Sunday, April 25, 2010

Bird and Magic

Just saw the Bird and Magic documentary today and thought it was one of the better sports documentaries I've seen in a while. While all the aspects that you would associate with their
rivalry such as race, polarization, east v west were there, the part I found fascinating was how
their initial professional hatred towards each other turned into a begrudging personal love and friendship that endures to this day.

Polar opposites by nature (Magic was the life of the party; Bird was the shy introvert), they needed each other professionally to nurture their competitive spirit and to excel even further. But, through the years, they learned to accept the differences in each other and realize that, as fate would have it, their histories and legacies were deeply intertwined with each other.

Bird was as straight shooter who, if he accepted you into his inner circle, became your friend for life. Magic could walk into a room and light it up. They both learned to respected the differences in each other as time went on without wanting to change the other and as it turns out, each of them secretly wished to be a bit like the other. Pretty cool how they brought out the best in each other professionally at first, but as the years went on, personally as well