Basketball Bedlam in Barcelona
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BASKETBALL BEDLAM IN BARCELONA by Carson Cunningham hen the 1992 United States Olympic bas- tional corporations, was nothing short of astound- Wketball team arrived at the luxurious Hotel ing. David Burns, President of the Chicago-based Ambassador in Monte Carlo a week before the Burns Celebrity Services, said, "No doubt about it, Barcelona Games, the hotel's managers scoffed this is the biggest, most expensive marketing deal at suggestions that they needed to enhance secu- in the history of sports." Deputy Secretary General rity. They assured all that their experience hosting of the USOC and marketing legend John Krimsky rock stars and kings and princesses had ably pre- said, "There are young people out there who think pared them. Then, as the Hartford Courant's Alan the Olympics are one big basketball tournament."4 Greenberg put it, "the team showed up." Soon af- Corporations had of course long-associated ter it did, hotel officials were apologizing for the themselves with Olympic sports, but the Dream disorderly mess as fans and media that had flocked Team brought it to a whole new level. Forty differ- to the hotel converged upon Michael Jordan, Larry ent companies, spending an estimated $40 million, Bird, Earvin "Magic" Johnson and the rest. "The emerged as promotional partners of the squad. magnitude of this basketball royalty, they had not Fourteen of those went through USA basketball, understood," Greenberg wrote.1 paying $750,000 apiece. Twenty-six others aligned The experience in Monte Carlo gave Olympic themselves with the team using separate licensing officials an indication of the enormous response the agreements. These figures do not even count the team would receive in Spain. So when the United money spent by corporations like Nike, who cir- States journeyed from Monte Carlo to Barcelona, cumvented official association with USA basketball Olympic officials flew them first to Reus and then by making their own ads featuring the stable of six had them driven to Barcelona in order to avoid the Dream Teamers they had under contract: Jordan, 3,000 to 4,000 fans that had converged upon the John Stockton, David Robinson, Charles Barkley, Barcelona airport in anticipation of the team's ar- Scottie Pippen, and Chris Mullin. These Nike men rival. Still, once the players made it to the Olympic were featured in ads depicting them as larger-than- Village to get their accreditations, a mob envel- life cartoon characters smashing everything in their oped them. Rather than shield the players from path. Nor do the figures include numerous publi- the onslaught of people, security guards angled cations like Sports Illustrated and USA Today, who for autographs; so did many of the other Olympic set up games and gift promotions centered on the athletes. Space became tight as people jostled for Dream Team to increase readership. Sponsors, of- position. "Of all the things we've experienced...the ficial and otherwise, hocked everything from post- stampede at the village was the most frightening," ers to peanuts, hats to pins, shoes to trading cards; Coach Chuck Daly said later.2 you name it and you could probably find it.5 With The New York Times dubbed the 1992 Barcelona the help of the Olympics, deft marketing by tran- Games the "New Order Olympics." With the Berlin snational corporations, the attractiveness of basket- Wall down and the Iron Curtain lifted, a record ball's action, and America's global lead in capital 172 countries attended.3 It was also a "New Order and innovation, Dream Team stars like Michael Olympics" for basketball, as the 1992 Olympic tour- Jordan soon became some of the most recognizable nament marked the first appearance of full-fledged faces on the planet. professionals from the United States. This resulted The three biggest stars driving the Dream Team in the formation of the greatest and most famous phenomenon were Bird, Magic, and Jordan, all three basketball squad of all time: The Dream Team. It remarkable American tales. Bird, a six feet nine was a team that raised the standard for everyone, inch white marksman, capable of deftly utilizing a standard that, ironically enough, by the turn of both hands, passing with great subtlety, and mak- the millennium international teams had shown as ing off-balance shots seemingly all over the court, much promise in reaching as the Americans. And grew up poor in a rural part of Indiana. Magic, an it was a team that epitomized the breadth of bas- African American, was a charismatic six feet nine ketball's reach and its attendant cultural import. inch point guard who grew up in a lower middle- Three forces— liberal capitalism, technological class, two-parent home in Lansing, Michigan. Not