The first Slam Dunk Contest was conducted not by the NBA but by the ABA.

• The 1976 American Basketball Association All-Star game was scheduled for January 27 at McNichols Arena in Denver.
• The league was struggling for survival. The new Baltimore franchise had folded before the end of training camp. Utah and San Diego went down early in the season. Only seven teams remained in one division.
• It was decided to pit the league-leading team against all-stars from the other six squads. Luckily, the host Nuggets occupied the top spot, which would increase attendance.
• Carl Scheer, Nuggets GM, Jim Keeler of the ABA office, and Jim Bukata, the league PR man, arranged a pregame show featuring Glen Campbell and Charlie Rich. But they wanted "a very strong gimmick for halftime" (Bukata's words) for the game which would be televised in a number of ABA cities.
• Bukata recalls the planning meeting: "I said, 'Hey, let's have a Slam Dunk Contest.' Everybody said, 'Great.' Then we all said, 'Okay, how do you have a Slam Dunk Contest?'"

It was fitting that the ABA stage the first Slam Dunk Contest.

• Dan Issel, star C for the host Nuggets: "The Slam Dunk Contest went right to the heart of the old ABA. The dunk was a bigger play in the ABA than it is in today's NBA; it was a statement of your manhood and your talent. The dunk was so important to the ABA that the pregame warm-ups became a show. The Nets had a guy named Ollie Taylor who would just go off in pregame. He would windmill, do reverse dunks, everything you could think of, and the fans would get pumped up before the game even began. The contest was an invevitable extension of that."
• The ABA also featured the three-point basket and the red, white, and blue ball.

Still, the format and rules had to be created from scratch.

• To save money, the planning committee invited five players who would be in Denver for the game.
  • 6'6" Julius Erving, New York Nets
  • 6'7" George Gervin, San Antonio Spurs
  • 7'2" Artis Gilmore, Kentucky Colonels
  • 6'9" Larry Kenon, San Antonio Spurs
  • 6'4" David Thompson, Denver Nuggets
• The committee figured the contest would be between Erving, even then known as "Doctor J," and the rookie Thompson, the local favorite.

Julius had trepidations about the contest.

• "When the idea of a Slam Dunk Contest was presented, it concerned me some, because I had never been in one before. I always considered myself a very good dunker, and I wanted to win, but my best dunks were always done in the game. I didn't think about them, I just did them."
• "The other thing about the contest was that it would be held at halftime, so we would all have been playing and our legs would be a little tired."
• "None of us did much preparing for the contest; we all sort of winged it."

Before the game, Doug Moe, a former ABA player with the New Orleans Bucs and an assistant to his buddy Larry Brown with the Nuggets that year, discussed with fellow New Yorker Doctor J the latter's plan to take off from the foul line and slam it.

• "In his usual obnoxious way," Moe said that nobody, J included, could dunk taking off 15' from the basket.
• Many players said the Doctor could, leading to many side bets.

When halftime came, the players didn't go to the dressing rooms but sat on the floor along the sideline to watch the show.

• "When a guy would make a good dunk, you'd see the other players cheering, giving each other high fives. It was like we all were back on the playground watching this shootout." (Issel)
• Bukata: "Probably the most spectacular dunk of the night didn't even count. In the practice session, Thompson did this cradle dunk where he cradled the ball in his left arm and then leaped over the rim and punched the ball down through his arm into the rim. He really was dunking the ball with his fist."
• Erving had developed a plan for his mandatory dunks.
  • First dunk (standstill): "I took a basketball in each hand and then slammed one after the other."
  • Second dunk (left side): "Iron Cross: I'd jump by the basket, spread out my arms as if I were flyling and then dunk the ball behind me without ever looking at the rim."
  • Third dunk (right side): "I drove under the basket, grabbed the rim with my right arm and slammed the ball with my left."
• Scheer: "The fans were going crazy all during the contest, as if they were seeing something they'd want to tell their grandchildren about. And for the people watching on the court, the tension was building because we were all waiting for Julius's long dunk."

