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The Kevin Gamble Interview

By: Michael D. McClellan | He played for the Boston Celtics during a period of nervous change, joining the club just as the Big Three was beginning to break down, its parts worn from too many minutes and too little rest, the post-Bias funk settling in like a fog, thick, heavy and unrelenting.  He played valiantly through the Jimmy Rodgers and Chris Ford Eras, which is to say that he competed during the slow decay of basketball’s greatest franchise, his sizable contributions spilled in fruitless pursuit of the NBA’s greatest prize.  He was there as Larry Bird lay prone in front of the Celtic bench, Bird’s back so creaky that his greatness, routinely on display for more than a decade, could only be coaxed out between bouts with pain.  He was there for Larry Legend’s inevitable retirement, as he was for Kevin McHale’s farewell one season later.  He grieved through the tragic loss of Reggie Lewis, and he played through final days of the historic Boston Garden.  That Kevin Gamble – nicknamed Oscar by former teammate Danny Ainge – was able to do any of these things is simply amazing, especially for a player cut by two NBA franchises, passed on by the rest, and then forced to toil overseas.  That Gamble could resurrect his career in the satellite world of the Continental Basketball Association and then, against all odds, play six integral seasons with the Boston Celtics, is as much a testament to his perseverance and work ethic as it is to his high basketball IQ.

Gamble’s basketball odyssey got its start in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois.  He entered Lanphier High just hoping to make the team, but by his senior season Gamble was the star, leading the Lions to the 1983 Illinois Class AA State Basketball Championship.  Gamble scored 67 points in those four tournament games, which culminated with a 57-53 win over Peoria High School.  Lanphier finished the ’83 season 30-3, with Gamble was the only Lanphier player selected to the All-Tournament team.

While few questioned Gamble’s ability at the high school level, many college recruiters wondered whether he possessed legitimate Division I basketball potential.  Gamble believed otherwise.  He was 6’7” with a quick first step and decent range.  He was strong enough to compete beneath the basket, yet quick enough to play the wing.  Still, there was only tepid interest at the major college level, forcing Gamble to enroll at Lincoln Junior College, where he played for two seasons under the tutelage of head coach Alan Pickering.

Two year later, Gamble transferred to the University of Iowa.  Head coach George Raveling kept the junior college transfer pinned to the bench for much of the season.  Gamble’s disappointing junior year took a turn when, as if by divine intervention, Raveling bolted the Iowa program to take the head coaching job at USC.  On April 7, 1986, Iowa named Tom Davis as its new head coach. Davis’ arrival breathed new life into Gamble’s collegiate career.  Given a clean slate, the Springfield product became a key starter for the Hawkeyes, as the team raced to a 17-0 start and the Number 1 ranking in the Associated Press poll.  Iowa finished 30-5 before falling in the NCAA Regional Finals, and Gamble’s play was at the center of it all.  Impressed with what they saw, the Portland Trail Blazers selected Gamble in the third round of the 1987 NBA Draft.

Competing for a roster spot with veteran John Paxson and first round pick Ronnie Murphy, Gamble found himself caught in a numbers game.  He was released, setting off a nomadic wandering from which few NBA castoffs return:  There was a full season spent toiling in the CBA, followed by an invitation to the Detroit Pistons’ rookie camp the following summer, followed by a training camp tryout with the Milwaukee Bucks later that fall.  Gamble then played in the Philippines for a month, before returning to start his second stint in the CBA.  A 12-game hot streak with Quad Cities caught the attention of scouts from several NBA teams, including the Boston Celtics, who reached out with an offer.

Gamble played sparingly those first couple of months, understandable with players like Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Reggie Lewis and Brian Shaw ahead of him on the depth chart.  That all changed over the final six games of the regular season.  With DJ nursing a leg injury, Gamble made the most of his minutes and helped the Celtics enter the playoffs on a positive note.  Gamble continue to play well in the postseason until going down with a groin injury, as the aging Celtics were swept in the first round by the Detroit Pistons.  Still, the sample size was enough to convince the Celtics to bring him back.

“My big break,” Gamble says with a smile.  “I knew I had to made the most of my opportunity if it came my way, and I think I showed them what I could do.”

Gamble played in 71 games the following season, averaging 5.1 points in 13.9 minutes-per-game.  The Celtics entered the playoffs with high hopes, jumping to a 2-0 series lead against the New York Knicks, only to drop the next three games, eliminated in the first round for the second year in a row.

1990-91 proved to be Gamble’s breakout year.  He played in all 82 games, averaged 15.6 points (fourth on the team, behind Bird, Lewis and McHale), and helped the Celtics to a 56-26 record and a return to first place in the Atlantic Division.  The Celtics were again faced with a Game 5 in the opening round, this time against Reggie Miller and Indiana Pacers. When Bird’s head bounced off the Boston Garden parquet, forcing him to the locker room with a concussion, it looked as if another first-round exit were in the making.

“Larry wasn’t going out in the first round again,” Gamble says, smiling at the recollection.  “We knew he was coming back out there, and that he was going to play big, but it was just an incredible moment to see him walk back out of that tunnel.  The place went crazy, and we were able to beat the Pacers and move on.  Unfortunately, we lost to the Pistons in the next round.”

Gamble played in all 82 games the next season, but the Celtics were eliminated by the Cavaliers in the second round of the playoffs.  Bird retired over the summer, and Boston entered the 1992-93 season with Parish and McHale playing well beyond their All-Star years.  Facing the upstart Charlotte Hornets in the opening round of the playoffs, the Celtics succumbed quietly, 3-1.  The series is best remembered for Reggie Lewis’ strange collapse in Game 2.  Replays showed Lewis clutching his chest, as if unable to catch his breath.  A team of cardiologists would later diagnose Lewis with a rare heart ailment, urging him to retire immediately from professional basketball.  Two months later Lewis was dead, collapsing while shooting baskets at Brandeis University.

“An unbelievable loss,” Gamble says.  “Devastating to the team, to the community, and to his family.  Reggie Lewis was just a tremendous person.”

Gamble would play one more season in a Celtic uniform, before finishing his NBA career with stints with the Miami Heat and Sacramento Kings.  He would retire following the 1996-97 regular season, having played ten seasons in a league that didn’t want to give him a chance.  In beating the odds, Gamble proved that hard work and dedication can go a long way toward big time success.  He remains forever grateful to the Celtics for taking a chance on him, when everyone else had their doubts.

“I’ll always be a Boston Celtic,” Gamble says.  “There were so many great times.  So many great players.  It was just an honor to be a part of that great tradition – it’s something that I’ll never forget.”

You were born on November 13th, 1965 in Springfield, Illinois.  What sports were you into?

Basketball and baseball were the two main sports that I liked to play.  I liked to watch football, but it wasn’t one of the sports that I really competed in.  And as I got older, I focused more and more on basketball.

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You have described yourself as an ‘observer type.’  Did this help make you a better basketball player?

