In September of ’78, in fifth grade, during free-reading hour, I was thumbing through that college football book again. Mr. Easterling, the teacher, walked around behind us, to see what we were reading. I was on the Big Ten chapter. He pointed at a picture of Michigan State wide receiver Otis Grant and said, “I hear State’s going to have a pretty good basketball team this year.”
“State?” I wondered again, without saying anything.
I nodded.
Mr. Easterling was a State graduate. Mr. Talley, the teacher across the hall, was a State grad too, and a boisterous one. My horizons were expanding.
Michigan State football was still a rumor to me. At this point I had never seen Spartan Stadium on television. I had no idea what it looked like. One hour away.
But the L.A. Coliseum? I could draw a picture of it with my eyes closed.
In addition to the NCAA probation, do I think there were powers at work that tried to keep Michigan State sports news off the local airwaves in the mid-to-late ‘70s? Well it wouldn’t surprise me. I devoured as much college sports news as I could find. I never looked for any Michigan State news. And very, very little organically came my way. Until Magic.
It was his sophomore season. I had a radio in my bedroom. I remember listening to some early season games, and hearing about Michigan State getting ready to play in a tournament out west. Michigan State was going to play Washington State. That sounded dangerous. I was sure Michigan State was bound to lose.
My teams were losers. For as long as I could remember, the Tigers, Red Wings and Lions were the worst teams in their respective sports. The worst.
Champions? That was for towns like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, New York, Dallas, Montreal - not Detroit.
Most kids, at one time or another, make believe that they play for this team or that team. I always pretended to play for Notre Dame. I was a fan.
I was shocked when Joe Montana led Notre Dame over Texas for the football National Championship on Jan. 1, 1978. My teams don’t do things like that, win championships and so forth.
Of course Notre Dame had a history of great things, but not in my conscious lifetime. That was a rare feeling of victory for me. But there was something missing. I loved Notre Dame, but I felt like an outsider as a Notre Dame fan. I think the lack of an in-state bond left a tiny void.
I listened to the beginning of the Michigan State-Washington State game. I developed a set of superstitions that I would itemize while listening to a game. The one that worked the best was when I pointed my right index finger on a Los Angeles Dodgers sticker that was stuck to my bedpost. When I did that, Michigan State played better.
Michigan State got out to a big lead against Washington State. I was surprised. My teams don’t get out to big leads like that. My superstition routine must have worked.
Then mom came in and turned the lights out. I had to go to sleep. I didn’t listen to the rest of the game, but heard about it the next morning. Michigan State won in a blowout.
I discovered that Michigan State rose to No. 1 in the AP Top 20. I cut the rankings out of The Oakland Press and started a scrapbook. No. 1 in the nation. My teams didn’t do such things.
The first time I saw Michigan State on TV that year, the No. 1-ranked Spartans lost a night game at No. 4 Illinois on Jan. 11. It was an excruciating, low-scoring game. I held a white mini Michigan State football for the second half of that game, hoping to trigger some positive superstitions. I couldn’t do the Dodgers sticker thing. That was way up in my bedroom. There was no TV up there. Magic and the Spartans were on TV downstairs. It was kind of rare for the Spartans to be on TV. I had to watch this game in the living room with dad. I needed a superstitious crutch.
So I tried the white Michigan State mini football. My uncle had bought that white mini football during a trip to Lansing. That’s what my mom said. You couldn’t buy Michigan State stuff near our house - an hour away from campus. Not that I ever noticed, anyway.
Somehow that football ended up at our house. I don’t think it was a gift. I claimed it. That was the only Michigan State item I owned. No shirts, nothing else. Just that white Michigan State football. It said “Go Green, Go White” on it. I had never heard that expression.
A few days after the Illinois loss, I watched Michigan State lose to Purdue, 52-50.
Every game was difficult, and low-scoring. The Big Ten was strong.
I didn’t know Michigan State was in danger of missing out on the NCAA Tournament. I didn’t see the Ohio State game on Feb. 1 when Magic injured his leg, went to the locker room, and then hobbled back to the court to lead the Spartans to victory in a must-win situation.
I remember watching Michigan’s 49-48 victory over Michigan State in Ann Arbor. I was surprised that so many people living in the state of Michigan would be rooting so hard against this Spartan team that had been ranked No. 1 in the nation. I truly was ignorant about the Michigan State-Michigan rivalry. I could tell you all about the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry that was brainwashed into the head of anyone who consumed sports media in the Detroit area during that era. I could tell you all about the USC-Notre Dame rivalry. But those of us who grew up in the Detroit area in the mid-to-late ‘70s with no connection to the school knew very little about Michigan State, and very little about the Michigan State vs Michigan rivalry. I suspect there were factions that wanted it that way.
