When he got to the NBA, Larry Bird seemed almost omniscient. He was able to be where the ball was going, which is a very rare talent, and he always seemed to know where the game was going and he could get the ball where it needed to be too.
But he was also a brilliant offensive player and if you let him get going, you were in big trouble.
That was true in college but it took people a while to realize how good he really was. ESPN was barely off the ground in 1979 when Bird was a senior, so what most of the country saw were grainy 30 second clips on the local news as his legend grew.