The Jerry Sichting Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Friday, November 3rd,
2006
After working so hard to climb the mountain, what was it like to finally be
a world champion?
The sky
seemed the limit in the moments after that Game 6, but everything would
change just a few short weeks later. Where were you when you heard that Len
Bias had died?
Indiana
is widely considered the cradle of basketball. In 2002, you were inducted
into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, joining such luminaries as Oscar
Robertson and your former teammate, Larry Bird. What does this honor mean
to you?
Final Question: You’ve achieved great success in your life. You are
universally respected and admired by many people, both inside and outside of
the NBA. If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what
would that be?
It
was a dream come true. Actually, when you’re growing up you don’t think
that anything like that can actually happen. Sure,
you dream about it –
every kid does, whether its winning the Super Bowl, or the World Series, or
the NBA Finals – but once you’re in the NBA like I was, then you can start
to dream about it a little more. And once I joined the Celtics, that was
our goal from the first day of training camp. As I mentioned before, they
had lost the year before to the Lakers, and there was no question about the
goal. This side of a world championship was going to be a bad year. To
finally get it done, that was the great part. It was kind of numbing those
first couple of days after it happened. And looking back, it was really
about the journey of getting to that point – that’s what you remember the
most. It was fun. The fans – we had a parade, and they estimate that close
to 2 million people attended. It was just incredible.
I
was back in Indiana at that point. I was at my in-laws house. I remember
my wife waking me up pretty early in the morning – there was a phone call
from Boston. I can’t even remember who exactly it was that called, but I
just couldn’t believe it. It just seemed like a bad dream. I started
calling other people within the organization, and all of a sudden it’s on
the TV and on the radio. That’s when it finally hit me that it was true.
Len Bias was going to be a great, great player. The next great Celtic.
It
was a great honor. Indiana has long been known for its high school
basketball, and the interest and the history and the culture that comes with
it is really special. It’s really like no other place. Back when I played
high school ball, it was really the tail end of an era. There was no cable
TV, no computers, and no video games. There was just so much more focus on
high school basketball. It’s really not the same, even now. So I’m glad
that I grew up in that special era, and it means the world to be in the
Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
Have
a dream, have a goal, and work hard to achieve it. Most people that end up
at top are usually blessed with special gifts, whether it is in sports,
music, or whatever the occupation might be. For the rest of us, there is no
substitute for hard work and dedication.