I don’t know if it made me a better basketball player – it’s really hard to say.  That’s just my personality, and that’s just what type of person I am.  I’m laid-back and observant, so I guess I was able to learn quite a bit by observing other players.  That might have had something to do with it.  It was also the hard work that I put in from a very early age, as a child coming up and playing basketball everyday.  And that might have had more to do with it than anything.

 

You led Lanphier High to a state championship in 1983.  Looking back, what stands out about that championship season?

Just the whole experience.  We knew we were going to have a pretty good ball club when we were seniors in high school, because the majority of us had been together since eighth or ninth grade.  It was just a very good nucleus of players that came from different grade schools and middle schools, so we knew we were going to have a special team that last year.  We thought that, with our talent and a little luck, we might be able to win a state championship, so it was always in the back of our minds.  We were fortunate enough to win it.  We had guys at every position, from point guard all the way to center – everybody knew their roles and everybody played their roles.

 

You played two seasons at Lincoln Junior College.  Tell me about your head coach, Alan Pickering.

Coach Pick was my first adult role model in my transition from adolescence to a young man.  He was that person that took me to the next step in my life.  He molded me, and showed me what I had to do to make it at the college level.  He also helped me to transition from living at home to living on my own.  I’d never been alone and away from home like that before.  Coach Pick helped me with what seem like simple things now, such as managing my time and building strong study habits, but a the time it all seemed overwhelming.  He taught me not only to be a better basketball player, but also a better person.

 

You transferred Iowa for your junior season, but didn’t play much under head coach George Raveling.

That first year was very disappointing.  Not that we didn’t get along, but Coach Raveling and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye.  He didn’t see me as the player that Coach Pickering saw me as, or that my high school coaches saw me as.  I was primarily a guard/forward in high school.  I played guard at Lincoln College.  But once I got to Iowa, Coach Raveling saw fit to play me at power forward, with guys like Eddie Horton, Brad Lohaus, and Al Lorenzen.  Lohaus was a seven-footer.  Eddie Horton was 6’8”, and probably weighed 260 pounds at the time.  Al Lorenzen was 6’8”, 250.  And I was playing the same position at 6’6”, 205.  So it was very disappointing.  I wish I could have red-shirted that year.  I think I averaged a total of  six minutes per-game that year, so it was very disappointing in terms of athletics.

 

That all changed under Tom Davis – you led the Hawkeyes to a 30-5 record and the NCAA tournament regional finals.

When Coach Davis came in, he met with us and said that we were starting with a brand new slate.  He said that nobody had positions, and that you had to go out and earn your playing time.  I ended up winning two positions on our ball club – the two guard spot, and the small forward position.  I primarily played the two – shooting guard – for Coach Davis, and he’s probably the main reason I had a chance to make it to the NBA.  I did have a pretty good senior season and a pretty good tournament, and because of that I ended up being drafted by Portland in the third round of the 1987 NBA Draft.

 

You were drafted by Portland in the third round, but waived after only nine games.  What happened?

Early on I was just trying to define myself , to see where I fit in.  My stint with the Portland Trail Blazers was a good one – I could tell that I could fit, that I could play in the NBA.  I gained a lot of confidence playing with Terry Porter, Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey, Kevin Duckworth and guys like that.  Being a rookie, I basically held my own.  They had a couple of guys injured to start the season.  John Paxson was out, and so was their first round pick, Ronnie Murphy.  So I made it through training camp and made the ball club.  I think the team knew that I was good enough to play NBA ball, but unfortunately for me, it turned out to be a numbers game.  They weren’t going to cut their first rounder, and they weren’t going to cut a veteran like John to keep a rookie like myself.  So it boiled down to a numbers game there in Portland.  Coach Adelman was there as an assistant to Mike Schuler, and those guys told me that I was good enough to play in the NBA.  They told me to not give up, to hang in there, and that sooner or later I would get my chance to show that I could play pro ball.  So even though I was released, it was a very good time for me.

 

What did you do next?

It was disappointing not being able to stick in the NBA, but I just kept busy playing basketball.  I played a full season in the CBA after being cut by Portland – I think I averaged 20 points and 8 rebounds-per-game – and had a successful season.  Everyone that I talked to said the same thing:  In order to play NBA basketball, I had to learn to play great defense.  So that’s what I worked on while playing in the CBA.  I expected to get a mid-season call from an NBA team, but it didn’t work out that way.

From there, I ended going to Detroit that next summer.  They had drafted Fennis Dembo from Wyoming in the first round of the 1988 NBA Draft, and they had also brought in a couple of free agents.  I played well in that camp also, but again, they already had their players picked out.  They had Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, Isiah Thomas, Adrian Dantley, Vinnie Johnson, Joe Dumars, Rick Mahorn and John Sally.  So I knew that it was going to be hard to make that ball club.  That same summer I went to the Milwaukee Bucks’ mini-camp.  I thought played well there, but for whatever reason I didn’t catch on, so that’s when I went over to the Philippines.  I was there for a month.  It was a good experience – I was able to see a different part of the world – but it just wasn’t my cup of tea, so to speak.  I came back home, and that’s when I rejoined Quad Cities of the CBA.  I think I played twelve games for them, and I averaged close to 30 points-per-game during that stretch.  And that’s when I got the call from the Boston Celtics.

 

On December 15th, 1988, the Celtics signed you for the remainder of the season.  How did you find out they were interested?

Ron Grinker – my agent out of Cincinnati, Ohio, who is no longer with us – called me up, and said that I had two teams that were interested in me.  One was the Portland Trailblazers, who wanted me back, and the other was the Boston Celtics.  At the time I knew that I was going to be called up, but at the time the Celtics were the last team that I thought would ever call me.  There was no particular reason for that feeling, but with all the history and championships, and with the roster that they had at the time, I just didn’t think that they would want me.  Ron said that those were the two teams that wanted me, so we sat down and talked about it.  I finally decided against Portland because of the way things went there the first time around.  I just made up my mind and said, ‘Let’s go to Boston.’

 

One moment you’re playing in the CBA, the next you’re contending for an NBA Championship with legendary players like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.  What was it like joining the team for the first time?

I immediately got on a flight and went to Boston.  The first day of practice I walk out there, and the guys are already on the court.  I’m shaking in my boots a little bit, but it’s easy to understand why:  You look at the other end of the court, and you see Kevin McHale.  You see Larry Bird.  You see Dennis Johnson.  It’s like, ‘Wow.’  It didn’t feel like I had arrived; it was more a need to show these guys that I could play.  Practice proceeded, and those guys welcomed me with open arms.  I introduced myself.  Of course, you probably know some of the stories about McHale and Danny Ainge – the two jokesters on the team – and I think it was Danny who pointed out that the Celtics suddenly had two Kevins on the roster.  And when I told them that my last was Gamble, Danny’s eyes lit up.  Danny had played professional baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays, and a guy named Oscar Gamble played for the New York Yankees during that time, so Danny started calling me Oscar.  The nickname stuck with me for the rest of my career with the Celtics.

 

During practice, you used to play some friendly one-on-one with Kevin McHale.  How did those games turn out?

