Latest news with #NancyLeonard
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Indiana's basketball moment: Pacers' NBA Finals run and Caitlin Clark mania
INDIANAPOLIS — The scene spoke to this team's hard luck history, all the way back to the night it nearly died. The Indiana Pacers were on the verge of collapse in July 1977, broke and bereft of hope, desperate enough to host a 16-hour telethon on local TV in hopes of selling a preposterous number of tickets — 8,000 of them — just to climb out of debt and live to see another season. Advertisement Nancy Leonard wasn't just there that night; along with her husband, coach Bobby 'Slick' Leonard, she was the reason the Pacers survived. They sold 8,028. The NBA's first woman general manager sat courtside this past Saturday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the first game Leonard has attended all season due to health concerns, and watched the team she saved from being sold and shipped out of town punch its ticket to the NBA Finals. Amid the celebration, the Pacers' longest-tenured player weaved his way through the crowd and found the 93-year-old for a long embrace. 'You were with us every step of the way,' Myles Turner told her. The path of these Pacers, embodied by the Leonards' resolve in the late 1970s and Turner's five decades later, has them four wins from their first NBA title, with Game 1 tipping off Thursday night in Oklahoma City. The franchise's most improbable postseason run hasn't merely stirred echoes of the past, from Slick's three ABA titles to Reggie Miller's 1990s heroics. It's delivered a proud basketball state a moment it has craved for years. Advertisement In Indiana, hoops are as hot as ever. 'This is the first time I have real, real confidence we can win the whole thing,' said Matt Asen, whom Pacers owner Herb Simon has long referred to as the team's No. 1 fan. (You probably know Asen as Sign Guy. Or Flamingo Guy. Or Hard-Hat Guy. He's had seats under the Pacers' basket for over three decades, and he's hard to miss.) 'After Reggie left, there was this big lull there … and it was really hard. But this has been so fun. The city's pumped. It almost feels better than the Reggie days.' Meanwhile, the biggest draw in the women's game, Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, sat courtside for the Game 6 clincher over the Knicks. When she returns from a quad injury in the coming weeks, the raucous crowds that have filled the Fieldhouse recently won't taper off. Same as the Pacers, the Fever pack the place. Midway through last season, Clark's first in the WNBA, the Fever reported staggering spikes in ticket sales (up 264 percent), jersey sales (up 1,193 percent) and corporate sponsors (up 225 percent). So far, there has been no Year 2 letdown. Advertisement 'It's hard to put a finger on a more unique sports moment here,' said Chris Gahl, executive vice president at VisitIndy, the city's lead tourism agency. 'The Pacers are in the NBA Finals. The Fever are red-hot. The WNBA All-Star game is coming, on the heels of (2o24's) NBA All-Star Game. It's a very unique moment in our city's history, and it's tipping tourism to record-setting levels.' Gahl noted that fans are traveling from all over the world to watch the Fever in person, and when his staff pitches convention organizers from across the country on which sporting events they can take in while in town — the Big Ten Championship Game? How about the NCAA Tournament? Or the Indianapolis 500? — it's the Fever that are often 'the most compelling invitation in luring people to our city.' Not that the Pacers lack appeal. More than 10,000 are expected to fill Gainbridge Fieldhouse for Games 1 and 2 watch parties before the series shifts to Indianapolis next week. (Team brass also offered to fly out every full-time staffer to Oklahoma City for Games 1 and 2.) After the Pacers dusted the Knicks in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals — or as Asen's sign read, 'Hicks in Six' — fans lingered outside the arena well past midnight, roaring as players pulled out of their parking spots. Truth told, the party has lingered for weeks in the Circle City: an estimated 350,000 were on hand for the 109th running of the Indy 500 on May 25, the same day the Pacers hosted Game 3. Some were brave (read: lucky) enough to pull the double: racers in the afternoon, Pacers in the evening. Advertisement 'It's bringing back the old days,' said Craig Emmons, a lifelong Hoosier who owns SOS Pub, a bar that sits across the street from Gainbridge Fieldhouse that has tripled its business over the last month. Beyond Turner's embrace with Nancy Leonard, another hug amid the celebration spoke to the Pacers' tortured past and booming present. During the trophy presentation, Miller pulled in Tyrese Haliburton for several seconds. This was the franchise's greatest icon and lone NBA Hall of Famer showing respect for the man who now carries the mantle. It was two weeks ago, after Haliburton's Game 1 heroics in Madison Square Garden — complete with a Miller-esque choke sign that blanketed the tabloids the following morning — when Miller asked Haliburton during a TNT interview what it would mean to lead the Pacers to their first NBA championship. 