Inside super fan Steve Ballmer's construction plans for the perfect NBA arena
LOS ANGELES — The year was 1973 and the muggy Michigan summer pulsed with Motown hits such as "Higher Ground" and "Superstition." At Detroit Country Day School, the football team wheezed its way up a steep slope known simply as "The Hill" on the backside of the leafy campus.
The slog wasn't a straight race to the top. Instead, the teenagers gradually plodded to the summit by getting into formation and running plays. The loudest among them, the one urging everyone, was right tackle Steve Ballmer, the husky son of a Ford manager. Although he would be too reluctant to deliver his valedictory speech, Ballmer, the future chief executive of Microsoft and owner of the Clippers, didn't hold back when it came to encouraging his out-of-gas buddies.
"You gotta love it," he screamed, in what would become a team mantra. "You gotta love it!"
Fast-forward nearly 50 years and Ballmer, wearing a construction helmet and bright yellow safety vest, stood in front of a different hill, a severe concrete incline reaching to the heavens. This will become the "Wall of Sound," a central feature of the glistening new home in Inglewood he's building for his NBA team. This section of the Intuit Dome will be an unbroken swath of 51 rows from floor to ceiling, a peak of pandemonium cleverly teetering above the visitors' bench.
"We want a little more intensity on that side," said Ballmer, 66, frantically clapping his hands with the unbridled glee