I won some and I lost some.  Kevin had to guard perimeter guys – Larry wasn’t the quickest guy, but Kevin was long.  KC and Coach [Chris] Ford used to have Larry guard the bigger guys in practice, mostly fours [power forwards].  McHale used to guard the threes [small forwards], who were quicker.  He used to practice with me to work on his quickness.  Kevin had those long arms.  He wasn’t real quick, but he moved his feet well.  He would give you space, and then, when you went up for your jump shot, he would contest it with those long arms and his reach.  So I think that was one of the things that he wanted to work on, because he was going to be matched up against players my size, or even bigger, who could take the ball to the basket.  But we had fun.  Playing one-on-one with those guys taught me a lot of things.  I learned a lot about basketball being around them, observing them, and also playing against them in practice.

 

Dennis Johnson once convinced you to lead them onto the Garden floor when the team was introduced.  What happened?

I had forgotten all about that, but now that you mention it I do remember [laughs].  Dennis came up to me and said that it was a tradition in Boston to have the new guy lead them out.  I can’t remember if it was my first game with the team, but I do remember that it was during Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s farewell tour.  We were playing the Lakers, of course, and I ran out of the tunnel and into the gym.  When I got on the court I turned around and looked back, and all of the guys were still back there in the tunnel, laughing at me.  It was funny because here I am, this young kid standing on the fabled parquet floor, who has watched this place on television for years-and-years, through all of those battles between the Celtics and the Lakers, and also against the Philadelphia 76ers.  That’s what made it so horrifying for me, and such a good joke for them.  I was so nervous, and I was also embarrassed.  For them to put me out there like that, I’m surprised that I didn’t faint [laughs].

 

It looked like you might be released after that first season, but then DJ gets hurt.  Tell me about the turning point.

I remember when DJ rolled his ankle in Atlanta – it was really bad – and we’re flying back to Boston that night, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to finish up the season.  We didn’t know if he was going to miss all six games, but we did know that he was going to miss a few.  Our next game was against Cleveland, and we’re in the locker room going through our normal pre-game stuff.  Coach [Jimmy] Rodgers comes into the locker room with the Cleveland’s starting lineup – Larry Nance, Brad Dougherty, Ron Harper, and so forth.  Jimmy looks at Brian Shaw, and he tells him that he will guard Mark Price.  Then he looks at me, and he says, ‘Oscar, you’re going to be starting, and you’ve got Ron Harper.’  That was the first time that I heard that I was going to starting in the NBA.  I’ll never forget that feeling.  Of course, everybody knew what Ron Harper could do – he was one of the best players in the NBA.  He was known as a very good all-around player, strong offensively and defensively, which made my first start exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.  I think I had 20 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds.  From that point on I think everyone on the team knew that they could count on me.

 

The Celtics were swept from the 1989 NBA Playoffs by the Bad Boys from Detroit.

I think we limped into the playoffs that year and had to play the Bad Boys.  The one thing that I do remember – and it wasn’t a good memory for me – was that I got hurt during the first game of that series.  I pulled my groin.  It was a severe pull, so it obviously wasn’t a good series for me.  I remember playing against Isiah, and Dumars, and the Microwave [Vinnie Johnson].  I think that might have been the first of their back-to-back championship seasons.  It was a great experience, but I just wish that I could have been healthy enough to contribute more.

 

The Celtics bring you back the next season.  What was it like to go through training camp with the rest of the team?

It was fun. It’s hard to remember now, but just going through a full training and getting ready for the regular season was a luxury.  It helped in terms of getting my timing down with my teammates, because Larry was coming back and we had some adjustments to make.  It was fun being around the guys, and getting the chance to play with some of the best basketball players in the world.  You learn something everyday.  You pick up so many little things about the game.  So it was an exciting time for me; going through the preseason games, going on the flights with the team…it was a lot of hard work, but I came away from it with a lot of great memories.  It also made me a better basketball player.

 

The ’89-’90 season ended with heartbreak, as the Celtics were eliminated from the first round for the second consecutive season.  What happened in that series against New York, and how were the Knicks able to win that decisive game in the Boston Garden?

I didn’t play a lot that series – they were a bigger team, so they went big and we countered by going with a big rotation.  Patrick [Ewing] had a great series against us.  Gerald Wilkins had a great series.  The Knicks played good team basketball and had us on our heels.  If a team gets hot in a five game series, then it can definitely make things difficult for the opponent, and that’s basically what happened.  The Knicks tied the series in New York, and then came into Boston and won that deciding game in the Garden.  We had no one to blame but ourselves; if you don’t take care of homecourt, then you’re usually not going to win a playoff series.  The Knicks were a young team coming up, and Patrick was hungry.  They were able to do it.  You have to give them credit.

 

The ’91 playoff series against the Indiana Pacers is best remembered for Larry Bird’s return after banging his head on the Garden floor.

You just knew he was going to return, but you didn’t start getting excited until the fans saw him walk out of that locker room.  So we knew he was going to come back – he’d done so many amazing things during his career, and he’d hit so many big shots.  He was the master of taking over a game.  So it was one of those times when you’d just sit back and watch, and that you were just glad to be a part of it.

 

Larry Bird retired following the ’91’92 season.  By then you were in integral part of the team, earning your reputation and playing time with solid defense.  With Larry gone and the rest of the Big Three in decline, did you assume more of a leadership role with the Celtics?

Yes and no – I just tried to go to work every day and put up my normal numbers.  I wasn’t a vocal leader.  I tried to lead by example, so I guess you could say that I was a lunch pail type of player.  I worked hard in practice every day, and gave my all on the court.  I tried to defend my man with maximum intensity.  I used to watch Chief [Robert Parish], and he always came to work.  And he worked hard.  I tried my best to emulate that, because I always felt that Robert set a good example of the younger players on the team.  To me, he was the consummate pro.  Whether it was in practice or in a game, you knew that Robert was going to give his best at all times.  So I tried to imitate the things that he tried to do.

 

Tell me about the great Red Auerbach.

I remember when I held out for my contract.  The Celtics always have a dinner in the Quincy area for the media – the old Celtic players always come out.  It was around the time when the players started pulling down million dollar contracts, and stuff like that.  I was mainly a scorer who played solid, fundamental defense, and Red just couldn’t understand how a guy who didn’t rebound could make a million bucks [laughs].

Before games he would come in the locker room and talk about the days when he coached, and some of the guys that he coached.  Guys would be getting ready to get their ankles taped, and of course Red is on the taping table telling those old stories, and you couldn’t get your ankles taped [laughs].  So you’ve got to listen to the stories before the game, and time is clicking, and you have to wait for him to get those stories out.  But for him to come in and sit and talk, that means a lot.  Especially to some of the younger guys.  He would come in and give you encouragement – he’d tell you to relax and just shoot the ball, and that really made you feel like you were a part of something special – but most of the time he would come in to tell his stores and show off his rings [laughs].

 

Final Question:  If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?

