Pacers’ Bobby ‘Slick’ Leonard tribute turns to Nancy, but of course it was always about Nancy
Bobby #Bobby
INDIANAPOLIS — One day short of a month had passed since Bobby “Slick” Leonard died — the man she loved for nearly seven decades — and Nancy Leonard was back in his house. Back at Bankers Life Fieldhouse for a tribute to her late husband who, few argue, built the Pacers from the ground up and had Indiana running through his blood.
“I didn’t know if I would be able to speak about Bob. God, Bob where are you?” Nancy said with tears in her eyes. “You are supposed to be here to help me.”
For 66 years of marriage he was. Since a chance meeting in a freshman health class at Indiana University. When Leonard saw Nancy, “a real looker,” he called her, and stuck his foot out as she walked by because that’s the only way he could think to flirt and then asked her to “go with him.”
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Nancy was brought up more times than can be counted in the service Wednesday by Pacers Sports & Entertainment titled “Boom Baby! The Life and Times of Bobby ‘Slick’ Leonard.” It was a public celebration of life for the Hall of Fame coach — who won three ABA titles with the Pacers and was the longtime team broadcaster — who died April 13 at 88.
The format was fashioned after a basketball game — Leonard’s life in game form — first quarter, second, halftime, third, fourth and then overtime.
But it was in that overtime that Nancy took the stage and, amid tears and laughter, she remembered her husband.
And with that, the Pacers tribute to Leonard became Nancy’s tribute to Leonard.
Of course, it would. For Leonard, it was always about Nancy.
Got lost in the basketball goal
It was on the “wrong side of the tracks” in Terre Haute where Leonard grew up. He would tell people that, even argue about just how wrong his side was, said Rick Fuson, president and chief operating officer of the Pacers.
Nancy was from South Bend and came elegantly from the right side of the tracks.
Leonard’s early teen years were spent playing basketball. At first, he would play alone.
“I had an imaginary guy I was playing against,” Leonard said in the 2014 WFYI Ted Green Films documentary “Heart of a Hoosier,” which chronicled Leonard’s life during the service. “Beat him every time. I was kind of, oh I don’t know what you’d call it, an introvert. I could get lost on that basketball goal.”
Then he played with servicemen, guys who had returned from the Marines. He would play from dawn until past midnight.
“They would tell stories about the South Pacific and my eyes would be this big around,” Leonard said in the documentary.
But they taught him a lot. Maybe too much. They were a “wild” set of guys, Nancy said. Leonard learned about smoking, drinking and playing cards — and how to play a mean game of ball.
He was just 5-4 when he entered high school, but grew to nearly 6-4 by his junior season. His high school basketball coach, who had coached 40 years, called Leonard the best who had ever played for him when he retired.
When Leonard went to IU to play for coach Branch McCracken, Leonard found that groove for all those hours on the court. He helped lead the team to a national title in 1953.
But one thing off the court eluded him. He had never had a girlfriend in high school.
And then along came Nancy.
‘God put us together’
Nancy couldn’t believe it, she said. How had Leonard not had a girlfriend. The only thing she could figure was his “economic conditions.” His poor clothes probably made catching a girl’s eye a tough feat.
“Bob was quite a naïve person when we met,” she said.
His idea of asking somebody out came two days into them knowing one another.
“He looked at me and he said, ‘Will you go with me? Well, will ya?'” Nancy said. “All I could hear was my dad saying ‘Watch out for all those boys at IU because it’s hard to tell what they might want to do.'”
Nancy decided Leonard wasn’t one of those guys. “Oh well, OK, I have nothing better to do,” she told him.
Nancy said she was “nerdy” and studied all the time. She would drag Leonard to the campus library.
“And he’d pretend like he was studying. Of course he wasn’t, but anyway, we got through four years at IU,” she said.
It was long before that, on their third date, Leonard started talking about how they should get married.
