Bobby 'Slick' Leonard

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Slick Leonard is hoping to return to Bankers Life Fieldhouse for broadcasts soon after the conclusion of the All-Star break. Until then, he'll continue healing from the fall that has kept him housebound since Dec. 23 and refuse to feel sorry for himself.

Leonard has been battling health issues since March 13, 2011, when he suffered a heart attack on the Pacers' team bus following a victory over New York in Madison Square Garden. His heart has operated at about one-third normal capacity since then, which has led to other problems. A couple of falls, most recently while walking down a step to get into his car for the trip downtown for the game against Washington two days before Christmas, have forced him into long periods of rehabilitation.

"I've learned a lot going through this," he said from his home last week. "But my life has been so damn blessed, there are no complaints."

Leonard has a hematoma – a collection of blood outside of the blood vessels – on his leg, and is under strict orders from his doctor not to go out in public where the risk of infection would be too great. An oxygen tank attached to his leg speeds recovery, and he says he's made significant improvement in the last 10-12 days.

"I'll get that thing healed up and I should be back before long," Leonard said. "I'm anxious to get out of the house.

"It's been a wakeup call for me, I'll tell you that. At my age, people have to be very careful and take things kind of slow."

Leonard has been reminded of that by the people he's met during his rehabilitation processes, many of whom were injured in a fall. But he's also been reminded of how fortunate he is in the bigger picture. One cue came via a telephone call from a woman related to the pilot of the team airplane that crash-landed in an Iowa cornfield while Leonard played for the Minneapolis Lakers.

About 20 people were aboard the plane on Jan. 18, 1960, and all survived. But only four of them are alive today: Leonard, Elgin Baylor, Dick Garmaker and Frank Selvy.

Leonard has a wife, Nancy, who looks after him around the clock, five children, 12 grandchildren and a sprouting collection of great-grandchildren. These days, that takes precedence over his All-American playing career and Hall of Fame coaching career.

"That's what life is all about," he said. "The name of the game is health and happiness. When you have those two things you have everything."

Basketball games don't hurt, either. Leonard follows the state's college teams on television and he listens to his broadcast partner and close friend Mark Boyle while watching on television whenever the Pacers play.

"It's a big night for me when Mark is on the radio," Leonard said. "When you're kind of incapacitated  there are things you really look forward to, like a ballgame. It's fun for me. It's a good thing to have a game to fall back on."

Have a question for Mark? Want it to be on Pacers.com? Email him at askmontieth@gmail.com and you could be featured in his next mailbag.

Mark Montieth's book on the formation and groundbreaking seasons of the Pacers, "Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis," is available in bookstores throughout Indiana and on Amazon.com.

Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Indiana Pacers. All opinions expressed by Mark Montieth are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Indiana Pacers, their partners, or sponsors.

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Leonard Eyeing Return to Pacers Broadcasts

Slick Leonard could return to the broadcast microphone for the Pacers' game with Miami on Sunday. You might say he'll be a game-time decision.

Leonard, who slipped on ice and fractured his hip on Jan. 6, has been recovering at home for the past 2 ½ months after a brief hospital stay. He had a breakthrough on Friday when he was able to walk up the stairs in his Carmel home for the first time since his injury and hopes to be able to make the trek downtown to provide radio color commentary for the first time since Dec. 31.

"I'll know by Sunday if I'm feeling like I can do it," he said when reached by telephone on Friday.

"That was tough stuff going up those stairs. It was good, though. Nancy got mad at me for doing it, but that's OK."

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It won't be easy. Nancy always drives to games, but for now he needs a walker to get around, such as when she took him to get a haircut on Thursday. Darnell Hillman, who played six seasons for Leonard in the ABA and NBA, will meet him at their car with a golf cart and drive him to his broadcast location halfway up Bankers Life Fieldhouse, with the help of a freight elevator.

Leonard had X-rays on Wednesday, which showed the fracture was healing. He was told his injury for someone his age (85) usually takes three to five months to heal. He was given the OK to put weight on his injured left hip, which led to his adventurous climb up the stairs on Friday morning.

Leonard, an All-American at Indiana University and a seven-year NBA veteran, has relied on his athletic background during his recovery.