Work hard.  If you have a dream, don’t let anything get in your way.  Do it the right way, because there are no shortcuts to success.  It takes hard work and dedication – some people like the quick fix, but there is no quick fix out there.

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The Rick Robey Interview

By: Michael D. McClellan | He is equal parts Kentucky royalty and NBA rank-and-file, a former blue collar big man who played for two of the most storied basketball traditions the game has ever known. How many players can say they’ve won a national championship playing for the Kentucky Wildcats, and then gone on to win an NBA crown with the Boston Celtics?

Rick Robey can.

He can also say that he’s won a state high school title at Brother Martin in Louisiana, and added an NIT championship to his Kentucky haul, effectively hitting for the cycle in terms of bringing home the hardware. And Robey is a legend in the Bluegrass State for his remarkable collegiate career, which culminated with that national championship and with him being named a consensus NCAA All-American Second Team selection (1978).

Growing up, Robey’s family moved frequently, with stops in Florida, Tennessee and Alaska before settling in New Orleans. By then he was making a name for himself on the basketball court, and being recruited by most of the top programs in the country. He narrowed his choices to Notre Dame and Kentucky, eventually settling on the Wildcats.

Prior to Robey’s arrival, the UK basketball program was in the midst of an identity crisis.  Legendary coach Adolph Rupp had retired following the 1972 season, and Joe B. Hall, who had won a championship playing for Rupp in 1949, was tasked with trying to win the school’s first title since 1958. Hall guided Kentucky to an SEC championship and an Elite Eight finish in his first season, but the team regressed during the 1973-74 campaign, finishing with a 13-13 record and failing to qualify for the tournament. The Wildcats’ rabid fan base was soon calling for Hall’s firing.

Robey’s arrival in Lexington proved to be a turning point for Hall and the Kentucky basketball program.  With Robey starting as a freshman, the Wildcats quickly recaptured the SEC championship, qualifying for the NCAA Tournament and stunning heavily favored and previously undefeated Indiana 92-90 in a regional final. Back in the Final Four, Kentucky would defeat Syracuse before falling to UCLA in John Wooden’s last game as head coach.

An NIT title would come the following season, with Robey missing half of the games due to a knee injury.  Kentucky would reach the Elite Eight during Robey’s junior year, setting up a storybook ending to his final season, which would end with Kentucky claiming its first national championship in 20 years.  Robey’s 20-point (on 8-of-11 shooting), 11-rebound performance was key to the Wildcats’ title clincher against Duke, and helped elevate his stock ahead of the 978 NBA Draft.  The Indiana Pacers, in search of a big man, selected Robey with the third overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft. Then, 43 games into his first NBA season, Robey suddenly found himself traded to the Boston Celtics.

“It was a shock,” Robey says, “because I’d just been drafted by the Pacers, and it seemed as if they wanted me to be a part of their rebuilding plans.  They didn’t wait to see how things were going to develop, but it worked out for me because the Celtics were about to take off.”

Robey’s first Celtics team finished with a 29-53 record, but the once-proud franchise’s fortunes would change a season later, thanks to the arrival of Larry Bird. With Bird leading the way, Boston finished with a 61-21 regular-season record before falling to the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1980 Eastern Conference Finals. Robey contributed 11.5 points and 6.5 rebounds and, just like that, the Boston Celtics were relevant again.

A year later Robert Parish and Kevin McHale were added to the mix, launching the Big Three Era in Boston. Robey’s numbers dropped to 9.0 points and 4.8 rebounds with the arrival of Parish and McHale, but he was still a valuable member of the rotation. Boston would avenge the previous year’s playoff loss to the Sixers, rebounding from a 3-1 series deficit to beat Philly and reach the NBA Finals.  Boston then dispatched the Houston Rockets, 4-2, to win the teams 14th NBA Championship.  Just like that, Robey was on top of the basketball world once again.

“It was a dream come true,” Robey says, reflecting on that playoff run. “That series against the Sixers was so intense, and not many people thought we could climb out of that hole to beat them. But we did, and at that point we knew we were good enough to win the championship.”

Robey’s role in the Boston rotation would continue to decline over the next two seasons, as the Celtics continued to search for the right pieces to win another title. And then, during the summer of ’83, Auerbach traded Robey to Phoenix for disgruntled guard Dennis Johnson. With Johnson providing lock-down defense on the perimeter, Boston would go on to reach four consecutive NBA Finals, winning two of them (1984 and 1986).  Robey would play parts of three seasons for the Suns, retiring in 1986, but his NBA career remains most closely-associated with the Celtics. And with DJ helping deliver those two titles, Robey indirectly played a large part in the team’s mid-80s success.

Call it addition by subtraction, if you will.  Whatever the case, Robey will always be a known as a UK Wildcat and a Boston Celtic, and he’ll always be remembered for having played a hand in the resurgence of these storied basketball traditions.

You were born in Coral Gables, Florida and went to high school in Louisiana. Please tell me a little about your childhood – the sports you liked to play, the schools you went to, and the memories that stand out.

My dad worked for the federal government, so we moved around quite a bit. We lived in three different places in Florida, and then we lived in Memphis, Tennessee. From the time I was seven years old until I was about ten, we lived in Kodiak, Alaska. Kodiak is the place where I really learned to like basketball. It was so cold there, so there wasn’t a whole lot to do. We lived on a naval base, so I played a lot at the gym against different military people and people that were older.

My mother came down with cancer while we were up there and passed away at a young age. She died at thirty-six. We really moved to New Orleans because of Ochsner Clinic, which was one of the top cancer clinics in the country at that time. After her passing we ended up staying put, which was from my sixth grade year all the way through high school graduation. My dad ended up being the head of naval intelligence for that region.

 

You went to Brother Martin High School in New Orleans. What memories stand out about your high-school career?

Brother Martin High School is a private school. I was in the public school system in junior high, at Edna Karr Junior High, and in New Orleans they tend to recruit the good players into the private schools. So I ended up going to Brother Martin. In fact, I had to sit out a year due to the transfer, so I got to play my junior and senior years there.  Ironically, during my sit-out year, Brother Martin ended up playing against Robert Parish and his team. We ended up beating Robert for the state championship. Robert was Player of the Year in Louisiana that year. And then two years later we ended winning the state championship, and I ended up being the Louisiana Player of the Year that year.  It’s a small world – Robert and I ended up playing together with the Celtics, and his high school played against my high school for the championship, and we were both recognized as the best players in the same state. He and I also played together at the Pan American Games in Mexico City, so those are some of the things that tie us together.

 

Let’s talk Kentucky basketball. What were your first three years at Kentucky like?

I was recruited by just about everybody, but I had pretty much narrowed it down to Kentucky and Notre Dame and ended up going to Kentucky. I had four great years there. I started as a freshman and played with four seniors – Kevin Grevey, Bob Guyette, Mike Flynn and Jimmy Conner. We ended up making it the finals, losing to UCLA in John Wooden’s last game as head coach.  My sophomore year was exciting because we won the NIT Championship, but that was also the year I had a knee injury and ended up missing half of the season due to that. So it was also a little bit frustrating in that respect.  My junior year we advanced to the Eastern Regionals, losing to North Carolina. That was back when there wasn’t a shot clock, and they got the lead and were able to run the four-corner offense. They hit 35-of-36 free throws in that game, and ended up beating us, so that was disappointing. But we knew we had a lot of potential coming back the next season.

