The Jerry Sichting Interview
By: Michael D. McClellan | He was like any other Indiana schoolboy of the day, raised on stories of Bobby Plump, John Wooden, and Oscar Robertson, his free time spent with a basketball in his hands, dreaming of his own chance at basketball stardom. He was never big nor particularly fast, but he made up for any athletic deficiencies with heart, smarts, and moxie. How else does an average point guard go on to play major college basketball, and then parley that into a ten year career in the NBA? Sure, Jerry Sichting was average in many ways, but he was also something else: An overachiever cut from his first professional team; a fighter who refused to let a young Bobby Knight submarine his Big Ten aspirations; a producer of points and steals and assists, the things that scouts notice and NBA coaches keep on their rosters, regardless of size.
Born and raised in Martinsville, Indiana, it wasn’t long before a young Jerry Sichting found himself gravitating to the local park, hoisting shots in all manner of weather. A four-year starter and star at Martinsville High School, Sichting also excelled at quarterback on the football team, earning All-State honors and generating cursory interest from Notre Dame and its outgoing head coach, Ara Parseghian. The allure of South Bend was tempting, but with Joe Montana on the roster and little hope of seeing the field, the undersized Sichting chose to pursue basketball instead.
Several major colleges also expressed an interest in the tough-as-nails point guard with the sweet shooting stroke, including Indiana University and its brash head coach, Bobby Knight. Sichting appeared set to sign with the Hoosiers, until the school unexpectedly rescinded the scholarship offer, forcing him to look elsewhere. He signed with Purdue instead, following in Wooden’s footsteps and transforming himself into an All-Conference standout by the end of his senior season.
The NBA Draft was a completely different animal back then – more rounds, less fanfare – and Sichting’s fourth round selection by Golden State was met with little celebrity outside of Martinsville. He held his own in training camp, but was cut when head coach Al Attles settled on a season-opening roster that included guards John Lucas, Phil Smith and former Celtic Jo Jo White. Set adrift, Sichting gave the Continental Basketball Association a try, which lasted a full two days, before returning to Indiana and taking a job in a sporting goods store.
The 1979-80 NBA season came and went without so much as a phone call, and by the following summer Sichting wondered whether he would ever get another shot. The Indiana Pacers, floundering at the time, held open tryouts. Sichting was hardly in playing shape, but he was impressive enough to earn a spot on the team’s summer league roster – and, in the process, earn an invitation to veterans camp. Improbably, he made the team.
The Pacers were decent during the 1980-81 NBA regular season, going 44-38 with a roster that included an aging George McGinnis. The record was good enough to make the playoffs, where the team fell in the opening round to Dr. J and the Philadelphia 76ers. A year later the Pacers were 35-47, and out of the playoffs entirely. Indiana was positively dreadful during the 1982-83 season, going 20-62, but Sichting was solid as the team’s starting point guard, averaging 9.6 points and 5.3 rebounds, and playing well enough to earn a starting nod on occasion. A 26-56 season followed in 1983-84, and a year later the team was 22-60. By then, Sichting had had enough.
“I contacted the Celtics through Chris Ford,” Sichting says. “I was a free agent, and I had always wanted to play for the Boston Celtics. I didn’t know whether the team would be interested, but I thought that it was worth a try. There seemed to be some interest on their part, but then they drafted Sam Vincent. I really didn’t think I had a chance at that point.”
Red Auerbach liked the way Sichting handled the ball, so much so that he traded veteran guard Quinn Buckner to the Pacers and signed Sichting to an offer sheet. Fifteen days later, he was officially a member of the Boston Celtics. With Bill Walton, Scott Wedman and Sichting providing punch off the bench, the Celtics rolled to a 67-15 record and the team’s sixteenth NBA championship.
“It was an unbelievable feeling,” Sichting says. “From a basketball standpoint, I’d never been that excited in my life. I hadn’t been able to win a championship in high school, and I hadn’t won one at Purdue. To be able to win a championship with guys like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish – the greatest frontline in NBA history – that’s something that I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.”
Take me back to your childhood in Martinsville. What led you to the basketball court?
