A Letter From the Publisher: Mar. 18, 1985

When Tom Callahan was asked to join TIME as a sportswriter almost four years ago, he hesitated. He was reluctant to give up the freedom he had enjoyed for ten years as a newspaper columnist, first at the Cincinnati Enquirer and later at the Washington Star. But Managing Editor Ray Cave, a former sports journalist, was not looking for just a reporter. “He told me he wanted the section to read like a column,” Callahan recalls. “I was to write in my own voice.” Since then, Callahan has, in his inimitable fashion, described Super Bowls and World Series, Masters tournaments and Olympic Games. In this week’s cover story, Callahan looks at two young men who are the premier players in their sports: Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics basketball team and Wayne Gretzky of hockey’s Edmonton Oilers.

“I like to do my own reporting,” says Callahan. “I would find it difficult to give the flavor of a place or personality if I hadn’t got it firsthand.” A few weeks ago, Callahan set off for Seattle to catch Bird and the Boston Celtics on the road, and traveled with the team to Oakland and Los Angeles. Then he flew to Edmonton to talk with Gretzky and the Oilers. After that, to get a feeling for his subjects’ nurturing grounds, he went to French Lick, Ind., where one of Bird’s older brothers showed him around and introduced him to the family, and Brantford, Ont., where one of Gretzky’s younger brothers served as his guide.

Basketball is special to Callahan. “I grew up with the game,” he says. “As a sportswriter in the late 1960s, I covered the San Diego Rockets and later the Cincinnati Royals, and I still miss those associations. I used to see 100 games a year. On the road, sharing cabs and airport check-in lines, we were a small and sometimes forlorn band: the Rockets and the Royals lost a lot, and coming into New York City to play the then triumphant Knicks in front of 19,500 people could be a rather poignant experience.”

The Rockets and Royals were plagued by injuries, and Callahan, who is 6 ft. 2 in., was often drafted for daily practice. “Most players treated me like old crystal to keep from hurting me or themselves,” he recalls. “Their attitude was ‘I don’t want to end my career playing one-on-one with a writer.’ “

For this week’s cover story, Callahan did not go one-on-one with Bird–except in interviews. In those conversations, Callahan says, “Bird could tell I knew the life.” From this week’s cover story, one might conclude that Callahan also grew up on skates.