Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

Introduction: "Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE!"

How many times has Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller heard his name chanted? The number is probably in the thousands, given anywhere from two to six chants a game, about 40 or so home games a year, 18 years in the league. But on a pleasant April Saturday afternoon inside the Pacers' home court, Conseco Fieldhouse, the sellout crowd of 18,345 is chanting a little more often and with a little more gusto than usual.

This is for three reasons. First, Miller has announced he will retire after the season. With this April 10 game being the fourth-to-last home game of the regular season, many of the fans are getting their last chance to chant, in Miller's presence, "Reg-GIE!" — emphasis always finding its way to the last syllable, the g's serving as a crescendo, even if the first fan starting the chant says "REG-gie!" It's the last time to say goodbye and thank you not only to the best player in franchise history, a sure hall of famer, but to a Hoosier cultural icon — a symbol of how a city, a state and the way each views basketball and the people who play it, have changed and grown more sophisticated since Miller's arrival in 1987. In Miller, the state of Indiana found a player who was everything about the game they loved, in a package they didn't expect.

Second, Miller is killing the hell out of the New York Knicks again. The Pacers fall behind by double-digits in the first quarter, but Miller, as he has so many times before, has put the team on his spindly shoulders and is bringing it back.

He's pulling out all the old tricks. The 3-pointer, of course, the shot that has defined him, and that he has helped to define. Then there's the Floater, in which Miller, guarded tightly at the 3-point line, dribbles around his defender and long-jumps his way through open space to about 12 feet from the basket, launching a teardrop of a one-hander at the bottom of his leap. And, of course, the Flop. Miller became one of the most annoying players in the NBA by tossing his own his 6-foot-7, 190-pound frame aside whenever he got bumped, flailing his arms in the air as if he had just gotten tossed off of a cliff. The move puts him at the free throw line, where, at 88.8 percent, he has a better success rate than any player who's shot more than 5,000 free throws.

Ten years ago, when Miller was 29 and at the peak of fame playing the villain in the "Hicks vs. Knicks" rivalry, it was amazing enough that a skinny jump-shooter could carry a team to elite status. That Miller is 39 and carrying his team back to elite status is nothing short of mind-boggling. With the Pacers wracked by injuries and suspensions, Miller has come out firing.

Entering the Knicks' game, he had led Indiana from the brink of playoff elimination to a shot at a possible home-court advantage for the first round with a six-game winning streak. In this Knicks' game, the Pacers appear to be a beat behind defensively, allowing New York a lot of open shots and easy drives. Miller, however, as he did 10 years ago, is not allowing the Pacers to go quietly. Every time the crowd chants "Reg-GIE!" after a big basket, Miller goes back on defense, claps his hands and motions to his team to step it up.

A T-shirt on sale in the Conseco Fieldhouse gift shop depicts Miller from 1987 and 2005, and the only visible difference is that Miller has traded his Bell Biv DeVoe high-top fade for a shaven head. His game has aged gracefully as well, looking as smooth as ever. He's on his way to a 34-point performance against the Knicks, following a recent performance against the Lakers in which he became the second-oldest player (behind Michael Jordan) to score his age in a game. With Miller, you're confronted with the sight of a 39-year-old player who, inexplicably, is going out in a blaze of glory.

The fans at Conseco Fieldhouse bought their tickets thinking they would pay Miller homage with a few last chants of "Reg-GIE!" Now, they're chanting for him to kick Knick ass. Who would have thought, on the day in 1987 when the Pacers drafted a guy from UCLA whom Sports Illustrated once claimed couldn't outplay his sister, that 18 years later they would see this? Certainly not Pacers fans, who reacted to Miller's selection with a performance as notorious as anything Miller pulled against the Knicks. That brings us to the third reason for the extra enthusiasm behind the chants: it's one last time to apologize for an egregious lack of Hoosier hospitality upon Miller's arrival.

