Drive: The Story of My Life by Larry Bird

Drive: The Story of My Life Reviews

• 
  John Yelverton

  A good story about a great basketball player, but he really bounces over parts of his life story that he doesn't like. It really wasn't a complete autobiography in my opinion.
• 
  John

  A fun, quick read. Narrative-wise and structurally this book is kind of a mess. Bird just takes the reader through his career up until the point of writing (1989). I personally found 'When the Game Was Ours', his book with Magic Johnson, more insightful. There were three interesting points that he raised, though. The first was his disregard of triple-doubles and how they don't indicate how good a player is (c.f. Russell Westbrook). The second point was that the value of the corner three is much higher than other shots (this was 20+ years before analytics would prove this). The third was that the NBA schedule creates situations where teams will not be able to play at their peak, which is a relevant current issue.
• 
  Doug Thorsen

  Pretty dull. Bob Ryan, who helped him write the book, calls Bird willfully ignorant. This is the tale of an accidental superstar. A man who knew of and cared for little outside of basketball. Prepare yourself for bland sports speak. Bird treats his book like a post game interview. Hardly fascinating stuff. He does not spend a word on injuring his hand in a bar fight right before the 85 finals. Yet he does make a point to express some anger toward len bias for being stupid enough to use drugs. Bird leans into cornball tradition. The whole thing would be less annoying if you didn't know that he is a more interesting person than he lets on.
  
• 
  Kelly

  This is a pretty straightforward read about Larry’s take on major moments in his Basketball life. He takes you through players, coaches, special games and playoffs. He speaks little of his personal life but that was to be expected. It’s always been about the Basketball with Bird. A cherished childhood memory for me the 85/86 Celtics, Dream team indeed. Nice to know how valuable each player was to the team especially Walton my fav!! One thing I’ll never forget about this book is Larry Bird is from French Lick, Indiana how can you forget a name like Larry Bird and French Lick. ☘️33
• 
  Eirik

  Larry Bird is a great guy, and this book supports that. But haven't there happened any other negative things in his life than his father's suicide? The book is actually TOO bright, and also not that good written. It doesn't create a very good flow of reading.
• 
  Angelina

  Fantastic autobiography. Basketball fans will love it. I finished this the same day Kobe Bryant died; strange but fitting.
• 
  Joel Edminster

  August 3, 2021
  
  I’ve always loved basketball, and have been playing the sport regularly since second grade. When I moved to my current home town, I played on a team in my town’s adult rec basketball league for many years. The team’s color is green; the “jersey” I wore for every game is a green retro Celtics tee-shirt, number 33 on the front and back, “Bird” in caps above the number on the back (acquired at the NBA store in Manhattan one long-ago visit). As an NBA fan who grew up in northern California—go Warriors!—I always rooted for the Celtics to beat the Lakers through those two teams’ rivalry through the 80’s. And I always loved Bird—the Hick from French Lick.
  

  I’ve had Bird’s 1989 biography, Drive, for years, but have never gotten around to reading it. The other day I was down in the basement doing exercises, and, running my eyes over the bookshelf that holds all my sports books, I focused in on it and decided to finally read it. I finished it yesterday.
  

  And wasn’t terribly impressed. Ghost-written by the Boston sports journalist Bob Ryan, the book is a pretty polite and pedestrian tour through Bird’s very non-pedestrian life. A big and slow white guy who can’t jump “over a piece of paper” (as I heard one wag describe Tim Duncan upon his recent retirement), Bird bucked all odds through sheer hard work (er, drive). Known for being tough and brash, Larry comes across as anything but in the book. Few anecdotes (the best parts of sports bios) exist—at least few interesting ones; Bird’s aim I guess was just to skim over his life and his seasons in the NBA. For example, I have a poster in my office of Bird and Dr. J choke-holding one another; I figured his book would cover that incident, but it does not. I also would have enjoyed Larry Legend discussing the game in which he reputedly took all of his shots left-handed—and dropped 40-plus.
  

  The book’s timing is curious, too. Released at the beginning of the 1989-1990 NBA season, it comes at a point where the man is still very much actively an NBA star. His best years at that point were behind him, yes (his three titles came in 81, 84, and 86), and he was battling injuries, but still—a lot more was to come, especially the whole Olympic Dream Team business in 92.
  