'It was something I was never able to do,' Miller conceded, 'and it haunts me to this day.' For a moment, Haliburton weighed the possibility. The sixth-year guard smiled and tilted his head, his mind dancing at the thought. He went back to a ride he took during the Indianapolis 500 parade a few years back, and how the city's streets were lined with swaths of people, too many to count. Advertisement 'Triple that,' Haliburton finally said, imagining a championship celebration. 'It would be ridiculous. 'It to happen.' The torch has been passed, and even New York writers have noted the striking similarities between the two: string-bean shooter, awkward jump shot, late-game assassin. 'The Curse of Reggie Miller is still very much in full force around here,' the New York Daily News' Mike Lupica wrote after Haliburton connected on three consecutive fourth-quarter runners late in Game 6 that stretched the Pacers' lead. A moment later, he drained a 32-foot dagger to seal it. TNT duties aside, Miller had to be beaming. His team was . Advertisement He had dropped 34 in the Game 6 clincher in 2000 that sent the Pacers to their first finals; Haliburton dropped 22 and dished out 13 assists Saturday to send them to their second. Indiana's won six of its last seven playoff series against New York. Few things make this fan base happier. 'There's a lot of fans who've never seen this kind of success from this organization,' Haliburton said. 'They've never been alive for it.' More than anyone on the roster, it's Turner who can appreciate the long road here. The years of middling seasons and middling records, the persistent trade rumors and perennial disappointments, the superstars who had the city at their fingertips — Paul George and Victor Oladipo — only to decide they wanted out. Turner's 10-year NBA odyssey feels like 15. To think: when he was drafted in 2015, Frank Vogel was still the coach. He survived the Nate McMillan and Nate Bjorkgren eras and now is thriving under Rick Carlisle. Advertisement There was a certain level of conviction — a conviction Turner has earned — when he spoke late Saturday about how the Pacers have climbed from mediocrity to contention for the first time in a decade. This group, Turner pointed out, was 'a new blueprint for the league.' In other words: the anti-superteam. Selfless leaders. Stoic coach. Dogged demeanor. Some late-game guile. 'I've done this for a long time,' said TV play-by-play man Chris Denari, who's in his 19th year calling games for the team. 'This is the closest locker room I've ever been around.' The Pacers have been wholly embraced by a city and state that has long cherished the game. At one point, 12 of the 13 biggest high school gyms in the country were in Indiana. In 1990, more than 41,000 — still a national record — packed the Hoosier Dome to watch a high school state championship game. The list of icons goes on and on: Oscar and Larry, Wooden and Knight. Advertisement The game runs deep here. It always has. Which is why, during the trophy presentation Saturday night, Carlisle spoke to the fans who've waited years for a moment — and a team — like this one. 'In 49 states, it's just basketball,' Carlisle said. 'But this is Indiana …' Four more wins and the Pacers will celebrate something that would've been unthinkable the night of July 3, 1977, when Slick and Nancy Leonard saved the franchise from collapse. Without that telethon, the team would've been sold and shipped to another city. Indianapolis would've lost a part of its identity. Carlisle knows simply getting here isn't enough. Bring home an NBA championship, and his team will live forever in these parts. Advertisement 'It's an all-or-nothing thing,' the coach said. 'This is no time to be popping champagne.' This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Indiana Pacers, Oklahoma City Thunder, Indiana Fever, NBA, WNBA, NBA Playoffs 2025 The Athletic Media Company
Indianapolis Star
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Indianapolis Star
Nancy Leonard is back where she belongs ... at the Pacers' game