"Once an athlete, always an athlete," Nancy said. "They can think they can heal quicker than anybody else.

"He's been really good. He's done what they've asked him to do."

Nancy has been at her husband's side throughout his recovery, sleeping in a chair in the living room. She's also looking forward to returning to games at the fieldhouse, where she can continue her pre-game routine: dinner in the Lighthouse Club, a trip through the media room for game notes, a visit in the family lounge and then the walk to her front row behind the scorer's table.

That's another motivating factor for Slick to return.

"Oh, my God," he said. "That's one of my biggest reasons for wanting to come back. She has all these people there she hasn't seen for so long."

If Leonard doesn't return for Sunday's game, he'll have until April 5. That will be the Pacers' next home game after Sunday, following their four-game Western road trip.

He'll decide on Sunday. But Nancy has a prediction.

"In his mind, he's decided he's going to do it," she said.

Mark Montieth's book, "Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis," covers the formation and early seasons of the franchise. It is available at retail outlets throughout Indiana and online at sources such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Slick Could Return On Sunday

Surely no other state has someone as thoroughly representative of its basketball history as Indiana does with Bobby "Slick" Leonard.

From high school star to college All-American who hit the game-winning free throw for a national championship team to hell-raising coach of three professional championship teams to general manager to legendary broadcast analyst and cheerleader (Boom Baby!) to goodwill ambassador, Leonard has run the gamut of all a man can do in the game for one state.

OK, he didn't sell popcorn. But he would have if someone had given him the chance as a kid. He settled for selling ice cream out of a cart in the streets of his native Terre Haute during the Depression.

No job has ever been too humble for Leonard, who will be honored Wednesday when the Pacers tipoff their 50th season against Dallas at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. He's just about done it all in basketball, and done it memorably. The problem in writing about him isn't knowing where to begin, but where to end.

The starting point, though, as it pertains to the Pacers, is 1967. Leonard was living up the road in Kokomo minding his own business, which happened to be as a sales rep for Herff-Jones. He sold class rings, mostly, but also graduation supplies in his northern Indiana territory. He assumed his coaching career was over after being let go by the Baltimore Bullets, who simply weren't good enough to win yet, and had settled comfortably with his wife, Nancy, and four children (with one more still to come) into a mainstream existence.

Then someone got the crazy idea to start a new basketball league, and some other people got the crazy idea of having a franchise in Indianapolis and before you knew it, there was a team called the Pacers trying to make a go of it from scratch. Leonard and another Terre Haute native, Clyde Lovellette, ran the first open tryout at the Fairgrounds Coliseum in June of '67, but that was intended to be a one-shot deal. He never strayed far from the franchise, attending games that first season and acting as a part-time scout and adviser, but wasn't about to give up a steady job to coach the team.

Not until the second season, anyway. A 1-7 start led to a coaching change, and Leonard had seen enough of the talent on the roster to be willing to take the plunge. He and Nancy had just bought furniture for their new home in Kokomo, and once he realized he could keep his sales job and coach the team, he jumped on it. He didn't think the crazy league with the red, white and blue ball and the 3-point shot would survive, but he'd at least be able to pay off his furniture.

LEONARD'S LEGACY: 10 Things That Make Him Slick »

You know what happened next. ABA championships in 1970, '72 and '73, and 529 victories over 12 seasons – enough to get him into the Naismith Hall of Fame, eventually. But that doesn't begin to capture his influence on and for the franchise for generations of fans who only know him for his work on the radio for the past 30-plus years. He hasn't traveled with the team since he suffered a heart attack on the team bus after a game in New York in 2011, but he's still interwoven with the franchise. He works all the home games next to play-by-play voice Mark Boyle. Before the game and during halftime, you can find him in the concourse behind his broadcasting perch, mingling with anyone who stops by to say hello. He's never met a stranger, and never lost his common touch.

That's not surprising to anyone who knows Leonard, because his greatest talent is for relationships. Never one to hide from the public, he had a listed phone number throughout his coaching career with the Pacers. He and Nancy wanted to be found by friends who might be passing through town and by then had five kids who might have friends trying to reach them. That was a large part of his coaching success, too. He knew Xs and Os, but more importantly he knew how to build camaraderie. They hosted parties at their home for all team employees, including the stat crew members, and he required his players to meet in the hotel bar after road games. They didn't have to drink alcohol, and they were free to meet friends later, but they had to spend some time together to celebrate the win or mourn the loss.