 

Kentucky won its fifth national championship during your senior season, defeating Duke 94-88.  What was it like going against guys like Mike Gminksi and Jim Spanarkal on the game’s biggest stage?

We were able to get it done, so that was a huge thrill. We had Jack Givens, who was an outstanding player and was recognized as such that season – he was the Final Four Most Outstanding Player, the Helms National Player of the Year, and just a tremendous college basketball player. We also had Kyle Macy, Mike Phillips, and from to to bottom it was a truly great group of guys. That last game was an intense match-up because Duke had such a great team, with guys like Gminski, Spanarkal and Gene Banks. So winning meant everything to us – to be able to win a championship for the Kentucky fans was something special that I’ll never forget.

 

You were the 3rd overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft.

I was selected by the Indiana Pacers with the third pick in that draft. They needed size and liked how I’d played during my senior season and in the tournament. It was an interesting draft, because Boston used the seventh overall pick on Larry Bird, even though they knew they had to wait a year to get him, and that they might not get him at all.

 

Midway through the 1978-79 season you were traded to the Boston Celtics. How did you find out, and what were your thoughts of joining such a tradition-rich franchise?

It was funny, because about a month-and-a-half into the season we played a game against the Celtics. I went up against Dave Cowens in that game, who was the player-coach at the time. After the game Dave told me that the Celtics were going to try their best to make a trade for me. He said it would be at some point in the next month to month-and-a-half. And by golly, come January I got the call that I’d just been traded to the Celtics.  It was exciting.  I knew they’d already drafted Larry Bird as a junior-eligible player at the time.  Then Larry shows up, and he’s even better than advertised.  And the next year they were able to get Robert Parish and Kevin McHale, and it was history from then on.

 

That 78-79 Celtics team endured an ownership change and a coaching change and finished with only 29 wins. Please tell me a little about that chaotic first season in Boston.

You could tell they were getting ready to make some major changes on that team. They had Curtis Rowe, Bob McAdoo and ‘Bad News’ Marvin Barnes, and for whatever reason things just weren’t working out. They still had Jo Jo White, a great guard who was in the latter part of his career. So there were a lot of rumors floating around that they were going to make some major moves. But that season was definitely a tough season for us.

 

As you’ve mentioned, everything changed the next season with the arrival of Larry Bird.

I think once they were able to get Bird signed, and then put the McHale-Parish deal together for Joe Barry Carroll, things really started to roll. Bird was the trigger point for the turnaround, no question about it, but having those other guys meant a lot, too. And don’t forget, Red Auerbach was also great at making moves for the perfect role players, guys like Danny Ainge and Gerald Henderson and M.L. Carr and Cedric Maxwell. Just a great group of guys and great players.

 

What was it like to play for a coach as demanding as Bill Fitch?

I think the guys that played a lot of minutes were more aggravated with him than I was. He was a guy who loved to practice a lot and loved to watch a lot of film. I think it was harder on the guys that were playing 30-40 minutes a game, because his harder practices, combined with watching a whole lot of film, wore on them after a while. For me, the harder practices really helped because I wasn’t getting as many minutes as the other guys. The only time I’d see that many minutes was if Robert ended up getting into foul trouble, of if someone got injured or something like that. But Bill was a fine coach and it worked out well in the end. You can’t argue with success, and Bill was able to win a world championship.

 

The arrival of McHale and Parish was huge.

Robert and Kevin were outstanding players and even better people. They were both funny, too. The public didn’t really see that side of Robert, but in the locker room he was one of the funniest guys on the team, always joking around. Kevin was just an unbelievable player who could do it all underneath the basket. To pull off that trade with Golden State, that really shows you the genius of Red Auerbach.

 

Take me back to the ’81 Eastern Conference Finals against Philly.

I don’t recall how many teams had come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a series at that time, but I know that there hadn’t been many. I remember every game coming down to the wire, and I remember Bird having a great series. But the whole team played well together. And I think that was the stepping stone we needed to not only win the title that year, but to prove that we could break through and compete for the championship every year.

 

The Celtics won their 14th NBA Championship that year, beating Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets. Take me back to that series.

After we got past the Sixers we felt pretty good about our chances against Houston in the Finals. The Rockets had Moses Malone and had gotten past the Lakers the series before that, and everyone had the Lakers picked to reach the Finals and probably win it all. They had Malone, Robert Reid, Calvin Murphy, Rudy Tomjanovich, Mike Dunleavy. So they had a very good team. But we were able to get up on them early in the series, and I felt like we had better depth and had a better overall team than the Rockets.

To win a title was a dream come true. I was a pretty lucky athlete. I won a title in high school, In college I was part of a team that won the NIT and the NCAA tournaments. And then I end up with the Celtics and win an NBA Championship. I think that I’m the only person that’s ever done that. It was kind of like putting the icing on the cake.

And the city – to be able to play in Boston was an unbelievable experience. The fans there are a lot like the Kentucky fans. It was like playing in a college town. I can remember the parade after we won, there were hundreds of thousands of fans out there. I’d never seen anything like it. It was a neat place to play.

 

You are part of a rare fraternity, winning NCAA and NBA championships for legendary teams. Does one mean more to you than the other?

I think they’re special in different ways. At Kentucky I played a major role in winning the championship. In Boston I didn’t get to play quite as much. But just being a part of a championship team is something that you’ll always remember, so both titles are equally special, just in different ways. To this day I have people coming up to me and asking me about my Kentucky days, or my Celtic days, so that brings back a lot of memories.

 

You didn’t play for Adolph Rupp or Red Auerbach, but both men are iconic. Please tell me a little about each.

The thing that I remember most about Rupp was that he was on the Olympic Committee when I arrived at Kentucky. At the time, freshmen weren’t really allowed to try out for the Pan American Games, and Rupp was able to get me an invite to Salt Lake City, Utah, where they had 150-200 players trying out for the team. I was able to go out there and make that team after my freshman year, so if it wasn’t for Rupp I wouldn’t have had that experience with Parish, and Otis Birdsong, and Johnny Davis and that group.

As for Red Auerbach – he was an unbelievable man. I can remember my father and I sitting in his office, negotiating my second contract, just the three of us. That’s the kind of guy that he was. Again, some of the trades that he pulled off were just amazing. I remember getting a call from KC Jones, who was one of my dearest friends and who had just been named head coach. KC told me that I’d just been traded to Phoenix for Dennis Johnson, and I just had to laugh and tell him that the Celtics had just gotten a pretty good deal. And that’s another one of those Auerbach trades that I’m talking about.

 

Final Question – What is the one memory of playing for the Boston Celtics that stands out among all of the others?

