Say It Ain't So, Larry Joe

This one is tough to swallow. I don't know what else to say. All at once I am sad, happy, concerned and angry.

Larry Bird is going to take his basketball genius somewhere else.

I am sad because Larry was and always should be a Celtic. You know the story...those guys like Cousy, Heinson, Cowens and Russell who bled green. They believed in the leprechauns and made them a reality.

Larry Bird was one of those guys.

Now, he is something else. He is the head coach of the Indiana Pacers. That, quite simply, isn't right. Larry told us that he would never follow in the footsteps of Red and K.C. and pace the sidelines of the Garden...oops, I mean the Fleet Center. But when he said that, we didn't believe him.

We believed him about as much as we believed Rick Pitino when he said he wasn't leaving Kentucky under any circumstances.

It just grabs me by the heart when I think of Larry Bird trying to coax every last ounce of energy and heart out of that lackluster Pacers squad in an attempt to defeat his own Boston Celtics.

And you know he'll do everything in his power because Larry Bird is all about winning.

I am happy because Larry Bird--the greatest basketball player in history--is back in the game. A player with such passion, heart, intelligence and ability needs to pass on what he brought to the game.

This new generation of NBA stars bores and disappoints me. They don't play the way Larry, Magic and Dr. J played. The NBA is slowly becoming a personality show more than a game. Maybe Larry can help.

I am concerned because Larry Bird could turn out to be a great coach. Don't get me wrong, I think the Celts needed to get their hands on Slick Rick Pitino, but Larry is the kind of guy that may come back to haunt the C's.

This draft could bring my franchise back into the world of the NBA--we've been in the CBA for too long. The Pitino hiring shows me that the franchise is ready to spend some money to make it a viable contender again.

I don't want Larry Bird and the Indiana Pacers to get in the way of a revival. If he comes back to kick our butt, I'm gonna be pissed. As it is, I am worried. What if Rik Smits actually started playing hard? What if the Davis twins learned to shoot? Look what Danny Ainge did with the Phoenix Suns this year. If Larry gets his talent in Indiana to play that well together...yikes.

I am angry because I wanted Larry to stick around. I wanted him to invest himself in his club, his team, his Celtics. It seems like all of my great Boston sports heroes are moving on. McHale is doing great work with the Timber-wolves. Ainge is with the Suns. The Chief is working towards another NBA title in Chicago. Roger Clemens moved on to Toronto. Why couldn't they all just stick around and bring back Boston's slumping professional sports?

I guess Larry did what he needed to do. There were a million reasons not to take over M.L. Carr's vacated head coaching spot.

He wanted to coach and knew that the pressure here in Boston was just going to be too much. There was already a great coach coming in--of course, Pitino still needs to prove himself in the pros. Larry always professed that he didn't want to coach. Maybe he didn't want to take over here and then decide to leave if he didn't enjoy it.

But then again, didn't we all think about it? Larry Bird, coming back and turning into the second greatest coach in basketball history--behind Red Auerbach of course--and returning the Celtics to the glory of the past. I guess it could still happen.

Couldn't it?