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By now, with 84 years gone on the game clock, he's a focal point for an entire state of basketball fans. Nobody else in the state's glorious hardwood history has touched more people via the combination of playing, coaching and broadcasting within the borders, and nobody likely ever will.

It's fashionable to say basketball is like a religion in Indiana. If true, nobody has practiced it and preached it like Leonard. He graduated from high school in Terre Haute in 1950. He played three varsity seasons at IU. He moved back to the state after an NBA playing and coaching career in 1964, and began his association with the Pacers in '67. Except for a couple of years in the early Eighties, between his coaching and broadcasting gigs, he's been drawing a paycheck from them ever since.

More than anything, he's a goodwill ambassador – for basketball, for the Pacers and for Indiana.

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Leonard's Impact on Indiana Basketball is Immeasurable

The Pacers are the only professional sports franchise that owes its survival to a telethon. That unique story has been told on Pacers.com, and will now be told in video form as part of ESPN's 30 for 30 shorts series.

"Slick, Nancy and the Telethon" will debut online at www.espn.com/30for30/shorts on Feb. 16. It will make its television debut on ESPN on Feb. 19 during the 6-7 p.m. hour.

WATCH ONLINE: "Slick, Nancy and the Telethon" Now on ESPN.com »

The 14 ½-minute documentary was produced by Terre Haute native and Indianapolis resident Michael Husain, who has contributed several works to ESPN over the years, including several of the Sports Century biographical features.

This one tells the story of the role former Pacers coach Bob "Slick" Leonard and his wife Nancy had in building the Pacers franchise and then saving it with a telethon on July 4, 1977 when lack of revenue threatened to force the owners to either shut down the franchise or sell it. The event, conducted at the Convention Center, was thrown together in about 10 days under Nancy's direction.

The Pacers, who had finished 36-46 in their first NBA season, said they needed to sell 8,000 season tickets before the following season to stay afloat and they needed the money quickly. Some front office employees had gone weeks without being paid, and all the players but one — Len Elmore — had agreed to a two-week extension before receiving their postseason paychecks. Reportedly, 5,720 tickets had been sold already.

The community came together to make it happen. Even little kids went through their neighborhoods to collect coins to bring down and offer. Employees counted the financial donations on the floor of the convention center. When the magical 8,000 figure was reached minutes before the telethon was to go off the air, Nancy burst into tears, Mayor William Hudnut applauded and a band kicked up "Back Home Again in Indiana."

Husain originally thought of the story as a possibility for a regular-length 30 for 30 documentary, but scrapped that idea when he found out how little footage of the event exists today.

"When the 'shorts' came around, I remembered it and pitched it," he said. "It didn't take too long once they understood the idea to say yes. It's such a quirky little story."

The documentary will include footage from the telethon and interviews with the Leonards, former WISH-TV sports anchor Chet Coppock, who participated in the event, and former Indianapolis Star sportswriter Bill Benner, who reported on it.

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Slick and Nancy Leonard's Pacers Telethon Subject of 30 for 30

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2014 Pacers Foundation Golf Outing presented by Katz Sapper & Miller

Sitting in the audience tonight at the 2014 Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony, it was clear, if not cliché: If ever there was one person for whom you could say has had a storybook life, it is one Bob "Slick" Leonard.

Standing on stage, an 82 year-old man with Larry Bird and Mel Daniels behind him stirred the echoes of the very origins of the game of basketball with remarkable, nearly-photographic recollection. Slick talked about his high school coach, a protegé of Glenn Curtis, who coached "Johnny Wooden" in high school. Slick brought up playing against legendary Kansas coach Phog Allen, facing Dean Smith as a player all while bringing up countless other players and coaches both famed and forgotten. It shook—however subtly—the core of everyone in that room. With basketball being so global now, Slick brought it all the way back home, back to its roots. And yes, back to Indiana.

Tonight, everyone in that room got a glimpse of what we in the Hoosier state likely take for granted: Slick is Indiana. And being from Indiana in that way means you can reach back through time and breathe the air from when peach baskets were used as basketball hoops and games were played in actual cages.