innovation, and basketball—blossomed with ex- endowed with great explosiveness, Johnson made quisite timing in Barcelona, enabling the phenom- up for it with amazing deceptiveness, adroit ball- enal response to the team. International reaction, handling, fine court vision, and underappreciated from fans across the globe to burgeoning transna- quickness. Finally, Jordan was the most artful and JOURNAL OF OLYMPIC HISTORY 15(NOVEMBER 2007)NUMBER 3 39 effective player of all time, an African American persistence, and he had visited Indiana State and from Wilmington, North Carolina, whose fa- liked it. Later, Larry, his older brother Mark, and ther, like so many African Americans in the 1960s their friend Kevin Carnes traveled to Indiana State and 1970s, worked his family into the middle- to scrimmage with the team. With Bird and his class through the military.6 Together these three crew clad in jeans, Hodges offered them some proved, as we have seen with Fortenberry, Russell, shorts. They deferred. As Bird put it, "We never Robertson, West, and Haywood, that a superstar played in shorts back home." Apparently Hodges basketball player could conceivably come from any was "horrified."10 But everyone in the gym soon place, under any condition. learned that you can wear jeans and still play bas- Bird grew up in West Baden and French Lick, two ketball. And a few years later, with Bird enrolled, small towns abutting each other in southern Indiana. they found out that the Indiana State Sycamores His parents bounced from job-to-job, struggling could make it to the national championship game. to get by month-to-month and commonly earning In that national championship game, Bird and just over $200 a week between them. Eventually his Indiana State faced the Michigan State Spartans father's drinking led to a divorce. And soon after- and their star, "Magic" Johnson. Johnson grew wards his father spiraled down into a deep depres- up in Lansing, Michigan, not far from the campus sion. When Bird was nineteen, his father, in debt and of Michigan State, which was in neighboring East facing legal difficulties, took his own life because he Lansing. Describing his childhood, Johnson wrote deemed the social security money his family would in 1992, "I grew up in the kind of black family that get as a result more valuable than his life.7 people today worry is disappearing."11 Magic had Nonetheless, Bird does not recall an unhappy six siblings, and his parents worked hard to provide childhood. He knew his family was poor, but so for their large family Magic's father toiled at two was most everybody else in French Lick. His four full-time jobs and his mother worked as a custodi- brothers and sister kept themselves busy playing an and waitress, among other things. Johnson said sports. "There never was a day we didn't do some- that his parents "believed in hard work" and his thing, whether it was baseball, basketball or foot- father did not believe in "handouts." As an adult, ball," Bird remembered as an adult. Surprisingly, Johnson attributed his work ethic to the example he did not pay much attention to basketball until set by his father, and Magic attributed his colorful, the rather late age of thirteen, when he visited ex- magnetic personality to his mother: "People talk tended family in Hobart, a small town in northern about my smile, but my smile is her smile."12 Indiana. As he walked around town, some boys As with Bird and his reflections on West Baden asked young Larry to join them in a pick-up game. and French Lick, Johnson considered Lansing a He obliged and started sinking shot after shot. The great place to grow up. "It wasn't the suburbs, but kids asked him what team he played for and could it wasn't the ghetto, either," Johnson explained. not believe it when he told them he played for no And not surprisingly, basketball played a big part team. From that day forward, Bird was hooked on in his life early on. Johnson learned much about basketball. He made the "B team" the following the game from his father, whom he idolized as a year as a freshman. And by the time he was a so- youngster. Like Bird's mentor in high school, Jim phomore: "Basketball was all I thought about, all I Jones, Magic's father emphasized the total game: wanted to do...I would play at 6 A.M. before school. inside and outside shooting, blocking out, playing I would duck into the gym between classes to get defense, passing.13 Both benefited from their men- a few shots up and play again after school into the tors to develop their dazzlingly versatile games. early hours of the next morning, feeling that sleep Also like Bird, Johnson became obsessed with was a rude intrusion on my practice time."8 working on his game, though he did so at a much The work paid off.