It would have to be that day the final buzzer sounded and we were world champions. As a matter of fact, I had the ball at the end of the game and I kept it – I still have it [laughs]. I had it signed by everybody.  The other thing would be the opportunity to play with the greatest front court ever. With Bird, Parish and McHale, you’ll never see a front court any better than that one. Even in today’s game, I’d put them up against anybody. It was a great experience with the great group of guys that we had on that team.

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The Jerry Sichting Interview

By:  Michael D. McClellan | He was like any other Indiana schoolboy of the day, raised on stories of Bobby Plump, John Wooden, and Oscar Robertson, his free time spent with a basketball in his hands, dreaming of his own chance at basketball stardom.  He was never big nor particularly fast, but he made up for any athletic deficiencies with heart, smarts, and moxie.  How else does an average point guard go on to play major college basketball, and then parley that into a ten year career in the NBA?  Sure, Jerry Sichting was average in many ways, but he was also something else: An overachiever cut from his first professional team; a fighter who refused to let a young Bobby Knight submarine his Big Ten aspirations; a producer of points and steals and assists, the things that scouts notice and NBA coaches keep on their rosters, regardless of size.

Born and raised in Martinsville, Indiana, it wasn’t long before a young Jerry Sichting found himself gravitating to the local park, hoisting shots in all manner of weather.  A four-year starter and star at Martinsville High School, Sichting also excelled at quarterback on the football team, earning All-State honors and generating cursory interest from Notre Dame and its outgoing head coach, Ara Parseghian.  The allure of South Bend was tempting, but with Joe Montana on the roster and little hope of seeing the field, the undersized Sichting chose to pursue basketball instead.

Several major colleges also expressed an interest in the tough-as-nails point guard with the sweet shooting stroke, including Indiana University and its brash head coach, Bobby Knight.  Sichting appeared set to sign with the Hoosiers, until the school unexpectedly rescinded the scholarship offer, forcing him to look elsewhere.  He signed with Purdue instead, following in Wooden’s footsteps and transforming himself into an All-Conference standout by the end of his senior season.

The NBA Draft was a completely different animal back then – more rounds, less fanfare – and Sichting’s fourth round selection by Golden State was met with little celebrity outside of Martinsville.  He held his own in training camp, but was cut when head coach Al Attles settled on a season-opening roster that included guards John Lucas, Phil Smith and former Celtic Jo Jo White.  Set adrift, Sichting gave the Continental Basketball Association a try, which lasted a full two days, before returning to Indiana and taking a job in a sporting goods store.

The 1979-80 NBA season came and went without so much as a phone call, and by the following summer Sichting wondered whether he would ever get another shot.  The Indiana Pacers, floundering at the time, held open tryouts.  Sichting was hardly in playing shape, but he was impressive enough to earn a spot on the team’s summer league roster – and, in the process, earn an invitation to veterans camp.  Improbably, he made the team.

The Pacers were decent during the 1980-81 NBA regular season, going 44-38 with a roster that included an aging George McGinnis.  The record was good enough to make the playoffs, where the team fell in the opening round to Dr. J and the Philadelphia 76ers.  A year later the Pacers were 35-47, and out of the playoffs entirely.  Indiana was positively dreadful during the 1982-83 season, going 20-62, but Sichting was solid as the team’s starting point guard, averaging 9.6 points and 5.3 rebounds, and playing well enough to earn a starting nod on occasion.  A 26-56 season followed in 1983-84, and a year later the team was 22-60.  By then, Sichting had had enough.

“I contacted the Celtics through Chris Ford,” Sichting says. “I was a free agent, and I had always wanted to play for the Boston Celtics. I didn’t know whether the team would be interested, but I thought that it was worth a try. There seemed to be some interest on their part, but then they drafted Sam Vincent. I really didn’t think I had a chance at that point.”

Red Auerbach liked the way Sichting handled the ball, so much so that he traded veteran guard Quinn Buckner to the Pacers and signed Sichting to an offer sheet.  Fifteen days later, he was officially a member of the Boston Celtics.  With Bill Walton, Scott Wedman and Sichting providing punch off the bench, the Celtics rolled to a 67-15 record and the team’s sixteenth NBA championship.

“It was an unbelievable feeling,” Sichting says. “From a basketball standpoint, I’d never been that excited in my life. I hadn’t been able to win a championship in high school, and I hadn’t won one at Purdue. To be able to win a championship with guys like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish – the greatest frontline in NBA history – that’s something that I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.”

Take me back to your childhood in Martinsville.  What led you to the basketball court?

The main thing that drew me to basketball was, number one, growing up in Indiana.  Number two, my family moved when I was about three years old.  The property that the house was on was connected to a park, and the basketball court was about twenty feet from my backyard.  I grew up on the basketball court, playing outside whenever the weather permitted, and whenever the weather didn’t permit [laughs].  Being in a small town in Indiana, back in those days basketball was a major source of entertainment.  Everybody looked up to whoever played on the high school team, and your goal as a kid in grade school and junior high was to make the varsity basketball team.  And as you got closer to achieving that goal, then you maybe thought about making the Indiana All-Star Team, which was a huge deal in those days.  So that’s how I really go interested in basketball.  The guys that played on the varsity team would be over in that park a lot in the summer, and I would just try to do what they did.

 

You played for the legendary Sam Alford at Martinsville High School.  Please tell me about your high school basketball career.

Coach Alford arrived as I was coming in as a freshman.  He really rebuilt the program.  There had been some years when Martinsville had had good teams, but it had been fairly inconsistent.  In his first couple of years as head coach – especially my freshman year – we struggled a little bit.  He decided to play a lot of freshmen and sophomores.  We took our lumps because we played one of the most difficult schedules in the state.  I think we only won five or six games my freshman year, but my last couple of years we were consistently ranked in the state.

 

Was your high school like the Indiana school portrayed in Hoosiers?

We played in this old gym that was almost a high school version of the Boston Garden.  It was a big brick building called Glenn Curtis Gymnasium, and it sat separate from the rest of the school.  It was the same gym that Johnny Wooden played in.  It was an incredible atmosphere.  The tournament was still like Hoosiers, a single classification for all schools.  We didn’t win it all like in the movie, but it was a great experience nonetheless.

 

You were an All-State quarterback at Martinsville.

I liked football, but Martinsville had never had a winning football team.  Bill Siderewicz came in as the new coach, and the team went 9-1 during my freshman year.  It really got the whole town in a frenzy – it was as if the town had discovered football for the first time.  Coach Siderewicz talked me into going out for the team during my sophomore year, and we finished with another 9-1 season.  We were undefeated during my senior year, which was the first of five undefeated teams that Siderewicz would coach in his career.  He’s an Indiana football legend, and he’s enshrined in the Indiana Football Hall of Fame.

 

From what I hear, Notre Dame showed interest in you.

Notre Dame never actually offered me a scholarship, but I could have gone to Purdue or Indiana and played football.  Besides, Notre Dame had a pretty good quarterback on the roster by the name of Joe Montana [laughs].  I really never gave college football serious consideration.  I just played in high school because I liked it, and because we had some really good players on the team.  Going undefeated was one of the greatest experiences ever.