“I was really in a panic but it was the right thing,” she said. “And I really sincerely think that God put us together.”
Put them together for the next 66 years. And much of that time together was all about basketball.
‘Outside to Reggie for 3, Boom Baby’
The service was held in a dimly lit fieldhouse with “Boom Baby” splashed on every sign board. “Back Home Again in Indiana” played as the tribute began and then clips of Leonard making his iconic 3-point calls.
“Boom baby, boom baby, outside to Reggie for 3 booom babbby.”
There were beautiful tributes to Leonard by all the greats and great names in basketball, George McGinnis, Darnell Hillman, Bob Netolicky, Donnie Walsh, Steve Simon, Jim Morris.
Mark Boyle, the Pacers’ radio voice and Leonard’s long-time broadcast partner, was master of ceremonies.
They talked of Leonard’s passion for the game, how if not for him Indianapolis wouldn’t be the sports city it is today. The number 529 was displayed prominently, the number of games Leonard won as a coach.
They talked about how it would be hard to ever find another like Leonard.
“You know that road U.S. 40 coming from Terre Haute brought a lot of good people,” Fuson said. “But it didn’t bring anybody better than Bobby ‘Slick’ Leonard. He could just look at you and you’d feel good about what you were doing.”
They talked about the man he was and how he mentored everyone who came in his path, including another guy from Terre Haute.
“He calls Larry ‘Larry Joe’ and Larry calls him ‘Big Daddy,'” Nancy said in the documentary.
When Bird was coaching the Pacers, he and Leonard spent a lot of time together, talking players, game strategy, playing golf.
When Market Square Arena was going to be imploded, Bird called Leonard up. He wanted him to be there after the Pacers final practice at the gym so he could assist Leonard in making the last shot at the arena.
He made it. Then a worker came by and threw up a shot.
“So we had to do it again,” Bird said laughing. “You know, for a lot of people, it doesn’t really mean anything. To me and Slick, it meant everything.”
Market Square Arena was, after all, where the ABA Pacers had played. That arena was the house that Leonard built.
The team he coached was the team that he — and Nancy — saved in a telethon as finances went south.
“You know, I imagine every Indianapolis mayor since Bill Hudnut has had moments when they consider the trajectory that our city might have taken had we lost the Pacers in 1977,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said as he took the stage Wednesday. “Would the Colts have passed us by? Would we have had the momentum to bid and win the host city for the Pan American games? What about the Super Bowl?”
And for that, Hogsett revealed that May 29 — 5-29, 529 games won by Leonard — would be declared Bobby “Slick” Leonard day in Indianapolis.
The audience broke out in cheers.
‘Gentle giant with a golden voice’
Almost everyone who spoke Wednesday mentioned Nancy. It’s tough to talk about Leonard without talking about her.
But Nancy, she could only talk about this man, this wonderful man.
“I referred to him as my gentle giant with a golden voice,” Nancy said.
She talked about the tiny little things about him that she never got tired of.
“And something you don’t know is he had the absolute most gorgeous handwriting I have ever seen in my life,” she said. “And mine is atrocious, so he signed all the cards because it was really wonderful the way he wrote.”
Even the loud and flashy clothing Leonard wore. In the documentary, Nancy rolled her eyes.
“Do we even have to talk about it?” she said. White leisure suits, brown leisure suits, yellow leisure suits, neon leisure suits.
“The only ones Goodwill wouldn’t take,” said Netolicky.
Yet from his outlandish clothing to his passion for the game and to his undying love of family, Leonard never could do anything without thinking of Nancy.
Leonard was interred at Southlawn Cemetery in South Bend on April 22, Nancy’s hometown. He wanted to be where she wanted to be.
And as she left the stage Wednesday after wondering if she would be able to talk about her “Bob” she knew that question she had asked had been answered.
“Bob where are you?” He was right there with her.
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers’ Bobby ‘Slick’ Leonard tribute turns to Nancy, but of course it was always about Nancy