The main thing that drew me to basketball was, number one, growing up in Indiana. Number two, my family moved when I was about three years old. The property that the house was on was connected to a park, and the basketball court was about twenty feet from my backyard. I grew up on the basketball court, playing outside whenever the weather permitted, and whenever the weather didn’t permit [laughs]. Being in a small town in Indiana, back in those days basketball was a major source of entertainment. Everybody looked up to whoever played on the high school team, and your goal as a kid in grade school and junior high was to make the varsity basketball team. And as you got closer to achieving that goal, then you maybe thought about making the Indiana All-Star Team, which was a huge deal in those days. So that’s how I really go interested in basketball. The guys that played on the varsity team would be over in that park a lot in the summer, and I would just try to do what they did.
You played for the legendary Sam Alford at Martinsville High School. Please tell me about your high school basketball career.
Coach Alford arrived as I was coming in as a freshman. He really rebuilt the program. There had been some years when Martinsville had had good teams, but it had been fairly inconsistent. In his first couple of years as head coach – especially my freshman year – we struggled a little bit. He decided to play a lot of freshmen and sophomores. We took our lumps because we played one of the most difficult schedules in the state. I think we only won five or six games my freshman year, but my last couple of years we were consistently ranked in the state.
Was your high school like the Indiana school portrayed in Hoosiers?
We played in this old gym that was almost a high school version of the Boston Garden. It was a big brick building called Glenn Curtis Gymnasium, and it sat separate from the rest of the school. It was the same gym that Johnny Wooden played in. It was an incredible atmosphere. The tournament was still like Hoosiers, a single classification for all schools. We didn’t win it all like in the movie, but it was a great experience nonetheless.
You were an All-State quarterback at Martinsville.
I liked football, but Martinsville had never had a winning football team. Bill Siderewicz came in as the new coach, and the team went 9-1 during my freshman year. It really got the whole town in a frenzy – it was as if the town had discovered football for the first time. Coach Siderewicz talked me into going out for the team during my sophomore year, and we finished with another 9-1 season. We were undefeated during my senior year, which was the first of five undefeated teams that Siderewicz would coach in his career. He’s an Indiana football legend, and he’s enshrined in the Indiana Football Hall of Fame.
From what I hear, Notre Dame showed interest in you.
Notre Dame never actually offered me a scholarship, but I could have gone to Purdue or Indiana and played football. Besides, Notre Dame had a pretty good quarterback on the roster by the name of Joe Montana [laughs]. I really never gave college football serious consideration. I just played in high school because I liked it, and because we had some really good players on the team. Going undefeated was one of the greatest experiences ever.
How close were you to playing basketball for Bobby Knight at Indiana?
My high school basketball coach was Sam Alford, who is another coaching legend. Sam is enshrined in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, and his son Steve was a great player who made it to the NBA. He really wanted me to go to Indiana University. I was being recruited by Coach Knight and I was giving it serious consideration, but Indiana gave the scholarship to another player before I could make up my mind.
Were you disappointed you didn’t play for the Hoosiers?
It was a great source of motivation. To me, it was Coach Knight’s way of saying that I couldn’t play in the Big Ten. I wanted to prove him wrong, and prove that I was tough enough to hang with the best programs and best players in the conference.
How did you end up choosing Purdue?
It came down to three schools: Cincinnati, Louisville, and Purdue. I had grown up being a huge fan of both Purdue Indiana. There were only four channels to choose from back then, but all of the Indiana and Purdue games were televised. I remember Rick Mount and those Purdue teams of the late Sixties and early Seventies. Indiana had the Arsdale twins, Tom and Dick, playing around the same time. So Indiana made a hard decision easy for me, and I decided to go to Purdue.
You were a First Team All-Big Ten during your senior season at Purdue. Did you think you could play NBA basketball?
I thought the NBA was an outside shot at best, because I saw myself as a fringe player who needed the perfect situation to get there. But I had confidence in my ability. Playing in the Big Ten definitely helped, because the Big Ten was the best conference in the country in those days, hands down.
Hands down?
