Larry Bird, before his Celtics fame, faced hard road in Indiana

But to the local kids, maybe the Birds most of all, the hoop was a miracle. It gave them a place to gather and a reason to get out of the house. Sometimes the boys even played there when it snowed. Butch Emmons, who was the oldest of the group by far, would grab a shovel, clear the court, and they’d play in the cold. The only problem was, they didn’t always have a spot for Larry. In the pickup games at the water plant, Larry would get left out because he was younger than the other boys. He was…