While watching the Michigan State-Michigan game, my dad made the brilliant prediction that Michigan’s Phil Hubbard would have a better pro career than Magic. I didn’t dispute it. I rarely argued with dad.
A few days later, I remember seeing the headline of Northwestern’s 83-65 victory over Michigan State in late January. That was disturbing. It shook my faith. I set one foot off the bandwagon.
I didn’t know that Magic and the Michigan State players had a team meeting with Jud Heathcote after that game and told him they wanted to play their way, with faster tempo. I would read about that years later.
But I do remember hearing Al McGuire talking about the big upcoming game between Magic’s Michigan State and Kansas, led by Darnell Valentine. I had seen a photo of Valentine in Sports Illustrated. If he was in Sports Illustrated, he must be great. Forget that Magic was on the cover of the magazine, I was afraid of this Valentine guy. Growing up accustomed to watching others celebrate victory, I had become a glass-half-empty pessimist.
MSU vs. Kansas was played on a Saturday. I had been whisked away somewhere, in the car, with mom and the sisters again. I think we went to grandma’s house. All that I recall is coming home and suddenly remembering that Michigan State was supposed to play Kansas that day. I turned on the TV in time to see the last minute of the game, with Michigan State destroying the Jayhawks, 85-61. I was shocked. Michigan State didn’t look like a team I would be rooting for. They looked great. And they didn’t look like that team that had lost those close, low-scoring games to Illinois, Purdue and Michigan.
As great as this team would become, as much preseason hype as the Spartans had, with the No. 1 ranking, and Mr. Easterling’s endorsement, I hadn’t actually WITNESSED this team win any games. Looking back on it, maybe I only remember the losses, because they hurt so bad. I heard some games on the radio. When I look through the 1979 schedule, and all the wins, I don’t remember seeing more than one or two of those wins on TV.
I remember the last game of the regular season, hearing Wisconsin’s Wes Matthews hit a half-court shot at the buzzer to upset the Spartans 83-81. The Dodgers sticker didn’t work. My mom was vacuuming the upstairs. So much aggravating commotion. Michigan State had already clinched a share of the Big Ten title, and was headed to the NCAA Tournament. I probably should have offered to help mom vacuum.
After the NCAA Tournament began, I was frightened by MSU’s second-round game against No. 7 LSU. I was sure Michigan State was going to lose. I heard about Rudy Macklin and DeWayne Scales. And if I had heard about them, they must be great - even greater than Valentine. The glass was less than half full.
One of those guys, Macklin or Scales, was suspended for the game. Michigan State destroyed LSU, 87-71, and it wasn’t that close. This was getting fun, and exciting.
And then came the NCAA Regional Final against Notre Dame. Notre Dame was the higher seed. Notre Dame’s starting lineup was full of household names - Kelly Tripucka, Bill Laimbeer, Orlando Woolridge. There weren’t a lot of televised college basketball games in those days, but Notre Dame was on TV a lot. I loved that Notre Dame team. I didn’t want Notre Dame to play Michigan State.
I remember coming down those stairs, the morning of the game, and hearing a news report coming from dad’s radio. It was the voice of Magic Johnson, being interviewed, laughing, discussing a dream he had had about playing Notre Dame.
“It was a real, real physical game in my dream,” Magic said, drawing laughter from the reporters.
The reporters asked him who won the game in his dream.
“I know we had scored once,” he said, drawing more laughter. “And I don’t think we had let them score yet. But it was real, real physical.” More laughter.
I didn’t want the game to start. Oh sheesh this was a big game.
I owned a green and gold Notre Dame t-shirt that said COMPARONI on the back. I owned a blue and gold Notre Dame ski cap with a pom-pon on top. And I had a dopey green and gold Notre Dame visor.
The only Michigan State thing I had was that white mini football that didn’t work.
The game was played on a Sunday. Dad was there to watch it with us. No one went shopping. I still hadn’t decided who I wanted to win.
My dad was a Kentucky fan, but he loved Notre Dame, too. That’s where I inherited my conflict. He was one of those Italian Catholic subway alums, I guess, like Izzo and Dantonio.
I don’t quite remember the opening tip and the Mike Brkovich dunk. I kind of do, kind of don’t.