Almost every team had an NBA point guard, with the possible exception of Illinois. Quinn Buckner was at Indiana. Kelvin Ransey was at Ohio State. Rickey Green was at Michigan. Magic Johnson was at Michigan State. Wes Matthews was at Wisconsin. Minnesota had Ray Williams and Osborn Lockhart, who played for the Globetrotters. Billy McKinney was at Northwestern. So all of those guys matriculated into the NBA, and those were just the guards. There were a lot of forwards and centers who made it to the NBA as well – Mychal Thompson, Kent Benson, Joe Barry Carroll…all of those guys were in the Big Ten. That’s what really prepared me, and what gave me the confidence that I could play NBA basketball. I knew that I’d be a bubble-type of player coming out of college, but I knew I had a shot if I got with the right team.
You were selected in the fourth round of the 1979 NBA Draft, by the Golden State Warriors. What was that like?
It was an eye-opener. Like any rookie coming into the league, I didn’t know quite what to expect. It’s a huge jump up in talent. Golden State had some older guards that were on guaranteed contracts, which was the case with Jo Jo White. John Lucas was there. Phil Smith was one of the team’s mainstays from that 1975 NBA championship team. I thought I had a good camp, but I didn’t get a lot of opportunities to play in the exhibition games, so I was a little bit frustrated with that. But being on the other end, several years later as a coach, I know how difficult it is when you have to make those last cuts. You know a guy can probably play in the league, but you just don’t have a spot for him. It was a numbers game, and it just didn’t work out in the end.
What did you do after the Warriors cut you?
I gave the CBA a shot. I went out to Maine for a couple of days, but I didn’t like the CBA lifestyle – getting in a van, driving up-and-down the East Coast to play games, things like that. So I resigned myself to the fact that I’d enjoyed a good college career and had taken a shot at the NBA and come up short. I ended up getting a regular job back in Indianapolis. It was a sporting good company. I worked there for a year.
Suddenly, you’re on the outside looking in. How does a gym rat like Jerry Sichting get his basketball fix?
I played in some industrial leagues and AAU tournaments. I stayed somewhat in shape. The guys that I worked with were gym rats themselves. We played several times a week, and competed in a couple of different leagues. It was fun, but I wasn’t in NBA shape.
A year later you end up getting your big break with the Indiana Pacers. How it that play out?
The Pacers had just undergone a big shakeup in their front office. Jack McKinney had been the Lakers’ head coach until he suffered a terrible head injury in a bicycle accident the year before. The Lakers ended up winning the championship under Paul Westhead, so Jack lost his job and the Pacers hired him. One of the first things Jack did was conduct something called a “Walter Mitty Camp,” which was basically open auditions. I think it was a way for the Pacers to test Jack’s mental faculties following that accident, but it also turned out to be the break I needed.
What were the Walter Mitty tryouts like?
We had our tryout at Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler University campus. It was nearly a hundred degrees outside, the humidity was really high, and there was no air conditioning inside. It was supposed to be a two-day tryout. I lied to Jack and told him that I was in good shape, but I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to come back the second day. Thankfully, they cut the tryouts to one day. From there I was invited to rookie camp, was then selected to play in the LA summer league, and then invited to the Pacers’ veterans camp. After jumping through those four hoops, I was selected to make the team.
You played your first five seasons with the Pacers. What was it like to play against those great Celtic teams, and did you ever think that you would one day help lead them to an NBA Championship?
The Celtics were very good. I remember those games well – we actually beat them a couple of times at home, but it almost felt like playing an away game because it was Larry Bird, and there were so many Celtics fans in Indiana. We were a young team, and we really struggled, so going up against the Celtics was a playoff game atmosphere for us. Beating the Celtics was definitely the highlight of our season.
George McGinnis was your teammate those first two seasons in Indy. What was he like?
George is an Indiana legend. I don’t know if there’s a guy to compare him to when he was in high school – I guess it would be somebody like a LeBron James. He was a man among boys. He was just so big and physically mature, and so quick at the same time. Nobody could handle him when he was in his prime. He only played a couple of years of college ball at Indiana, and then he went hardship and went to the ABA in the early 70s. He was a legend at such a young age, because of what he did in high school and later at Indiana. It was quite an experience to play with George. I’m the only person to play on the same team with both George McGinnis and Larry Bird, which is pretty special for me because they are two of the best players to ever come out of Indiana – with the possible exception of Oscar Robertson.