Part II: "BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

I'd like to go on record as saying, despite what's been reported over the years, that not every fan at the Pacers' 1987 NBA draft party booed when general manager Donnie Walsh announced that with the 11th pick, Indiana would select Reggie Miller, a guard from UCLA. My friend Mike and I, both 17 and fresh out of high school at the time, cheered. So all but two fans in Market Square Arena that day booed.

I'd like to say Mike and I were personnel geniuses, and knew what was to come, but we weren't cheering Miller any more than the few thousand other fans at the draft party booed him. The issue was whether to pick Steve Alford, and that day's draft proved to be as big of a turning point as the 1955 all-black Indianapolis Crispus Attucks winning the state title the year after five white boys from Milan — the team that inspired the movie Hoosiers — struck the last blow for small-town Indiana pride. It sounds like I'm about to make this totally about race, but it's a little more complicated than that.

The Pacers in the early 1970s won three ABA championships, but in the following years, the team was one of the worst in pro basketball. It played in an ugly arena with bright burnt-orange seats that made it obvious when fans didn't show up — which was often — and the team used dingy brown curtains to cover the upper levels to make the arena less of a tomb on game nights. Meanwhile, as the Pacers suffered, the Indiana University Hoosiers were on top of the college basketball world, winning three titles under Bob Knight in 1976, 1981 — and 1987, thanks in great part to a sharp-shooting guard, 6-foot Alford of New Castle, Ind.

The overwhelming sentiment in Indiana was that Knight's teams played the right way — team ball, sound fundamentals. The NBA played the wrong way — selfish players, no fundamentals. NBA ball as played by the Pacers seemed particularly wrong. Although after the 1987 season Indiana went to the playoffs, most of the 1980s was a lost haze of 20-62 records. The team couldn't seem to find talent at all, and it seemed cursed as well. Clark Kellogg, a great power forward, by 1987 was on borrowed time because of his creaky knees. The Pacers lost a coin flip and a lottery for the No. 1 picks in 1983 and 1984, getting the booby prizes of Steve Stipanovich and Wayman Tisdale instead of Ralph Sampson and Patrick Ewing. That infamous Portland pick of Sam Bowie before the Bulls took Michael Jordan in 1985? The Trail Blazers only had the pick because the Pacers traded it to them years before for Tom Owens, already out of the league by the time that draft took place.

So confidence in the Pacers' abilities was not running at an all-time high in 1987. The reason the team was having a draft party, anyway, was because it was generally pathetic and needed the promotion. Good teams do not have high enough picks to have a celebration of their dubious reward. The general feeling in Indiana was, this team's a joke, so why not take Alford so people will at least show up? There also probably were plenty of fans who felt like Alford could play at an NBA level, but most of the conversation came down to getting someone people would want to watch, other than the opposing players the Pacers would hype in their ticket-sales ads.

Alford, of course, also was a Hoosier icon. He was everything an Indiana player should aspire to be: a good shooter, a fundamentally sound player, a smart player. Oh, and short and white. Conscious or not, fans often identify with players who look the most like them — this is not unique to Indiana, and this is not to say that anybody who wanted Alford was a racist. But he was the standard Good Hoosier, and when the Pacers passed on him, fans couldn't figure out why.

A camera crew was live at Miller's Riverside, Calif., home when the pick was made. He didn't know he was being booed as he shook his head, heavy with emotion, and talked about how he couldn't wait to get to Indiana. Miller found out soon enough Indiana fans, in the main, didn't want him. But he never lashed out at the fans over their booing. He just said he needed to work to make sure they knew he was the right pick. Miller had more Good Hoosier in him than anybody knew.

Miller, coming off the bench, averaged only 10 points a game his rookie year. By his third season he was breaking out, averaging 24.6 points a game, still his career best, and making his first appearance in the NBA All-Star Game. Fans weren't completely moved. Sometimes, the dingy brown curtains still came down. It didn't help that the Pacers tried to push Miller as "Hollywood," the guy from California. After a 3-pointer, the Market Square Arena scoreboard would show an illustration of Miller's face, with him putting on a pair of sunglasses. Miller was not Hollywood.

