On Sunday night ESPN debuted the first two parts of The Last Dance, a ten-part documentary series on the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. It was a great two hours of television, with a ton of in-depth stories building the foundation of the story of what was the end of one of sports’ greatest dynasties.
That got me to thinking: What Michigan State sports documentaries would I want to see?
What may be the obvious answers for a MSU fan, aren’t the ones I thought of first. For example, I don’t particularly want to see a Flintstones documentary, or a documentary on the 2013 football team. There’s certainly interesting things there, but those stories have been pretty well documented. The best documentaries are revealing in nature and often have to do with some sort of scandal or trouble. Add in that conflict to something like a giant corporation or megs sports franchise and “viola” you’ve got a pretty interesting documentary. So the Flintstones are out. MSU football 2013-2015 is out. Magic Johnson’s career is mostly out, but there could be something interesting there digging into the status of college sports at the time and how the 1979 NCAA Tournament shifted basketball both on the court and off. But Magic vs. Bird is a pretty well-mined pit.
What follows is a list of MSU-related sports documentaries that I would absolutely love to see. They aren’t in any particular order, really, with the exception of the first one. You’ll see why.