  So overall, meh, but glad I read it. Fun to relive those days a bit.
• 
  Ben Westhoff

  A delightfully-bonkers encapsulation of the pre-MJ era, when Bird and Magic Johnson traded off winning championships every year. It's fun hearing Bird's behind the scenes stories of his Celtics and Indiana State teams, but what I found most fascinating was his account of his childhood. He came from absolutely nothing in French Lick, Indiana -- his family couldn't even afford a car. His dad felt bad that he couldn't provide, and so decided to commit suicide one day, a tragedy to which a sad-but-not overwhelmed Bird dedicates all of one page. Bird didn't even start playing basketball until high school, and soon developed the skills (and the height) to win acceptance to Bobby Knight's Indiana program. Bird arrived to the school with, basically, the clothes on his back. Feeling like a poor, out-of-place hick, he just left, hitchhiking home and getting a job at a grocery store or something. His friends and family finally convinced him to give college another try. He got up at dawn to practice free throws, but by the time he was drafted he'd never given ANY thought to the pros. Didn't watch them, didn't know anything about them. ETC. Like I said, bonkers. All of this craziness is written in the homespun style you'd expect, and though Bird's politics are predictably retrograde, he is generous in his assessments of everyone he's played with and for. Definitely recommended for NBA fans, or just for anyone who likes to raise their eyebrows in bewilderment.
• 
  Killer of Dreams

  I usually don't enjoy reading and this was a pleasure to read. It was gratifying to see Bird's views on 80's NBA basketball. I enjoyed Bird's demeanor to situations. Among his memorable views, he didn't care about what Isiah and Rodman said about him and he even respected his alcoholic father's decision to kill himself. An internal thought I had through much of the reading was how it seems contradictory that as much as he says he is a private man, he has relinquished this information for commercial use.
  
  I'm unfamiliar with biographies but the structure of this one was great. There seemed to be a progression of learning through his life and an open future to his career. It started off a bit slow, with his childhood and time at Indiana State, but I greatly enjoyed the latter section on his professional career and the smaller sections on his views on arenas, referees, and players.
  
  I've watched numerous Larry Bird interviews and the flow in this book didn't feel like Bird was writing it. Bird speaks in short sentences and he speaks with pauses. He doesn't go as in depth. Here it felt like Bird was talking in in-depth, run-on sentence and it stripped away Bird's style. I tried to imagine Bird speaking through the words but it was impossible.
  
  A larger issue I found was that Bird's so humble. You'd think that's not really a negative trait but it gives a fog to Bird's greatness. He mentions more bad games and injures than good games and healthy periods. Every great game he played is overshadowed by him applauding teamwork or the heroic clutch finishes of Dennis Johnson or some role player. He mentions his MVPs in reference to how supportive he was of Magic winning his first. This is the guy that won three in a row and he mentions the first one to how another player said he'd win one now that that player wasn't distracting Bird, and then later when Magic stops his streak. But he's so humble that he talks great about his teammates and opponents more than himself. He talks about how much trouble he had with Dr. J in his first few years but Bird smoked him in the '81 playoff series and most contemporary views agree that Bird deserved the 1981 MVP over Dr. J. In all of this you forget that Larry Bird was top tier player, coming second in MVP voting four times and winning the award three times in a row. The man was a legend.
  
  By the end I was scratching myself asking how he could even be a top 15 player of all time. I watched old highlight videos and took a look at his career statistics to remind myself how great he was. He's definitely a top 10 player and possibly top 5.
  
  I found one few discrepancy with the biography compared with other interviews. He says he only trash talked with Michael Cooper once but Magic Johnson says they used to go at it all the time.
  
  Overall, it was fun to read. It should deserve five stars, because I would definitely read it again but at the same time I don't want to because I already did. It's five stars because it's Bird but it's four because it's a book about him, if that makes sense.
  
  Rating Update 26 May 2019
  Four stars to three stars. There are four star sections with Bird detailing parts of his career, and the last chapter on his preferences, but the slow start and some sections are respectively two and three stars.
  
  September 1, 2019
  Update
  With the adoption of my new rating system, a three star rating is befitting. The original review and rating update conform to the new rating system. The main reason behind retaining the three star-rating is explained in the rating update from May 26, 2019.
  
