Larry Bird helped set up portable goals during the basketball camp he hosted at West Baden Springs Hotel in the early '80s.
It’s March in Indiana. So it feels like a dutiful obligation to our Hoosier roots to highlight some basketball-related content right about now.
Since Larry Bird is as synonymous with French Lick as our hotels are, here’s 5 quick and easy ways that you can get the Larry Legend experience during your stay here. Read on, basketball fans: this one’s right up your alley.
See Larry’s childhood home
Just pull up Google Maps, and it can point the way. The home and garage have undergone some updates in recent years, so the original basketball hoop is no longer. But the new owners did put up an old wooden backboard in its place to preserve a sense of hoops history. You can picture Bird raining jumpers for hours on end here in the driveway.
The garage and backboard of Larry Bird's childhood home,
prior to current renovations.
Take a spin down Larry Bird Boulevard
Be sure to stop for a picture at the sign — it’s literally close enough to the resort that you can see French Lick Springs Hotel and French Lick Casino in the background. Go a little farther up the boulevard toward the school for another photo op at the Larry Bird bust outside the Springs Valley Teen Center.
See the Springs Valley High School gym where Bird played
If your timing is right, you can get a glimpse inside the high school gym where Larry racked up 1,125 points prior to his storied careers at Indiana State University and with the Boston Celtics. Keep it on your radar for next basketball season to see the gym during a Springs Valley home game, or you might get lucky and stop by another time the gym is open. It's worth it to see where one of basketball's greatest careers got its start.
As you’d expect, the Bird presence greets you immediately when you step inside this 61-year-old gym. Bird’s photo is front and center right above the gym’s main entrance, and a collection of his #33 jerseys hang from the rafters nearby. Also be on the lookout for the photo of the 1974 Springs Valley team that went undefeated in the regular season during Bird’s senior year when he averaged 31 points and 21 rebounds (!) per game.
Even if you’re there when the gym is empty, you can get a taste for what small-town basketball is like in this area, as Springs Valley’s gym features the sunken bowl style that you’ll find at several schools in southern Indiana.
Try on Larry’s jacket at 33 Brick Street
33 Brick Street Bar & Grill in downtown French Lick features an array of Bird memorabilia — including a piece you can wear. Bird’s warmup jacket from the 1984 Olympics is on display there, and if you ask, they’ll take it out and let you try it on. How’s that for an interactive way to experience Bird’s hometown?
Visit the French Lick West Baden Museum
You'd better believe there's a segment of the French Lick West Baden Museum dedicated the town’s most famous native. Just across the highway from French Lick Springs Hotel, this museum has a couple cool relics including some of Bird’s old jerseys, and a wooden backboard from the old Springs Valley gym. Definitely worth a stop here, and gazing up at that backboard to imagine how many buckets Bird deposited back when he was just a small-town kid.
