Janet Condra is best known as Larry Bird’s first wife and the mother of their daughter, Corrie Bird. Her connection to Bird began long before he became a Boston Celtics star: in his 1989 memoir Drive: The Story of My Life, Bird recalled Condra as someone he had known since first grade. They married in early November 1975, divorced less than a year later, briefly tried to reconcile, and became parents to Corrie in 1977.
Unlike Bird, Condra never developed a sustained public career or celebrity profile. That has left significant gaps in accounts of her life—and has also encouraged inaccurate claims about her age, work, finances and relationships. The newest strong evidence about her later life comes from a February 2026 family obituary that identifies her as Janet Deakins (née Condra) and names the late Michael Deakins Sr. as her husband.
Need to know
- Janet Condra was Larry Bird’s first wife and knew him from childhood, according to Bird’s own memoir.
- They married in early November 1975 and divorced in 1976, with ESPN reporting that the marriage lasted less than a year.
- After a brief reconciliation, Condra and Bird became parents to Corrie Bird in 1977.
- Contemporary reporting shows that Condra appeared with Corrie on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1998, despite later claims that she never spoke publicly.
- A February 2026 family notice identifies her later as Janet Deakins and Michael Deakins Sr. as her late husband.
Janet Condra profile summary
| Detail | Verified information |
|---|---|
| Full known name | Janet Condra |
| Later documented name | Janet Deakins (née Condra) |
| Known for | Larry Bird’s first wife |
| Former husband | Larry Bird |
| Marriage | Early November 1975 to 1976 |
| Daughter with Larry Bird | Corrie Bird |
| Later documented husband | Michael Deakins Sr., deceased by February 2026 |
| Documented public appearance | The Oprah Winfrey Show, 1998 |
She knew Larry Bird before his basketball fame
Condra’s place in Bird’s story begins well before his NBA career. In Drive, Bird described her as “a girl I had known since first grade.” That first-person account is important because some later biographies say the two first met in high school. Bird’s own recollection instead establishes a childhood connection that predated both their romantic relationship and his rise as a basketball star.
By the time Bird entered Indiana State University, the pair were together. Their relationship therefore belonged to a very different stage of his life from the one most basketball fans know. His professional career with the Celtics would not begin until 1979.
Bird later looked back on the relationship as one entered into when both were very young. That is his retrospective view, however, and should not be treated as Condra’s explanation for why the marriage failed.
Their marriage lasted less than a year
Bird’s memoir places the wedding in early November 1975, shortly after he began at Indiana State. Numerous biography databases give November 8 as the exact wedding date, but no civil marriage record was established in the available evidence, so the broader date from Bird’s own account is more defensible.
The marriage ended in 1976. ESPN’s profile of Bird describes Condra as his childhood sweetheart and says the marriage lasted less than a year.
After the divorce, the two briefly tried to reconcile. Bird wrote that the attempt lasted only a few weeks. It did not lead to another marriage, but it is an important part of the chronology because their daughter, Corrie Bird, was born in 1977.
The exact private reasons for the breakup are not independently documented from both sides. Bird offered his own reflections years later, but there is no equivalent detailed public account from Condra. Any version that presents a single definitive cause for their divorce goes beyond the strongest evidence.
Janet Condra and Corrie Bird
Corrie Bird is Condra and Larry Bird’s daughter. Her birth in 1977 came after her parents had already divorced and briefly attempted to reconcile.
Bird acknowledged in his memoir that he had not played a large role in Corrie’s early life. In the same discussion, however, he spoke positively about Condra’s parenting and credited her with doing a good job raising their daughter.
At the time Drive was published in 1989, Bird wrote that Corrie was living with Condra outside Terre Haute, Indiana. That is useful historical context, but it should not be read as evidence of Condra’s present residence.
The relationship between Bird and Corrie later became a subject of public reporting. Condra’s own involvement in that story is more limited but not nonexistent.
Her 1998 Oprah appearance is one of her few documented public moments
One persistent claim in online biographies is that Janet Condra never gave interviews or appeared publicly after her marriage ended. Contemporary reporting shows that this is too absolute.
In May 1998, Sports Business Journal reported that Bird’s former wife, identified as “Jan,” appeared with Corrie in connection with an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. A separate Tampa Bay Times report from May 21, 1998 also discussed Corrie’s mother and attributed comments to her.