CARMEL — The woman who saved the Pacers in Indianapolis hasn't been able to be where she wants to be for the magical playoff run her team is making. Nancy Leonard is 93 now. For years, all the way through last season, she was there every time the Pacers played at home, but concerns about her health have kept her away from Gainbridge Fieldhouse this season. Until now. Nancy is back where she belongs for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Sunday night, returning to Gainbridge Fieldhouse to see her Pacers try to take a 3-0 advantage over the Knicks. The thought of being back in the stands brought tears to her eyes earlier this week. 'It means the world to me,' Leonard said. 'It's the thing that's kept me positive.' Despite not being able to go to Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Nancy Leonard has still been glued to every game. There's a massive TV on the wall in her room, roughly 65 inches of screen enveloping a space that's only a few steps away from where the NBA's first female general manager sits. 'It's like I'm sitting in my seat,' she said. 'If this wall was any bigger, my sons would have gotten one bigger than this one, and this is big enough. … I look forward to every game. I haven't missed a game.' Not when the Pacers were in Paris. Not when they're on the West Coast and the game tips off at 10:30 p.m. It's the team Nancy has loved for so long. Her husband, the legendary Bobby 'Slick' Leonard, took over the Pacers in 1968, won three ABA titles and ushered the franchise into the NBA when the league absorbed the ABA in 1976. Before that season began, the Pacers were searching for a general manager, and after Leonard told the team's owners that the person who filled the role had to both come from a basketball background and be able to handle ticket sales, marketing and the finances while Slick focused on basketball, the team decided to install her as the team's assistant general manager, a role she held for five seasons. The next offseason, Nancy Leonard's idea saved the Pacers in Indianapolis. Forced into dire financial trouble by the terms placed on the Pacers to join the NBA, the franchise needed to sell 8,000 season tickets to have enough money to keep playing. She came up with the idea of the telethon that saved the NBA in Indianapolis. Without her, the Pacers might not be here, and it's fair to wonder what that would mean for the rest of the professional sports culture in the city. Not only does Nancy watch the Pacers, but she watches every Fever game and every Colts contest. The run the Pacers have made this postseason has her beaming with pride and joy. Even if Indiana's had a tendency to make things a little too interesting at the end of games, pulling off three impossible comebacks in the first three rounds, the latest coming in a Game 1 win over the Knicks that saw the Pacers erase a 14-point deficit with 3:14 left in the game, then beat New York in overtime. 'They're killing me, because it's not only them, it's the Fever,' Leonard said. 'I tell you, when I saw (Pacers point guard Tyrese) Haliburton (make the choke gesture), and the best part is Reggie (Miller) was at the game. In New York, of all things!' Leonard hasn't been able to be there this season. But she still knows this team better than almost anybody. When Aaron Nesmith scored 20 points in the fourth quarter of the team's Game 1 win over the Knicks, Leonard was thinking about what she'd told his mother last year. She could see the potential in Nesmith, saw how crucial he'd become to the team. Nancy knew Nesmith's moment would come. 'I guess I could say I'm just really, really happy for them,' she said. 'They're just a great bunch of guys. They hang together. They're family. They have an outstanding coach. Absolutely outstanding.' This Pacers team has her convinced that Indiana can reach a level it's been only once before. Now that the NBA playoffs are down to just four teams, she's been watching the Western Conference Finals almost as closely as she watches the Pacers. Leonard's busy scouting the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves. 'To see who we're going to play,' she said. 'Because we're gonna get there.' Nancy Leonard still knows the sport better than most. The more she watches this Pacers team, the more she thinks the franchise can finally reach the ultimate goal, the trophy it's been chasing since it joined the NBA in 1976 with her in the front office. 'I think that's what we're going to do, if everything holds out the way that it has, if we can keep our guys up for every game at the start,' she said, her basketball mind churning through the possibility of finally seeing the Pacers win an NBA title, then giving way to emotion. 'I just wish Bob could be here to see it.' Nancy has been hoping she'd get to see it. Even when she was dealing with health issues earlier this year, she wanted to be able to be at Gainbridge. Her family likes to say that nobody's been to more Pacers home games than her; it'd be hard to disagree, given how long she's been part of the team. Staying away has been excruciating. 'Because I feel good,' Nancy said. 'Everything I've been through is hard stuff, but I still feel good. … It's been really hard.' Leonard is back now. Back where she belongs.