 

How close were you to playing basketball for Bobby Knight at Indiana?

My high school basketball coach was Sam Alford, who is another coaching legend.  Sam is enshrined in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, and his son Steve was a great player who made it to the NBA.  He really wanted me to go to Indiana University.  I was being recruited by Coach Knight and I was giving it serious consideration, but Indiana gave the scholarship to another player before I could make up my mind.

 

Were you disappointed you didn’t play for the Hoosiers?

It was a great source of motivation.  To me, it was Coach Knight’s way of saying that I couldn’t play in the Big Ten.  I wanted to prove him wrong, and prove that I was tough enough to hang with the best programs and best players in the conference.

 

How did you end up choosing Purdue?

It came down to three schools:  Cincinnati, Louisville, and Purdue.  I had grown up being a huge fan of both Purdue Indiana.  There were only four channels to choose from back then, but all of the Indiana and Purdue games were televised.  I remember Rick Mount and those Purdue teams of the late Sixties and early Seventies.  Indiana had the Arsdale twins, Tom and Dick, playing around the same time.  So Indiana made a hard decision easy for me, and I decided to go to Purdue.

 

You were a First Team All-Big Ten during your senior season at Purdue.  Did you think you could play NBA basketball?

I thought the NBA was an outside shot at best, because I saw myself as a fringe player who needed the perfect situation to get there.  But I had confidence in my ability.  Playing in the Big Ten definitely helped, because the Big Ten was the best conference in the country in those days, hands down.

 

Hands down?

Almost every team had an NBA point guard, with the possible exception of Illinois.  Quinn Buckner was at Indiana.  Kelvin Ransey was at Ohio State.  Rickey Green was at Michigan.  Magic Johnson was at Michigan State.  Wes Matthews was at Wisconsin.  Minnesota had Ray Williams and Osborn Lockhart, who played for the Globetrotters.  Billy McKinney was at Northwestern.  So all of those guys matriculated into the NBA, and those were just the guards.  There were a lot of forwards and centers who made it to the NBA as well – Mychal Thompson, Kent Benson, Joe Barry Carroll…all of those guys were in the Big Ten.  That’s what really prepared me, and what gave me the confidence that I could play NBA basketball.  I knew that I’d be a bubble-type of player coming out of college, but I knew I had a shot if I got with the right team.

 

You were selected in the fourth round of the 1979 NBA Draft, by the Golden State Warriors.  What was that like?

It was an eye-opener.  Like any rookie coming into the league, I didn’t know quite what to expect.  It’s a huge jump up in talent.  Golden State had some older guards that were on guaranteed contracts, which was the case with Jo Jo White.  John Lucas was there.  Phil Smith was one of the team’s mainstays from that 1975 NBA championship team.  I thought I had a good camp, but I didn’t get a lot of opportunities to play in the exhibition games, so I was a little bit frustrated with that.  But being on the other end, several years later as a coach, I know how difficult it is when you have to make those last cuts.  You know a guy can probably play in the league, but you just don’t have a spot for him.  It was a numbers game, and it just didn’t work out in the end.

 

What did you do after the Warriors cut you?

I gave the CBA a shot.  I went out to Maine for a couple of days, but I didn’t like the CBA lifestyle – getting in a van, driving up-and-down the East Coast to play games, things like that.  So I resigned myself to the fact that I’d enjoyed a good college career and had taken a shot at the NBA and come up short.  I ended up getting a regular job back in Indianapolis.  It was a sporting good company.  I worked there for a year.

 

Suddenly, you’re on the outside looking in.  How does a gym rat like Jerry Sichting get his basketball fix?

I played in some industrial leagues and AAU tournaments.  I stayed somewhat in shape.  The guys that I worked with were gym rats themselves.  We played several times a week, and competed in a couple of different leagues.  It was fun, but I wasn’t in NBA shape.

 

A year later you end up getting your big break with the Indiana Pacers.  How it that play out?

The Pacers had just undergone a big shakeup in their front office.  Jack McKinney had been the Lakers’ head coach until he suffered a terrible head injury in a bicycle accident the year before.  The Lakers ended up winning the championship under Paul Westhead, so Jack lost his job and the Pacers hired him.  One of the first things Jack did was conduct something called a “Walter Mitty Camp,” which was basically open auditions. I think it was a way for the Pacers to test Jack’s mental faculties following that accident, but it also turned out to be the break I needed.

 

What were the Walter Mitty tryouts like?

We had our tryout at Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler University campus.  It was nearly a hundred degrees outside, the humidity was really high, and there was no air conditioning inside.  It was supposed to be a two-day tryout.  I lied to Jack and told him that I was in good shape, but I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to come back the second day.  Thankfully, they cut the tryouts to one day.  From there I was invited to rookie camp, was then selected to play in the LA summer league, and then invited to the Pacers’ veterans camp.   After jumping through those four hoops, I was selected to make the team.

 

You played your first five seasons with the Pacers.  What was it like to play against those great Celtic teams, and did you ever think that you would one day help lead them to an NBA Championship?

The Celtics were very good.  I remember those games well – we actually beat them a couple of times at home, but it almost felt like playing an away game because it was Larry Bird, and there were so many Celtics fans in Indiana.  We were a young team, and we really struggled, so going up against the Celtics was a playoff game atmosphere for us.  Beating the Celtics was definitely the highlight of our season.

 

George McGinnis was your teammate those first two seasons in Indy.  What was he like?

George is an Indiana legend.  I don’t know if there’s a guy to compare him to when he was in high school – I guess it would be somebody like a LeBron James.  He was a man among boys.  He was just so big and physically mature, and so quick at the same time.  Nobody could handle him when he was in his prime.  He only played a couple of years of college ball at Indiana, and then he went hardship and went to the ABA in the early 70s.  He was a legend at such a young age, because of what he did in high school and later at Indiana.  It was quite an experience to play with George.  I’m the only person to play on the same team with both George McGinnis and Larry Bird, which is pretty special for me because they are two of the best players to ever come out of Indiana – with the possible exception of Oscar Robertson.

 

I hear you were  a Celtics fan back in the day.

Growing up, my two favorite teams were the Pacers and the Celtics.  The Pacers were in the ABA in those days, that the Celtics were the greatest team in NBA history.  I followed them in the late 60s, and then on into the 70s when John Havlicek and Dave Cowens were running the show.  I just always liked the style of play – I felt that they played basketball the right way.

 

You became a free agent during the summer of ’85.  How did you end up signing with the Celtics?

I actually made a phone call to the Celtics, because I wanted to see if there was any interest.  They had just lost to the Lakers in ’85 Finals, and my wife encouraged me to reach out.  She felt that Boston would be looking for outside shooting, so I called and spoke with Chris Ford.  [Celtics GM] Jan Volk called me not long after that, and he said that Boston was definitely interested.  He ask me to call him back after the draft, but then they selected Sam Vincent out of Michigan State in the first round, so I decided not to call back.  A day or two later, Jan calls me and says, ‘I thought you were going to call.’  I said, ‘Well, I thought you got your point guard in Sam Vincent.’  He says, ‘Well, we like Sam, but you’re more of a proven commodity right now.  We’re still very interested in you.’  That kind of got the ball rolling.  I was coming off a stress fracture in ’85, so I went to Boston and had the doctors look at me.  I had a couple of interviews while I was there, and I went to KC Jones’ basketball camp that summer.  Not long after that I signed the contract.

