Ryan McGee Apr 5, 2026, 07:59 PM ET

Close

Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com

2-time Sports Emmy winner

2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year

The ball is tipped

And there you are

You're running for your life

You're a shooting star

David Barrett was sitting in a bar when the idea came to him. The 31-year-old musician had spent his entire young adult life grinding as a performer in the watering holes of Michigan. College bars. Dive bars. Even the occasional honky-tonk. On this particular spring night in 1986, it was an East Lansing establishment known as the Varsity Inn and his set -- a performance heard by perhaps two dozen patrons -- was done.

And all the years

No one knows

Just how hard you worked

But now it shows

Barrett was unwinding over a drink. With one eye he watched the TV over the bar as Larry Bird's Boston Celtics ran over another unfortunate NBA opponent.…