When Julius prepared for his long dunk, Moe went to the sideline even with the foul line to make sure Erving didn't step on over over the foul line.

• Erving: "I had dunked in practice from behind the foul line, so I knew I could do it. But I had to get my stride just right. Everything had to be perfect for it to work."
• J went to the foul line, turned, and trotted off the distance for his run-up. The crowd started screaming until he turned and faced the basket. Then silence as he took off with his antelope-like strides.
• Scheer: "The arena was so quiet you could hear his every step as his shoes touched the floor. ... Then he was off, in the air, and he brought the ball back from behind himself somewhere as if he were a helicopter. He rammed it through the rim, and only when the ball hit the floor did the crowd. People just went crazy."
• Bukata: "If you watch the tape of the dunk, you'll see Doug Moe pointing to the foul line, indicating that Julius's foot was on the line."
• Erving: "I did step on the line, as Doug Moe was quick to point out. I said to Doug, 'Look, I'm not doing that again. No one else can dunk from anywhere near as far out as I just did.' Then we all laughed."
• The makeshift panel of four judges, which include an elderly woman who was a Nuggets fan and a local high school coach, voted Erving the winner.

After that season, the ABA finally got the merger with the NBA that it had long sought. It was not until 1984, however, that the NBA finally held its first Slam Dunk Contest. (See Quiz below.)

Video of Slam Dunk Contest: Part I | Part II
Reference: Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the
American Basketball Association, Terry Pluto

Julius Erving

George Gervin

Artis Gilmore

Larry Kenon

David Thompson

Coach Bill Hodges

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in 1979 NCAAFinals

Coach Bobby Knight came close to having two of the greatest players in basketball history as teammates on his Indiana squad.

• Larry Bird from the small town of French Lick IN attracted college recruiters in his junior year in high school.
• One of his suitors was Louisville coach Denny Crum. However, Larry refused to visit the school.
• Crum didn't give up, and one afternoon Larry discovered the coach shooting baskets in his high school gym. When Bird again refused the invitation to make a visit, Crum made a proposition.
• "I'll play a game of HORSE with you. If I beat you, you've got to come for a visit." Bird agreed but soon regretted it. The former UCLA G under legendary John Wooden matched Larry basket for basket for 15 minutes until Bird finally prevailed.

The only out-of-state school that peaked Bird's interest was Kentucky.

• Larry visited the beautiful campus in Lexington 135 miles from home.
• The problem was that Wildcat Coach Joe B. Hall considered Bird too slow to get off his shot in the SEC. So Hall quit recruiting him.
• "I don't know if I would have gone there," Bird says. "They ended up taking Rick Robey instead of me. He was 6-foot-11, and they got who they wanted and won a national championship."

That left Indiana, his mother's choice, and Indiana State, his father's preference.

• Hoosier coach Bobby Knight gave Bird the same spiel he gave every other recruit: no shortcuts, no guarantees, no special treatment.
• Since that was what Larry and his mother wanted to hear, he chose IU, 49 miles north of French Lick.

It didn't take Bird long to realize he was a fish out of water in Bloomington.

• He hadn't traveled very far from French Lick, and he quickly realized his wardrobe and other possessions didn't stack up to most of the other students, including his roommate, Jim Wisman, another basketball recruit.
• In the beginning, Bird spent almost every evening at the place where he felt right at home - Assembly Hall, the basketball arena. He and Wisman and other freshmen hoped to get into games with the varsity players but rarely did.
• So the freshmen switched to the outdoor courts. Soon some varsity men began showing up, drawn by tales of the top-notch basketball being played.
• One of the older players was All-American Scott May, who made jumper after jumper over Bird, frustrating and even humiliating the young forward. Larry learned from Scott how to lean into the defender, then lean back slightly to launch his shot.
• Bird bumped into Coach Knight just a few times because official workouts hadn't started yet. Intimidated, Bird said very little to Bobby, not telling him about his unhappiness.
• More and more disenchanted and lacking money to improve his status, Bird stuck it out to please his mother. But that resolve vanished when he broke his toe during a pickup game on an outdoor court. He limped from class to class, often arriving late./li>
• He departed after 24 days to the chagrin of his mother, who dreamed of him being the first member of the family to graduate from college. She didn't speak to her son for a month and a half.
• Larry never heard from Knight. "I have no clue when Coach Knight even realized I was gone. They had a great team. I'm sure he was thinking, 'The hell with Bird.' I can't say I blame him."

