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. His other eye was affixed on the woman who had served him that drink.…