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Basketball & Indiana: An Enduring Love Story
America’s heartland found the game of basketball a century ago and has been infatuated with it ever since
I grew up in New York City in the 1990s, and like many people who grew up in the city in that era I fell in love with the New York Knicks led by Patrick Ewing. The team was fierce, aggressive, and gritty. When you root for a team that has a reputation for being physical the way that team was, rivalries tend to happen and those rivalries are almost always filled with a deep dislike for the opponent. Such was the case with the Miami Heat in the late 1990s and early 2000s (a hatred that many Knicks fans still carry today). But the team for me that preceded the Heat as public enemy number one was the Indiana Pacers led by Reggie Miller.
The games and series between the Knicks and Pacers in the mid-1990s was so intense, that they made a documentary about it. During that era, there was a framing of big city versus small town between the two fan bases. At the time I detested Indiana and the Pacers, but as time has gone on I often think about those fans and the passion that they have for basketball. It is a love affair that has spanned decades with humble beginnings that has stood the test of time. A true love of the sport that is sadly not as common as it should be.