Those types of guys are few and far between these days. Slick has endured and was able to tell his story on a national stage in grand fashion, putting an end-cap on a remarkable career.

By all rights, Slick is the reigning godfather of the game in Indiana. He's a guy who's been around so long, every Pacers fan since the beginning of the franchise knows who he is. He's been around so long, longtime IU fans know who he is. Some people, dare I say, are still alive today that were fans of his in high school in the late 40s.

You could even go so far as to make the argument that he's the most important Hoosier ever when it comes to basketball inside the borders of Indiana. Why? He was born here, had success here as a player, then came back and fostered the game at home for the next 50 years. Or, more simply, he stayed when others left. Besides playing pro ball for a year in L.A. after they left Minnesota, he never chased the brass ring or bright lights somewhere else, even though I'm sure he could've had he wished to do so.

But, perhaps one of the most remarkable things about Slick is that no one has any bad feelings about him. Talk to 10 fans about anyone else in the basketball universe and you'll get 10 different opinions, some good, some bad. Ask them about Slick and it's all smiles and good cheer.

The only thing that seems to change from fan to fan is when they became aware of Slick. For me, it was listening to him on the radio when Chuck Person was a rookie and hit some big 3-pointers to help complete a win. (I don't recall a "Boom Baby!" at the time, although it's certainly possible it was said.)

The worst thing anyone could say is some fans felt bad for Slick that his life's work wasn't properly recognized by basketball royalty. Like somehow being from a small town in Indiana and working for an underdog league in the 70s and spending his life in a small market somehow made his accomplishments smaller. We all know that's not true, even if the message we were receiving for years is that it was true.

Playing the fool's game, what could've accelerated the timing of his call to the Hall?

Maybe doing more of his life's work when the world was paying more attention to basketball would've helped. Maybe if he had a better pro career, it would've helped. Maybe if the ABA wasn't swept under the rug after the merger, that would've helped. Maybe if he would've sought out a national broadcasting announcing gig and made his "Boom Baby!" call an even bigger phenomenon, that would've helped. Maybe.

It's impossible to predict because everything he did led to another thing that eventually led to him coming home and never leaving. And here, in Indiana, he created something perfect. And that's the legacy, the personality, the history he takes to the Hall. Not something watered down or something different, something truly Hoosier.

Loved and beloved. Exactly how it should be.

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Slick's Storybook Life is a Hoosier Tale

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Heart of a Hoosier World Premiere

INDIANAPOLIS – The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced Friday that Bob “Slick” Leonard, the franchise’s legendary coach from the American Basketball Association will be inducted into the Hall of Fame after being voted in by the ABA Committee. The induction ceremony will take place this September.

Leonard, who has the number 529 (his number of coaching victories) retired by the Pacers, led the Pacers to three ABA championships during his career. He currently is in his 29th year with the team as a broadcaster after coaching the team from 1968 to 1980. This is the third straight year a member of the Pacers has been cited by the ABA Committee for the Hall of Fame following Mel Daniels induction in 2012 and the late Roger Brown in 2013.

“It took a little while, but we’re going out in style,” said Leonard, who grew up in Terre Haute, was part of a national championship team at Indiana and played and coached in the NBA. “For me, it’s a legacy for your children and your grandchildren. It’s great recognition again for the ABA Pacers, the Pacers’ franchise and it’s also great recognition for the State of Indiana and its basketball history and tradition at all levels, high school, college and professional.”

“I couldn’t be happier for Slick Leonard, who has meant so much to this franchise, this city and this state,” said Pacers’ Owner Herb Simon. “It’s a well-deserved honor and makes all of us with the Pacers very proud. Boom Baby!”

“Personally, I’m very happy for the Leonard family,” said Pacers President of Basketball Operations Larry Bird. “I have always had the utmost respect for Slick, for his college career, his NBA career, his ABA career and his broadcasting career with the Pacers. He is what Indiana basketball is all about, from his knowledge of its history to the success he has had with the game. He’s very deserving and definitely has earned his spot in the Hall of Fame. When you think of the Indiana Pacers, you think of Bob Leonard. Congratulations, my dear friend.”