Larry moved in with his grandmother and explored other alternatives.

• He enrolled in nearby Northwood Institute but left after two weeks because he was way too good for that level of basketball.
• The town of French Lick hired him to do outdoor tasks like cutting trees, painting street signs, and so on. He continued to play in pickup games, summer leagues, and AAU tournaments.
• Among the many recruiters who contacted him, Bill Hodges, an assistant at Indiana State, showed up unannounced at Bird's home and other places in the town where he might find Larry or his mother.

ISU head coach Bob King's reservations about Larry's ability disappeared one night when he and Hodges attended an AAU game between Bird's team and an Indiana All-Star team.

• Larry hurried to the game directly from a job that involved putting up 1,300 bales of hay that week. Noticing the scratches on Larry's arms, King guessed where they came from. "I bet your arms are pretty tired," the coach said. "I can barely lift them," Bird admitted.
• All he did that evening was score 43 points and hault down 25 rebounds against the all-stars. "We need to get you up to Terre Haute," King told him after the game.

Bird enrolled at ISU in the fall of 1975.

• After sitting out a year as required by the NCAA transfer rules, he played three seasons for the Sycamores.
• His final year, with Hodges as head coach, ISU went undefeated in 33 games before losing to Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Michigan State in the 1979 NCAA Final.

Indiana coach Bobby Knight tried to recruit an out-of-state player who went on to become one of the greatest ever.

• In 1976, fresh off an undefeated national championship season, Knight traveled to East Lansing MI to visit Earvin Johnson at Everett High School. Johnson still rates that visit as one of the greatest thrills of his life.
• The player who would come to be known as "Magic" woke up an hour early that morning and hurried to the school gym to shoot 100 FTs just in case Coach Knight wanted him to shoot some freebies.
• Knight told George Fox, Johnson's coach, that he would meet with the prospect when school ended. Yet half an hour before the final bell sounded, Fox ran into Knight in the hallway near Magic's classroom. "Coach, you're early," Fox said. "I always am," Bobby replied. "When I recruit a player, I like to see him with his peers, check out his attitude with the other students."
• Knight perceived Johnson to be a confident, outgoing young man revered by his classmates as the undisputed leader of the student body.

Earvin sat in the cafeteria with Knight and Fox.

• Earvin lost his bravado because he was intimidated by Knight. But he extended his hand, and Bobby shook it warmly.
• Knight put his two companions at ease by telling anecdotes illustrating his passion for basketball. Magic recalls, "He had a great smile. I don't think I had ever seen him smile before."
• The Hoosier head man explained that all his players were required to go to class and graduate. "If you come, you will be treated like everyone else. You will be expected to earn your spot. I don't give anybody anything. You have to prove to me you deserve it."
• Johnson found the approach refreshing after many schools promised him corner lockers, starting jobs, as well as clothes, cash, and cars - perks that violated NCAA rules.
• The discussion took a different turn when Knight suddenly asked, "So, Earvin, where the hell are you going to school?" Johnson admitted he wasn't sure. "I don't know about Indiana. If you started getting in my face, I'm not sure how I'd react to that."
• With that, Knight stood up, shook Fox's hand, and left. "That was it," said Magic. "I never spoke to or heard from him again."
• "To tell you the truth, I regret not taking a visit. He was a tremendous coach. And just imagine if Larry had stayed and I had gone there. The two of us would have played in college together. Now that would have been something."

Magic and Larry before NCAA Championship Game

Magic signed with his hometown Michigan State Spartans and led them to the 1979 NCAA Championship against Larry Bird's Sycamores of Indiana State. The two then dueled throughout their Hall of Fame careers with the Los Angeles Lakers (Johnson) and Boston Celtics (Bird).

Larry Bird and Magic Johnson