I hear you were a Celtics fan back in the day.
Growing up, my two favorite teams were the Pacers and the Celtics. The Pacers were in the ABA in those days, that the Celtics were the greatest team in NBA history. I followed them in the late 60s, and then on into the 70s when John Havlicek and Dave Cowens were running the show. I just always liked the style of play – I felt that they played basketball the right way.
You became a free agent during the summer of ’85. How did you end up signing with the Celtics?
I actually made a phone call to the Celtics, because I wanted to see if there was any interest. They had just lost to the Lakers in ’85 Finals, and my wife encouraged me to reach out. She felt that Boston would be looking for outside shooting, so I called and spoke with Chris Ford. [Celtics GM] Jan Volk called me not long after that, and he said that Boston was definitely interested. He ask me to call him back after the draft, but then they selected Sam Vincent out of Michigan State in the first round, so I decided not to call back. A day or two later, Jan calls me and says, ‘I thought you were going to call.’ I said, ‘Well, I thought you got your point guard in Sam Vincent.’ He says, ‘Well, we like Sam, but you’re more of a proven commodity right now. We’re still very interested in you.’ That kind of got the ball rolling. I was coming off a stress fracture in ’85, so I went to Boston and had the doctors look at me. I had a couple of interviews while I was there, and I went to KC Jones’ basketball camp that summer. Not long after that I signed the contract.
Your arrival in Boston coincided with that of the great Bill Walton.
Bill was the NBA Sixth Man of the Year that year, and he provided a lot of stuff for that team. He was a great passer, a great rebounder, and so intelligent. He was on a mission that year. He was probably the most focused guy from the first day of camp until the end of the season, because he had gone through so much adversity with his health. I think he knew that this was probably his swan song. He had a couple of years left in him, possibly, and he was finally in a position to be on another great team. I think everybody would tell you that he was just a fantastic teammate.
Larry Bird was at the height of his powers during that 1985-86 season. What was it like playing with the Hick From French Lick?
Yes he was. Larry was a great player, obviously, and he was the leader of the team. He definitely was all about winning. The hard work that he put in carried over to everyone else on the team. He could do some amazing things on the basketball floor. He had a sixth sense for what was going to happen next – his anticipation and recognition of what was going to happen in the next second or two was really unparalleled. It enabled him to do some things that other people with the same athletic ability couldn’t come close to doing.
The Celtics were practically unbeatable at home that season. What was it like to play in the Boston Garden?
The Garden was a place like no other, especially in terms of the fans. We thought we would never lose playing at home. There were several games that year when we were down late, but I don’t think anybody – us on the bench, anybody who was on the court, or anybody in the stands – doubted that were going to come back and win. It was only a matter of time, and it was only a matter of what the eventual winning margin was going to be.
Did the team click on immediately, or where there adjustments that had to be made?
It took us a little while to really jell that year because Walton and myself were new to the team. Because of that, there were a few tweaks in the lineup, as well as some rotation changes from the year before. We started rolling in early January. There was a three week stretch where we were beating teams by an average of over twenty points. We just got to clicking and everybody kind of fell into their roles and knew what everybody else on the team was going to do, night in and night out. We were pretty much untouchable for a while.
What was it like meeting Red Auerbach for the first time?
Red was famous for negotiating directly with his players, but too be honest, I did most of my contract negotiations with Jan Volk. Red was kind of standoffish at first. Looking back, you almost had to win a championship to be accepted. He wanted to wait, I think, to see how I did in the playoffs, and see exactly what this team was going to do. After that, I remember getting a cigar from him when we won the championship. The next year, we had some injuries and some problems, and there was one time when he came into the locker room. He rarely spoke to the team as a group, but he came in once – we were struggling, and had lost several road games in a row – and he came in the locker room, and basically read everybody the riot act, and said that we weren’t playing like the Celtics. It was late ’86, early ’87. He told us that we were retaliating instead of instigating, which was one of his favorite sayings, and he said that nobody really wanted to go out there and fight, except for D.J [Dennis Johnson] and Little Jerry [laughs]. That’s what it called me from then on.
Let’s talk ’86 Playoffs. Against Michael Jordan and the Bulls, you hit a huge shot in the second overtime of that game, breaking a tie at 131 and practically ending the Bulls’ season. What did it mean to you to have the trust of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to take a big shot like that?