But I remember a Notre Dame answer. Either Bruce Flowers or Bill Hanzlik nailed a pretty shot from long range. The net barely moved.
“Swish!” my mom shouted.
That was a basketball word that was commonly used back then.
“Swish!” she said, pointed toward me, hitting me on the shoulder a little bit.
That bothered me. My mom never bothered me. But that bothered me. And it was on.
I hadn’t planned it. It just happened. I was now rooting for Michigan State. Badly. I didn’t plan it to be that way. I never made the decision. It just happened inside me, involuntarily. Yet I was sure Notre Dame was going to win.
At some point, we all started rooting for Michigan State. Magic can have that effect on you.
Michigan State vs. Notre Dame became one of the most entertaining NCAA Tournament games in history, and set the groundwork for what would become, and still remain, the highest-rated college basketball game in history, when Magic and Michigan State took on Indiana State and Larry Bird.
But first, Michigan State destroyed Penn in the Final Four. My good friend Jerry came over to watch the game at my house. We acted like children, which we were. We made Michigan State signs and Michigan State pom-pons. We were dorks.
The day of the National Championship game, the weather was mild in Michigan. Mild enough for us to shoot some baskets at recess. Me and the guys talked about the game. I was sure Indiana State would win.
Mr. Easterling joined in at recess, and shot around with us.
“I think State’s going to win,” Mr. Easterling said with assuredness.
Confidence in your team. That was foreign to me.
This was all foreign to me. My team was winning, and winning big. They beat the media darling Irish. Next, they would play the media darling player in Larry Bird. By now, all the kids at school were on the State bandwagon. It was everybody’s team. The Spartans were a show. It was thrilling. I was 10-years-old. I was so 10-years-old. Nothing else mattered now but this last basketball game.
You’ve seen the highlights of Michigan State’s victory over Indiana State, or you watched the game. You know all about it. Magic was extraordinary. His legend hit full bloom.
Kelser punctuated the win with a dunk at the buzzer as McGuire yelled “Here we go!”
The next day, Mr. Easterling and Mr. Talley wore green. They hugged in celebration. It seemed like the start of the school day was delayed by 15 or 20 minutes as kids ran up and down the halls, talking about the game.
Every day before school started, we would put our sack lunches up above our coats in wooden cubbies. You had to jump a little bit to get your lunch in there - at least I did.
For the rest of the school year, every morning, my friend Hutchinson and I “dunked” our sack lunches into those cubbies. One of us would yell, “Here we go! Kelser!” and we would run, jump as high as we could, and dunk our lunches.
This team, that season, those players, especially Magic, became part of my childhood. They starred in one of the happiest chapters of my elementary life. That’s what legends do.
I didn’t prepare myself for Saturday’s reunion at the Breslin Center. I was there to cover a basketball game.
But I found myself looking over into the third row of the bleachers, across from the Michigan State bench. I watched Magic and Kelser. I wanted to see what they were doing, who they were talking to.
They sat next to each other. I don’t know the last time we saw them sit next to each other. Magic comes to games once or twice a year. Kelser is usually around once a season. If they cross paths during the year, it’s usually not in front of us, not at Breslin.
They’ve probably become old college friends that just don’t stay in touch as much as they would like to. We all have friends like that. On Saturday, they might as well have been college kids again.
It was so striking to see them next to each other. It was like a live Spartan basketball Mt. Rushmore. Or like seeing Lennon and McCartney together again. It was so natural, so right. And it made me feel good about me, to see them be themselves.
They stood up and cheered when the 1979 Michigan State cheerleading team joined the current cheerleaders for a round of the fight song. The ’79 cheerleaders still had the steps down, in unison, in fine, athletic fashion. Magic and Kelser and the guys loved it.
The cheerleaders went over to the players and hugged and took pictures after they left the floor. It was a true, true reunion.
Magic and Kelser delivered great speeches at halftime. The fans loved it. Magic laughed when a few fans chanted “Shoooes” when Jamie Huffman was introduced.
Magic relaxed and enjoyed himself. He bobbed his head to the public address music during time outs. He probably started feeling like “EJ the DJ” again. He was home. In your home. And I’m not ashamed to say my home.
Jerry became my roommate at Michigan State for two years. I love that guy, but he has faded away on me and I rarely see him or talk to him anymore.
I see Hutchinson every few years, especially when MSU is playing near his home. We text once in awhile. I wish I could see him more often. But he’s in Texas.
My mom and dad are gone now.
We’re all 40 years older, those of us who remember ’79. But we still have Magic. I still have Magic.