In that contemporary coverage, Condra spoke about the emotional difficulty of watching Corrie deal with her father’s absence. One short remark attributed to her was: “I couldn’t protect her from the hurt.”
The episode matters because it provides rare evidence of Condra speaking for herself rather than being described only through Bird or later biography sites. It also means the safest characterization is that her documented public appearances have been rare, not that she never spoke publicly at all.
What is known about her later life
Reliable documentation becomes much thinner after the 1990s. There is no strong public record establishing Condra’s exact occupation, current residence, date of birth or financial position.
A significant later-life update appears in a family obituary published in February 2026. The notice identifies her as Janet Deakins (née Condra) and identifies Michael Deakins Sr. as her late husband. It also lists Janet among surviving relatives at that time.
This corrects an older claim repeated by some biography websites that Condra never remarried and remained single after Larry Bird. The family notice provides stronger and more recent evidence that she later married Michael Deakins Sr., although the date and place of that marriage have not been established.
The same notice also helps clarify another family detail. It identifies Timothy Gorman as the father of Amanda “Mandy” Bowers and Michael Deakins Sr. as her stepfather. Corrie Bird is listed as Mandy’s half-sister. That means descriptions of Michael Deakins as Mandy’s biological father are not supported by the family notice.
The February 2026 obituary is the newest strong Condra-specific evidence available in the documented record used for this profile. It should not be stretched into claims about where she currently lives, what she does professionally or other aspects of her present circumstances.
What is not reliably established about Janet Condra
Because Condra never accumulated the kind of public record associated with a professional athlete or entertainer, many ordinary biographical details remain unconfirmed.
Her exact birth date and present age have not been established by a sufficiently authoritative source. The same is true of claims about her education, occupation and current residence.
Career claims deserve particular caution. Some websites describe Condra as a mail carrier or say she worked multiple jobs while raising Corrie. Those details have circulated widely enough to appear established, but the available evidence does not trace them to an authoritative record or a reliable first-person account.
The same problem applies to supposed estimates of Janet Condra’s net worth. Figures published by celebrity-biography sites are not backed by disclosed assets, financial filings or a credible calculation. Larry Bird’s wealth cannot reasonably be used as a proxy for the finances of a former spouse from a marriage that ended decades ago.
Even seemingly precise relationship dates deserve care. November 8, 1975 is frequently published as the wedding date, and October 31, 1976 is sometimes given as the divorce date. The stronger evidence supports an early-November 1975 marriage and a 1976 divorce after less than a year; exact days would require stronger underlying records.
Janet Condra is sometimes confused with Dinah Mattingly
Another significant problem is image identification.
Larry Bird married Dinah Mattingly years after his marriage to Condra ended. Some web pages about Condra have nevertheless used modern photographs of Bird and Mattingly as though they show Janet.
One commonly circulated example comes from the 2019 NBA Awards. A People profile using the Getty caption identifies the woman beside Bird at that event as Dinah Mattingly, not Janet Condra.
That distinction is more than cosmetic. Condra has relatively few clearly authenticated photographs in circulation, so image-search repetition should not be treated as proof of identity. Modern photographs of Bird with his wife should not automatically be labeled as images of his first wife.
Why Janet Condra remains part of Larry Bird’s story
Condra’s documented public significance comes primarily from a relatively short period of Bird’s life, but it occurred before the achievements that made him famous.
She knew him before his professional career, married him before his years with the Boston Celtics, and became the mother of his biological daughter. The marriage itself was brief, yet the family connection continued long after the divorce through Corrie.
Condra’s later life is much less thoroughly documented. That contrast has encouraged online profiles to fill the gaps with supposed jobs, personality descriptions, estimates of wealth and narratives about why she stayed away from publicity. The stronger record supports a narrower account: she made at least one significant documented public appearance in 1998, later married Michael Deakins Sr., and was identified as Janet Deakins (née Condra) in a February 2026 family notice.
Conclusion
Janet Condra is most accurately understood as a person from Larry Bird’s life before the fame: someone he said he had known since childhood, his first wife, and the mother of Corrie Bird. Their marriage lasted less than a year, but the relationship became an enduring part of Bird’s family history through their daughter.
What came afterward is documented far more selectively. Rather than filling those gaps with guesses, the clearest modern picture comes from a few verifiable milestones—her 1998 public appearance with Corrie and the 2026 family record identifying her later as Janet Deakins. Those facts provide a fuller biography without turning a largely private life into something the evidence cannot support.