That’s why I wanted to come to Boston. I had kind of established myself in the league, but I was on a Pacers team that was a few years away from making the playoffs at that point. I knew if I went to a team like Boston I wasn’t going to start, but I’d have a chance to play and perform, and to be on a team that had a chance to do something special. So that’s what attracted me to Boston to begin with. I knew I’d have an opportunity to step up and take a shot like that in the playoffs against a team like the Bulls, and I knew I could put the ball in the basket. I wasn’t a great scorer by any stretch of the imagination, but I was a real good shooter. So you just want to put yourself in those situations and see how you respond. And to have guys like that who trust you to make a pressure shot like that is special.
Did it bother you coming off the bench?
Not at all. I didn’t want to go there and just sit on the bench and not get any playing time at all, but I understood that Dennis and Danny [Ainge] were going to get the majority of the minutes. In that type of role you just have to be ready – somebody is going to get hurt, or somebody is going to foul out, which is what happened to Dennis in that double overtime game against the Bulls. You just have to go out and pick up where they left off.
The 1986 NBA Finals will forever be remembered for the Game 5 fight between you and Ralph Sampson.
The fans were merciless when we came back to Boston for Game 6. I never saw Ralph play really well after that, especially in the Boston Garden. He was an All-Star player at that point in his career, but I think that altercation took its toll on him. As for the fight itself, it was one of those things that happens in the heat of the battle. He kind of lost control, and before you know it you’ve got a bunch of guys out there on the floor and it was really a dangerous scene. You had a few policemen out there trying to break it up, which isn’t good, either. At times it’s best to let the players break it up.
The thing I regret about the whole thing is that it turned the game around. We were actually in the lead when it happened, and had a chance to close them out, 4-1. And then the crowd went absolutely berserk. The Rockets gained the momentum after that fight, so that’s the only thing I really regret about it. Once we got back to Boston we had a very chippy practice session, which only lasted about a half hour. We were supposed to go through things at three-quarter speed, but everybody was so ticked off that there were fights ready to break out. That’s one of the most intense practices that I’ve every been a part of as a player. KC knew that we were ready to play, so he just cancelled practice at that point. We came back an blew them out in Game 6.
What do you remember most about Game 6?
Everybody was sky-high to finish it out. It was tight into the second quarter, but then the starters blew the Rockets right off the floor in the third quarter. It was a blowout in the fourth, so KC just kind of bypassed Walton and myself and let some of the other bench players get some time on the court. That was the right thing to do, but, as a competitor, you want to be out there on the court. I wish I could have played a few more minutes in that game.
After working so hard to climb the mountain, what was it like to finally be a world champion?
It was a dream come true. Once I joined the Celtics, winning an NBA Championship was our goal from the first day of training camp. Anything less that a championship that year was going to be a failure. To finally get it done, that was the great part. We had a championship parade through downtown Boston, and close to two million people attended. It was just incredible.
The sky seemed the limit in the moments after that Game 6, but everything would change just a few short weeks later. Where were you when you heard that Len Bias had died?
I was back in Indiana at that point. I was at my in-laws house. I remember my wife waking me up pretty early in the morning – there was a phone call from Boston. I can’t even remember who exactly it was that called, but I just couldn’t believe the news. It just seemed like a bad dream. I started calling other people within the organization, and all of a sudden it’s on the TV and on the radio. That’s when it finally hit me that it was true. Len Bias was going to be a great, great player. The next great Celtic.
In 2002, you were inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. What does this honor mean to you?
It’s a great honor. Indiana has long been known for its high school basketball, and it’s truly like no other place in that respect. Back when I played high school ball, it was really the tail end of an era. There was no cable TV, no computers, and no video games. There was just so much more focus on high school basketball. It’s really not the same today, so I’m glad that I grew up playing in that era. Being inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, alongside guys like Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson, is as good as it gets.
Final Question: If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?
Have a dream, have a goal, and work hard to achieve it. Most people that end up at top are usually blessed with special gifts, whether it is in sports, music, or whatever the occupation might be. For the rest of us, there is no substitute for hard work and dedication.
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