Little did Hoosiers know it, but Riverside was more like Indianapolis than Los Angeles. The fans cheered, they chanted "Reg-GIE!" but Indiana basketball still meant Hoosiers, not Pacers, and certainly not some guy who went by the name "Hollywood." Plus, Miller didn't seem to be the engine of the team; that would have been Chuck Person, the 1986-87 NBA rookie of the year, a 6-foot-8 forward who jacked up threes as often as Miller, and was the team's designated trash-talker.

It didn't help that Indiana's record was still mediocre-to-lousy. Even though Alford flamed out after a few years with the Dallas Mavericks, who picked him at No. 24, and the Golden State Warriors, the 6-foot Indiana white boys had a new hero in Damon Bailey. When Bailey was still in junior high, Knight famously said he could play for Indiana "right now." The Heltonville native was such a big star that the Indiana state championship game was moved to the RCA Dome to accommodate the crowd. Bailey obliged by leading Bedford-North Lawrence High to a state title, then heading to Bloomington to play for Knight. While the hardcore Pacers fan knew what Miller was all about, the hardcore Hoosiers fan, conditioned by years of Bob Knight and lousy play to ignore the Pacers, did not.

It's hard to say exactly when the worm turned. It's not as if suddenly the city of Indianapolis forgot about the university 50 miles to the south, or suddenly fell in love with Miller. As often happens in Indiana, change came slowly. But it's safe to say a seminal event in Miller's career, one that gained him greater fame in Indiana and infamy elsewhere, was when New York's John Starks head-butted him during the 1993 playoffs, the kickoff — or header — that launched what would become the Hicks vs. Knicks rivalry.

It started, as Miller's confrontations often did, by him trash-talking whoever was guarding him. In the third quarter of the third game of their first-round series, Starks had had enough. As the two players went upcourt, Starks, in full, wide-open view of God, the referees and the Indiana crowd, shoved his head into Miller's as if he were trying to dislodge it. Miller, of course, threw up his hands and reacted as if he'd been shot.

By this point, Indiana people who hadn't been Pacers fans had been warming up to Miller's great shooting, his sound fundamental play, his innate inability to hog the ball, his fighting through screens, his general good nature off the court, his charity work, his love of bowling, his idea of a hot night out being shooting pool. They didn't realize it yet, but Miller was very Hoosier. But what they did they know, at that moment, was that no dad-blammed New Yorker was going to get away with picking on one of our guys.

If Miller needed any more confirmation that he was accepted, it came in the 1994 draft. Indiana hosted the actual NBA draft, rather than just having a draft party of its own. The big question was, would the Pacers take Bailey, who had finished his career at Indiana? Unlike with Alford, though, no one expected Bailey to be taken in the first round. The Pacers were coming off a trip to the Eastern Conference finals, and needed real talent, not a guy who had a good, but not great, career at Indiana.

I was at that draft, and the buzz started when it was time for the Pacers' first of two second-round picks. The first pick was the immortal William Njoku, who never played a minute in the NBA. Fans wondered, why not just pick Bailey and let him try out — yes, a player once deemed to embody the Hoosier ideal was now reduced, in Hoosiers' minds, to a charity case. Then with the second of two second-round picks, the Pacers took Bailey. The crowd cheered, even as it suspected this was a sop to Bailey's fans — and Pacers executives confirmed to author L. Jon Wertheim in "Transition Game," his 2005 book about cultural changes in Indiana basketball, that a sop is exactly what that pick was. Bailey never played a minute in the NBA, and Indiana never fell so hard in love with a 6-foot white guy as the ideal basketball player ever again.

