I so remember this victory from 40 years ago as if it happened last night. I had moved to CA from NJ in June 1979 to start law school in San Diego. I had been a Lakers' fan since 1969, when the Lakers lost to the Celtics, and I fell in love with Jerry West. When the NBA season began at the end of October or thereabouts, I realized I could pick up the Lakers' radio station, KLAC 540 AM, if memory serves, on the radio in San Diego. For the opening game of that storied season, which was against the then-San Diego Clippers, I heard, for the first time, the legendary Chick Hearn broadcast a Lakers' game. I recall being completely knocked over by Hearn's fast, but clear, speaking, and precise, reporting of the game. I was laughing at all of his phrases he used that were literary in structure--Dribble-drive, Yo-yoing up and down with the ball, Put this game in the refrigerator, the butter's getting hard, or he faked that guy right into the popcorn machine, etc.(the Chickisms are listed at the Wiki page for Chick's biography). I recall being shocked at how he ripped the Lakers for not playing up to the level he had expected, and thought to myself, "Does this guy know he is paid by the Lakers' management?" It was so extraordinary, I recorded a portion of one of the early games and sent it to my longest known friend, a sports fanatic of the first order, in a cassette, and wrote, You have to listen to this sportscaster. He is unlike anyone you have ever heard. Hearn was always on the ball, and not behind the play--unlike nearly everyone I had ever heard, even the still outstanding Marv Albert.
I listened to nearly every game that rookie season of Magic Johnson, and started getting the Los Angeles Times to keep up with all things Lakers. I was back at my folks' house in NJ for much of the Lakers-76ers finals, and was very concerned the Lakers would lose the series when Jabbar went down. This article shows how amazing Johnson was as a 21 year old leader, though it could have stressed Jamaal Wilkes' performance that night, scoring 37 points with ten rebounds. Wilkes had been a favorite of mine since his UCLA days, when he was known as Keith Wilkes.
The personal thing I will always recall, and my parents do as well, is that night, while the game was ending and I was jumping up and down at this Lakers' championship win, my heart started palpitating. Badly. I had to sit down, and I was sweating. My parents and I thought it was only my being so excited. It wasn't. It was, in retrospect, the first manifestation of the condition I was born with, known as Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome, where I had been born with an extra, unregulated passage into and through the heart, and which would become more and more prevalent over the next eight years, almost killing me in my thirtieth year. I ended up in major, heart-stopping, heart-lung machine surgery, performed by Stanford affiliated doctors, to clip that passage in a six or seven hour microscopically performed surgery. From there, I either already had or developed atrial fibrillation and tachycardia, and it was from that time on, I lived in a world where I had to worry about having a group health plan, and deal with out of pocket costs that grew to an average of $20-25K a year for coverage for myself and my family. The WPW or electrical issues appear to be idiopathic, meaning they are not hereditary, as far as we can ever know.
But, yeah, I will always remember that night of the Lakers' victory over the 76ers.
