THERE was a time when I believed there would never be an end to the Boston Celtics' dynasty. Celtics fans know
what’s in store for BullsIn the late 1950s and early 1960s, as they kept hoisting banners to the ceiling of old Boston Garden, my youthful mind believed that this was the way of the world.
Eight in a row between 1958-59 and 1965-66 and 11 between 1956-57 and 1968-69.
But then, they started hoisting jersey numbers that belonged to Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Tom Heinsohn and Bill Russell, and the dynasty began to fade.
The first time the Celtics lost a "world championship," I felt like I did at age 3 when a neighbor backed over our wire-haired terrier.
Better believe it. It was hard to take.
The trauma eased as Dave Cowens and then Larry Bird entered the picture and restored some dignity to the gasping dynasty through the 1970s and the 1980s. But by the mid-1980s, it was clear that the Celts were as likely to rise again as the Titanic.
I adjusted.
But then came the first wire photo of the Garden cracked open like an egg, its guts exposed to motorists on the overpass through downtown Boston.
The demolition is going painfully slow in order to spare the adjacent Fleet Center any damage.
I haven't been back to my native Massachusetts to see that, and, with any luck, the Garden will be gone by the time I do get back this year.
I've never had a taste for watching wounded animals suffer and die on the side of the highway.
Now I empathize with Chicago Bulls fans, because their trauma might be about to begin.
As Michael Jordan disappeared into the ice chips of the Stanley Cup Finals on Sunday, I thought of what will happen if the greatest NBA team of the 1990s dissolves on schedule.
The Celts never became as much a part of so many peoples' lives as have Jordan and the Bulls this decade. Mass media hype, cable, Web sites, video games, magazine covers, clothing, cartoons, movies, and commercials have made the Bulls akin to The Truman Show.
There's a national addiction to MJ, Pippen and certainly that multi-colored nutcase of a defensive dynamo, Dennis Rodman, that will require a good deal of therapy if America's Bulls fans are ever to recover.
But I just don't sense any of the family unity that I felt when I watched the Celts do their thing in the old days. Call it naivete but I really believed those guys cared about each other.
They just weren't getting paid enough to care for anything else.
YOU had to feel for homegrown Bryan Clay last Saturday as he stepped into the starting blocks in Lane 1 at Kaiser.
Six thoroughbreds of the sport lined up next to him in what was called the "100-Meter Dash Celebrity Challenge."
Six pros who have been on the same freeway with gods of speed like Michael Johnson, Maurice Green, and Ato Boldon scowled and sang before the gun.
Clay was on his own out there. Really on his own.
Unlike the state high school final where the others trembled at his presence, Clay had all he could do to keep his composure among these athletes who flirt with edge of 10 seconds.
"Go get 'em, Bryan," someone shouted from the stands.
"That ain't gonna help," chortled one of the thoroughbreds with a grin.
Clay, who will go to Azusa Pacific next fall to become a decathlete, was up against athletes who ate kids like him for breakfast.
But he wound up finishing fifth in a hand-time of 10.2 (electronically converted to 10.4).
Not bad for the feet of Clay.
Pat Bigold has covered sports for daily newspapers
in Hawaii and Massachusetts since 1978.