Part III: "Reg-gie SUCKS! Reg-gie SUCKS! Reg-gie SUCKS!"

At this point, we interrupt the lovefest for Reggie Miller by noting that, in every other arena but Indiana's, Miller was hated. Not mildly disliked — hated. The chant, in college and early in his NBA career was "CHER-yl!" — a reference to his then-more famous sister. But when Miller started beating their teams, it morphed into "Re-gie SUCKS!" And Miller laps it up.

In his 1995 book, co-written by Gene Wojciechowski, called "I Love Being the Enemy," Miller recounts... geez, do I have to get into detail? Look at the title of the book! Most players draw on the positive energy of their home crowd. Miller stands out in how he can draw on the negative energy of the road crowd. It not only helps him, but it can help relax other players, because the crowd is too worried about Miller to notice them.

For all of Indiana's love of Hoosiers and fundamental basketball, the state appreciates a player who can talk shit and back it up. Larry Bird — now Miller's boss as president of the Pacers — is one of the NBA's all-time greats in this category. However, if Miller were just a talker, road crowds wouldn't care. What they don't like is that he's considered a flopper, a whiner, just a general all-around dick. He does stuff like bowing to the crowd — in all four directions — when he hit a presumably game-winning shot at Chicago. The Bulls fans laughed and jeered when Toni Kukoc hit a shot a few seconds later to actually win the game. "Reg-gie SUCKS! Reg-gie SUCKS!"

Miller thrived on all of that energy, and used it to become one of the league's most annoying players. Getting inside the head of John Starks, he of a very famous short fuse, was not too difficult. But Miller once got the normally stone-faced Michael Jordan so riled up, he went after Miller and tried, it appeared, to gouge his eyes out. (Instead, he left Miller with a scratched face.)

In 2002, after a loss to the Lakers, Miller said something to Kobe Bryant, who was then inspired to start throwing punches at Miller, the only time Bryant has ever gotten into a fight at the NBA level. Miller worked on digging the needle a little farther when, in response, he put out a statement saying: "Kobe has other issues he has to deal with. This had nothing to do with me or the basketball game played on Friday evening." And that was more than a year before Bryant's quickie from hell!

Still, Miller does not back down. More often than not, his shots — to the basket and to other players' psyches — win games, which is what bugs opposing teams' fans the most. Maybe it's the native Hoosier chip on my shoulder, but I think what galls road fans the most is being beaten by a team from lowly, hilljack Indiana. When the Pacers first started winning regularly in the mid-1990s, losing to them carried a particular sense of shame.

How do I know this? Gut feeling, I guess. Growing up in Indiana, you know everyone in the bordering states hates you. Even Kentucky sees us as in-bred hillbillies. Heck, a lot of the natives see their Hoosier kin as in-bred hillbillies. What unnerves people about Indiana is that every resident, no matter how weird, thinks he's sane. What also unnerves outsiders is Indiana's brand of nonconformity, the kind of nonconformity that plays out into your Uncle Earl wearing his bowling shirt to his daughter's wedding. When surrounding states vote for Republican governors, Indiana goes Democratic — and vice versa, it seems, just out of spite. And then there's that whole refusal to adopt Daylight Saving Time.

I can point this out because I grew up in Indiana. But when others point it out, it's not taken so well. When the New York newspapers branded the annual Indiana-New York series, "Hicks vs. Knicks," it was meant to be an insult, and taken as one.

For all of these reasons, Pacers fans have generally believed they get no calls from the refs, that the league office manipulates things so small-market Indiana has a far more difficult time charging into the league's elite. As the Pacers have gotten better, the conspiracy theories have lessened. (Except when you bring up Dick Bavetta's phantom foul call against Antonio Davis in the 1999 Eastern Conference finals that gave the Knicks a game-winning four-point play and turned the series their way.)

