R-E-G-G-I-E wasn't always popular

First appeared on April 5th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Donnie Walsh is a well dressed man. And whether he chooses his shirt and tie combos in the morning or some fashionista recently fired by the E! Network because numerous plastic surgeries have her face resembling a traditional Gabonese Fang mask does it for him remains a mystery. But in the summer of 1987 Donnie made a choice that was as public as the library or a Facebook rant against your boss.

The spring of ‘87 saw Steve Alford lead the Indiana Hoosiers to the National Championship. I know it to be true because I watched it sitting in the living room with my Dad sharing a bowl of popcorn and a coke (or an eighth of his coke that is; which was customary per our arrangement as father and son) and also because there is a giant red banner in Assembly Hall (which most Indiana fans generally are not slow to point out) which stands in remembrance of that monumental moment.

My Father said Alford would be a saint for leading Indiana to the Promised Land and, after he’d explained what a saint was, I fully agreed despite our not being Catholic. Alford was a dashing young man with perfect hair who had proposed to his wife by hanging the net during a private shoot around; she the beautiful girlfriend who hung around the gym to climb the ladder and pull the net down anytime her boyfriend wrapped it and was surely surprised the day she reached the top of the ladder and found an engagement ring box stuck on the back of the rim. Storybook indeed.

So it looked to be a match made in heaven. The Pacers were a professional franchise that was an ABA Title Machine turned Floundering NBA Failure. In the summer of 1987 they were desperately in need of direction. A hero; a face. And for the average Hoosier fan moonlighting as a casual Pacer fan, what better face than pretty boy Steve’s?

So it was the sharp dressed Donnie Walsh went to the 1987 Draft with Hoosiers one and all fully expecting to hear Alford’s name called as the 11th pick. But upon hearing the loudspeaker boom out “Reggie Miller” fans responded with a hailstorm of boos and cat-calls. Yes, even from the start Reggie was polarizing.

The first time I saw Reggie Miller in a Pacer uniform he was bald, looked like an untwisted pretzel and appeared to have the quickness of a newborn dairy calf. I didn’t see the player who would become the Pacers All Time Leading Scorer and the second best Three Point Shooter in League History; probably one strong indicator of why my front office days have been so slow to develop.
But from the day Pacer fans first booed the 6’7 wing out of UCLA until the day he played his last game in that same uniform 18 years later, all he did was prove people wrong. Despite a highly unorthodox release, Miller became one of the greatest sharpshooters in NBA history. He climbed many mountains including the aforementioned reservations of Pacer fans as well as Spike Lee, while leaving others unconquered (Michael Jordan and an NBA Title).

And if Manning brought a passion for professional football to Indiana then Miller was Manning before Manning was Manning. He built the following the Pacers enjoyed at their height and along the way, be it 8 points in 8 seconds or “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead”, Reggie carved out a lasting place in Hoosier Hearts big enough for both himself and the Blue and Gold as well.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams