My first season covering the defending American Basketball Association champion Indiana Pacers was eye-opening.

I had grown up following college basketball and pretty much knew the ins and outs of the game. But, even in preseason practice, I could tell the level of talent on the Pacers was far beyond anything I had seen before.

This was a veteran team, led by superstar Roger Brown. The other starters were center Mel Daniels, forward Bob Netolicky and guards Billy Keller and Freddie Lewis. You may not be familiar with the names, but these guys could ball. In my third season in Indy, they added homegrown star George McGinnis, who kept the good times rolling and, during my tenure in Indy, they won two more ABA titles and made the playoffs every year.

The personalities on this team were all over the place.

Netolicky was a wise guy, Lewis and Daniels quiet and thoughtful and Brown was, at least for me, a foreboding figure. If he saw me coming and gave me that "don't even think about it" stare, I would veer off to talk to someone else. When he did talk to me, it was with an angry look and hushed, clipped sentences.

But I kept trying.

One day I was having my car serviced at a local dealership and there, in the waiting room, was Roger Brown, all 6-foot-5 of him stuffed in one of those metal and plastic waiting room chairs.

He looked up as I walked in and, when he saw who it was, got a sour look on his face.

I gulped and said, "Roger, why are you so put off by me? I've never said anything or written anything bad about you, and I think you're a helluva basketball player."

He looked at me with a blank stare for what seemed like a full minute. Finally, he said, "AP wrote some stuff about me back in high school that wasn't true. It cost me a lot."

Brown and fellow Brooklyn, N.Y. basketball star Connie Hawkins had been introduced to gambler Jack Molinas while in high school. Molinas was involved in a point shaving scandal and, although he was never accused of point shaving, Brown was banned by both the NCAA and the National Basketball Association for associating with a gambler, costing him a scholarship at the University of Dayton and possibly a future in the pro game.

He continued to play amateur ball until the NBA's new rival, the ABA, came calling in 1967. He was the first player the Pacers signed.

"Roger, that was in 1960," I said. "I was in high school. I had nothing to do with those stories and, if anything in those stories wasn't true, I apologize. But AP's reputation is that we always try to be fair and balanced. Give me another chance and I'll do right by you."

He sat and thought for a while before saying with a shake of his head, "Okay, I'll give you a chance. But you'd better not screw me." Then, for the first time, he gave me a smile and a wink.

From that day on, any time I needed a quote from Roger Brown, he was amenable. He even sought me out a couple of times when he felt the media wasn't being fair to him or his team.

But my go-to guy on the Pacers was always Billy Keller, a former Mr. Basketball at Indianapolis Washington, a graduate of Purdue and a very well-spoken and thoughtful young man.

After my second season covering the Pacers, I called Billy and asked him if he might be interested in doing a book together. I was going to call it "Four Feet, Eight Inches Under the Rim," a reference to his 5-10 stature in a world of giants.

He liked the idea and I got some interest almost immediately from a couple of publishers.

At first, Billy was excited. But, after a couple of taping sessions, he decided it was getting too personal and called it off. I still think the book would have sold like hotcakes, particularly in Indiana.

My first year covering the team, the Pacers had a media-staff basketball game as one of its pregame promotions.

The media in Indianapolis included some former college and pro basketball players, but I got invited to participate, too, along with some of the local newspaper guys with no particular sporting credentials.

Despite the nice jersey with my name on the back, I felt totally out of place, particularly when we huddled up before the start of the game and I looked up at the other players, most of them towering high above me.

The game was two 10-minute periods and I got into the first period for about one minute and never saw the ball, which was fine with me.

The stands were beginning to fill up when the second period began and I was watching comfortably and happily from the bench until whoever was coaching our team (I can't recall who) said, "Harris, get in there."

There were about three minutes left to play and everybody was having fun. There was a lot of shouting and jeering from the stands as the fans watched the chaos on the court.

I ran to an open spot near the corner, mostly to stay out of the way, and suddenly, the ball was heading my way, the pass thrown by TV sports reporter Jerry Harkness, the guy who made the shot that gave Loyola, Chicago a 60-58 overtime win over Cincinnati to win the national championship in 1963.

It was totally reflex, but I grabbed the ball, jumped and fired a shot from the corner and, miracle of miracles, it hit nothing but net. The crowd roared, the horn went off ending the game and my teammates mobbed me. It turned out to be the winning shot.

That was, by far, my greatest sporting achievement and the last time I played anything competitive except bowling.

The Pacers played their home games in the Fairgrounds Coliseum, a relic of a building on the grounds of the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Until they moved into their sparkling new Market Square Arena in downtown in 1974, there were times when the Coliseum was booked for an ice show, a circus, a boat show or something else that the Pacers had to find another place to play.

One of those places was The Wigwam, the gym at Anderson High School, about 40 miles north of Indianapolis on Interstate-69. The Coliseum seated 6,800 people for basketball, while Anderson's high school gym held more than 8,000 at capacity.

Game 3 of the second-round playoff series with the Utah Stars in 1972 was played in Anderson. Indiana trailed in the series 2-0 but beat the Stars 116-111 that night and went on to win their second ABA championship.

I filed my stories and headed for home on the stormy spring night. I was driving south on I-69, traveling about 5 mph over the 65 mph speed limit, listening to the radio, when I heard reports of possible tornadoes in the area. It was nighttime, but the sky seemed darker than usual and I had an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Rain was coming down in waves, visibility was limited and the front of the car was being pushed side-to-side by the wind. I was just thinking how happy I would be to be home when a tremendous gust blew a sheet of water onto my windshield like a wave in surfing.

The windshield wipers were overwhelmed and I could see nothing but water for a long moment. When the windshield cleared, I realized the car was off the ground, soaring toward a bridge abutment at high speed.

Out of instinct, I was turning the wheel hard right which did no good at all since the tires were not on the ground. The bridge abutment was looming large when the wheels touched down with a thud and the car reacted to my steering, veering back onto the highway. I almost over-corrected, which could have turned the car over, but it wobbled a bit and drove on as if nothing had happened, still traveling at about 70 mph. 

I'm not sure how long I held my breath but, when I finally did let the air out, I gasped. It took a minute or two for my heart rate to get back to normal and my hands were shaking for a while. But I got home in one piece.

Thankfully, that was the last time I covered a game in Anderson.

The Pacers also played a playoff game that season at Indiana University's new Assembly Hall in Bloomington, about 50 miles south of Indianapolis.

My bureau chief at the time was very careful with his budget and often made decisions about coverage based on how much it was going to cost for mileage, food and lodging, much to the chagrin of his reporters.

The Pacers went on to beat Utah in seven games, earning the chance to play the New York Nets in the ABA Finals. The first game of that series was set to be played in Bloomington because a horse show was scheduled at the Coliseum.

The day before the game, the bureau chief called me into his office and told me there was no budget for mileage (6 cents a mile at the time) and that I would have to cover the game on the radio from the office and use my Indiana University basketball stringer (who we paid a flat $10 a game to) to get post-game quotes.

It was not televised, so I listened to the game and kept score from the office. It was halftime when the phone rang. Everyone else was tied up, so I answered "AP, Mike Harris."

"What the hell are you doing in the office?" the voice on the other end asked. It was Hal Bock from New York Sports. He had called the bureau, hoping to have them relay a message to me about some quotes he needed after the game for a story he was working on.

I told him why I was in the office and he was appalled.

After we hung up, he called Wick Temple, the AP's sports editor, who in turn called the Indiana bureau chief, who in turn called me about 10 minutes later and, with a gruff voice, asked, "How soon can you get to Bloomington?"

I made it to the Assembly Hall press row late in the third quarter, covered the game and got those post-game quotes for Hal and myself. And I never had to cover another game on the radio.