There are three people who make just about any native Hoosier proud of being from Indiana. John Mellencamp, because he proved you could be a big-time star and never leave the state's borders, being proud of who you are and where you're from. David Letterman, because he proved you could be a big-time star and still be loud and proud about being from Indiana, and perhaps a little sad that you had to leave the state for your job. And Reggie Miller, because he came from somewhere else and became a star. Not only a star, but the embodiment of all Indiana loves about its favorite game, and still remained a regular kind of guy. It helps, too, that all three can sometimes be stubborn pricks, just like most people from Indiana, including myself.

Part IV: "THREEEEEEEE..."

Most players are taught to shoot straight at the basket, shoulders square, shooting arm straight. Miller keeps his shooting arm straight, but little else. It's enough to make you rethink all your basketball fundamentals. When he goes for a 3-pointer, he might go straight up, or he might be facing sideways, or, if he's really feeling ornery, he'll kick out a leg to draw a foul. (That's given him an NBA-record 23 four-point plays.) No matter what his stance, when he follows through his shot, his arms form an X, his bony wrists, you'd think by watching him, clacking like castanets.

But no one, at least at home, can hear his wrists. At his home arena, when Miller goes up for a 3-pointer, the crowd chants "Threeeee..." inhaling as they say it, putting their arms straight up, mimicking the referee's touchdown-like symbol for a successful 3-point shot. The ball moves through its parabola in slow motion, as 18,500 fans suck the oxygen out an arena, awaiting its drop through the net to fill the arena with carbon dioxide on the exhale.

If Miller misses, the chant of "Threeee..." ends with "...awwwwww." If he hits, the chant ends with "...YAWWWWWWW!!!!" No other player gets the privilege of having his threes marked in such a way. (Although Indiana radio announcer Bob Leonard, a former Pacers' coach, will punctuate every 3-pointer with his trademark phrase, "Boom, baby!")

At road arenas, the chant, if any, when Miller shoots is "Oh, shit." That's what happens when you get a reputation for hitting big shots. Especially in New York. As Miller's career winds down, the stories are told and re-told. His 25-point explosion in the fourth quarter during the 1994 Eastern Conference finals at Madison Square Garden, the game in which he gave the choke sign to Knicks superfan Spike Lee, now as famous for being Miller's foil as for any movie he's directed. Or how Miller scored eight points in the last 8.7 seconds of a second-round playoff game at New York, leading the Pacers back from a six-point deficit. Or his game-winning three over Michael Jordan against the Bulls in the 1998 Eastern Conference finals.

What's more interesting about Miller's 3-point shooting, though, is how he uses it to open up the rest of his game. Most 3-point shooters are either gunners who never step inside the arc, or gunners who just happen to be standing there. Miller uses the 3-point shot as a constant threat. If his man his guarding him loosely, he'll pop a 3. If his man his guarding him tightly, then he'll dribble around him for a floater, or cut inside to take a pass for a layup. This is how he gets to the foul line so often — Chuck Person, Miller's early Pacers contemporary, would launch 1,000 shots, and only get 150 free throw attempts. Miller would get 400 or 500. Most great players have worked from the inside out; Miller is among the few who does the reverse.

The thing about Miller is, he doesn't shoot all that often, by superstar standards. He's never taken more than 30 shots in a game. In his book, Miller talks about Jordan, in the midst of his first retirement, stopping by a Pacers practice and admonishing Miller to take more shots, "be more selfish," because the team thrives off of his shooting.

It's not that Miller doesn't have an ego, not after publishing a book in which many of his opponents are referred to by the name of "Bitch." It's that he has a sense of when to pick his spots, when to shoot and when not to. When to share the ball and when not to. Perhaps being more selfish could have helped get him an NBA title, an elusive goal in his 18 seasons (the closest was an NBA finals loss to the Lakers in 2000).