  January 1, 2019
  Update
  I do not remember the contents of the second part in the book, which take up nearly half of the book (which is why I have outlined the rating in grey, despite the green inside color). For this reason, I will have to speculate and give broad ratings to each of the individual parts based on what was previous said in the review. For the third chapter, I find it appropriate to rate the entire chapter three stars because it was a smooth and pleasing read (three stars) for at least more than half of it. For the fourth chapter, there was nothing written in the review about it so I believe that it was an OK read.
  
  Part 1: Where I Come From. Pages one through sixty-six. Sixty-six pages. Two stars.
  Part 2: The Career. Pages sixty-nine through one hundred and ninety-five. One hundred and twenty-seven pages. Three stars.
  Part 3: Observations. Pages one hundred and ninety-nine through two hundred and fifty. Fifty-two pages. Four stars.
  Part 4: Where I Stand. Pages two hundred and fifty-three through two hundred and fifty-nine. Seven pages. Two stars.
  
  Seven hundred and thirty-five points divided by two hundred and fifty-two pages equals 2.92 stars.
  
  January 2, 2020
  Update
  I have wondered if the book should be lowered to a two star-rating if the majority of the second part is two star-rated. I can't see this to be the case and find that the book is held to at least a 2.5 rating with the three and four star-rated content.
  
  March 17, 2020
  Update
  Again, I have thought to lower the rating of the book to two stars. The holistic feeling for this novel is one of enjoyment: "I usually don't enjoy reading and this was a pleasure to read". I cannot lower the rating. The broad ratings I gave each part in the update from January 1, 2019, is this holistic feeling of appreciation and liking for the book. There is, overall, a liking for the three star-rated sections, and an extreme liking for the four star-rated sections, which allows for the ignorance of slower parts in these sections, which individually could be rated as two, three, and four star-rated portions.
• 
  Anderson

  This was a book I'd wanted to read for a long time. It was very interesting to get a more in depth look of the inner workings of his mind - key plays that have stood out to him over time, teammates he enjoyed playing with, and to learn more of his family and upbringing especially since he's been very quiet on these aspects of his life with the media.
  This book was written almost as if he was talking making it an easy to read, easy to follow story. I was disappointed there wasn't more detail about big games in his career. Practices or games that have stuck with him over the years, but then again, that's not really Bird's personality. I enjoyed the book but am left wanting more.
  
• 
  Martin Vong

  A 4.3 rating, it was hard to put a fine rating on it without being bias, the man not only exceeds in basketball but provides a good narrative, with some parts being a little loose but excusable. I only knew the man via stories of his trash talking, notable skills, his rough upbringing, this book shares his thoughts as he progresses, i recommend watching select highlights to understand the book as he goes through the years to increase excitement when reading it.
• 
  Hanna Anderson

  Book was a little all over the place, and some of the chronology didn’t make sense. However, still an interesting read and great insight for someone who didn’t grow up in the Larry Bird era. Or doesn’t follow basketball that much in general. Rating is for the book’s structure and organization, but being from Indiana I felt it was important to know a little bit about a Hoosier legend. Book accomplished that.
• 
  Tom

  A bit of nostalgia read for me. I grew up in Central Massachusetts during the Celtics Bird era. My first basketball memories were faint ones of the 1981 finals, and I sat riveted throughout the 1983-1988 years.
  
  Larry is such an icon for me and drives me to improve my work ethic. A fun read, published while he was still recovering from Achilles surgery in 1989, so it does not include his return after the surgery or his time on the Dream team in 1992.
• 
  Colin Berg

  This autobiography has such a great voice! You can hear Larry Bird’s Indiana accent seeping through the page. You can hear the legend tell you about all his accomplishments with his signature understated style of trash talk. Reading Larry Legend give you a first person account of 1980’s basketball, the most competitive with era of basketball with the Showtime Lakers, Sixers, Bad Boy Pistons, Hakeem’s Rockets and the Goat Jordan all going at it, makes this a very enjoyable read!
• 
  Harold

  An interesting peek into Bird’s life and career from the man himself. Easily accessible and as frank as can be though wholly positive in his outlook. As one reads the book, it’s quite easy to hear his voice from the passages.