On the other hand, in the twilight of his career, that lack of selfishness has helped him adapt to his role as younger stars such as Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest emerged. Miller's game has not changed a whit — rare for an older player. (Even Jordan amended his high-flying ways when he got older.) Miller's sense of what's best for his team has changed, however. Mostly, what's been best is for younger players to watch his work ethic, how he shows up three hours before a game to practice his shooting.

Then again, recent circumstances — Artest lost to a brawl you might have heard about, injuries to starters such as O'Neal and point guard Jamaal Tinsley — have dictated Miller be a little more selfish. And the way it's worked out, maybe Jordan was right.

Epilogue: "Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE!"

On March 3, O'Neal, the Pacers' lone All-Star this season, was knocked out with a separated shoulder in a loss against Denver. At the time, the Pacers were 28-29, struggling for a playoff spot, and it looked like a doomed season was over. So much for his teammates' dream of delivering Miller a title in his final season, a dream that looked doable after another Eastern Conference finals run last season, and a 7-2 start.

And yet, after O'Neal's injury, something amazing happened. Miller grabbed his spinach, or went back in time and got his 1995 self. Whatever it was, Miller was busting out: 39 points in a victory over the Lakers, 31 in an overtime defeat of the Eastern Conference's top team, Miami. Miller even brought back his comeback self: he had a 7-points-in-6-seconds stretch late in the fourth quarter to push Indiana over New Jersey. One week, Miller was the NBA's player of the week.

And Indiana was winning, too. As of this writing, the Pacers were 15-7 since O'Neal's injury, clinching a playoff spot. O'Neal began talking about how he would cede his game to Miller's in the playoffs to give the Pacers the best shot at an improbable title run.

Something else was happening. Suddenly, Miller didn't have to love being the enemy anymore — road crowds were cheering him. Miller refused any of the retirement ceremonies that players such as Julius Erving and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had in their final seasons (though his old teammates — player Jalen Rose and coach Sam Mitchell — now in Toronto insisted on a little something when Miller stopped there). But the crowds showed their appreciation anyway. At New York for the final time, Knicks fans, watching their team lose, chanted "Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE!" to try to convince Pacers coach Rick Carlisle to put Miller back in the game for the final few minutes. Miller claims he heard a few "SUCKS!" in those chants, but, still, it was a stunning tribute for a player Knicks fans had learned to hate.

But on this April day against the Knicks in Indiana, the New York players (coached by another Miller ex-teammate, Herb Williams), were sick to death of the Reggie love. New York had lost six straight games coming in and looked like they were playing out the string. But after having had the Great Reggie shoved down their throat by the fans and media in New York, they appeared to decide they were going to shove back in Indiana.

It was a reminder that for all of Miller's noted game-winning heroics, he didn't save the day every day. Miller hit two late free throws to put the Pacers up by three points, but Knicks power forward Kurt Thomas, of all players, hit a last-second 3-point shot to put the game into overtime. It was Thomas' second 3-pointer of the season.

In overtime, Miller again took over, hitting a driving layup with 1:06 remaining to put Indiana up 112-106. (Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE!) But the Pacers collapsed. The Knicks had their greatest success all game driving up the middle against the Pacers, and they did so twice to get a 3-point play on a layup and foul, then another layup to get within 112-111. Meanwhile, the Pacers went two possessions without even taking a shot. With only a few seconds left, Stephon Marbury drove up the middle for a short shot, which bounced off the rim — except that the Knicks' Mike Sweetney was there to put it back in with almost no time left to give the Knicks a 113-112 victory.

For those of us there seeing Miller for the last time in person, it was doubly disappointing to see him lose. My 5-year-old daughter, attending her first NBA game, got totally caught up in the excitement, and cried inconsolably after the loss.

That in itself was a reminder of the road of Miller's career. When he was drafted, my friend Mike and I were teenagers. In this game, Mike and I were there, he with his wife, pregnant with twins, me with my pregnant wife, along with two of my three children.

And yet, watching Miller, it was as if nothing had changed. Except nobody was booing anymore.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.