 

Your arrival in Boston coincided with that of the great Bill Walton.

Bill was the NBA Sixth Man of the Year that year, and he provided a lot of stuff for that team.  He was a great passer, a great rebounder, and so intelligent.  He was on a mission that year.  He was probably the most focused guy from the first day of camp until the end of the season, because he had gone through so much adversity with his health.  I think he knew that this was probably his swan song.  He had a couple of years left in him, possibly, and he was finally in a position to be on another great team.  I think everybody would tell you that he was just a fantastic teammate.

 

Larry Bird was at the height of his powers during that 1985-86 season.  What was it like playing with the Hick From French Lick?

Yes he was.  Larry was a great player, obviously, and he was the leader of the team.  He definitely was all about winning.  The hard work that he put in carried over to everyone else on the team.  He could do some amazing things on the basketball floor.  He had a sixth sense for what was going to happen next – his anticipation and recognition of what was going to happen in the next second or two was really unparalleled.  It enabled him to do some things that other people with the same athletic ability couldn’t come close to doing.

 

The Celtics were practically unbeatable at home that season.  What was it like to play in the Boston Garden?

The Garden was a place like no other, especially in terms of the fans.  We thought we would never lose playing at home.  There were several games that year when we were down late, but I don’t think anybody – us on the bench, anybody who was on the court, or anybody in the stands – doubted that were going to come back and win.  It was only a matter of time, and it was only a matter of what the eventual winning margin was going to be.

 

Did the team click on immediately, or where there adjustments that had to be made?

It took us a little while to really jell that year because Walton and myself were new to the team.  Because of that, there were a few tweaks in the lineup, as well as some rotation changes from the year before.  We started rolling in early January.  There was a three week stretch where we were beating teams by an average of over twenty points.  We just got to clicking and everybody kind of fell into their roles and knew what everybody else on the team was going to do, night in and night out.  We were pretty much untouchable for a while.

 

What was it like meeting Red Auerbach for the first time?

Red was famous for negotiating directly with his players, but too be honest, I did most of my contract negotiations with Jan Volk.  Red was kind of standoffish at first.  Looking back, you almost had to win a championship to be accepted.  He wanted to wait, I think, to see how I did in the playoffs, and see exactly what this team was going to do.  After that, I remember getting a cigar from him when we won the championship.  The next year, we had some injuries and some problems, and there was one time when he came into the locker room.  He rarely spoke to the team as a group, but he came in once – we were struggling, and had lost several road games in a row – and he came in the locker room, and basically read everybody the riot act, and said that we weren’t playing like the Celtics.  It was late ’86, early ’87.  He told us that we were retaliating instead of instigating, which was one of his favorite sayings, and he said that nobody really wanted to go out there and fight, except for D.J [Dennis Johnson] and Little Jerry [laughs].  That’s what it called me from then on.

 

Let’s talk ’86 Playoffs.  Against Michael Jordan and the Bulls, you hit a huge shot in the second overtime of that game, breaking a tie at 131 and practically ending the Bulls’ season.  What did it mean to you to have the trust of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to take a big shot like that?

That’s why I wanted to come to Boston.  I had kind of established myself in the league, but I was on a Pacers team that was a few years away from making the playoffs at that point.  I knew if I went to a team like Boston I wasn’t going to start, but I’d have a chance to play and perform, and to be on a team that had a chance to do something special.  So that’s what attracted me to Boston to begin with.  I knew I’d have an opportunity to step up and take a shot like that in the playoffs against a team like the Bulls, and I knew I could put the ball in the basket.  I wasn’t a great scorer by any stretch of the imagination, but I was a real good shooter.  So you just want to put yourself in those situations and see how you respond.  And to have guys like that who trust you to make a pressure shot like that is special.

 

Did it bother you coming off the bench?

Not at all.  I didn’t want to go there and just sit on the bench and not get any playing time at all, but I understood that Dennis and Danny [Ainge] were going to get the majority of the minutes.  In that type of role you just have to be ready – somebody is going to get hurt, or somebody is going to foul out, which is what happened to Dennis in that double overtime game against the Bulls.  You just have to go out and pick up where they left off.

 

The 1986 NBA Finals will forever be remembered for the Game 5 fight between you and Ralph Sampson.

The fans were merciless when we came back to Boston for Game 6.  I never saw Ralph play really well after that, especially in the Boston Garden.  He was an All-Star player at that point in his career, but I think that altercation took its toll on him.  As for the fight itself, it was one of those things that happens in the heat of the battle.  He kind of lost control, and before you know it you’ve got a bunch of guys out there on the floor and it was really a dangerous scene.  You had a few policemen out there trying to break it up, which isn’t good, either.  At times it’s best to let the players break it up.

The thing I regret about the whole thing is that it turned the game around.  We were actually in the lead when it happened, and had a chance to close them out, 4-1.  And then the crowd went absolutely berserk.  The Rockets gained the momentum after that fight, so that’s the only thing I really regret about it.  Once we got back to Boston we had a very chippy practice session, which only lasted about a half hour.  We were supposed to go through things at three-quarter speed, but everybody was so ticked off that there were fights ready to break out.  That’s one of the most intense practices that I’ve every been a part of as a player.  KC knew that we were ready to play, so he just cancelled practice at that point.  We came back an blew them out in Game 6.

What do you remember most about Game 6?

Everybody was sky-high to finish it out.  It was tight into the second quarter, but then the starters blew the Rockets right off the floor in the third quarter.  It was a blowout in the fourth, so KC just kind of bypassed Walton and myself and let some of the other bench players get some time on the court.  That was the right thing to do, but, as a competitor, you want to be out there on the court.  I wish I could have played a few more minutes in that game.

 

After working so hard to climb the mountain, what was it like to finally be a world champion?

It was a dream come true.  Once I joined the Celtics, winning an NBA Championship was our goal from the first day of training camp.  Anything less that a championship that year was going to be a failure.  To finally get it done, that was the great part.  We had a championship parade through downtown Boston, and close to two million people attended.  It was just incredible.

 

The sky seemed the limit in the moments after that Game 6, but everything would change just a few short weeks later.  Where were you when you heard that Len Bias had died?

I was back in Indiana at that point.  I was at my in-laws house.  I remember my wife waking me up pretty early in the morning – there was a phone call from Boston.  I can’t even remember who exactly it was that called, but I just couldn’t believe the news.  It just seemed like a bad dream.  I started calling other people within the organization, and all of a sudden it’s on the TV and on the radio.  That’s when it finally hit me that it was true.  Len Bias was going to be a great, great player.  The next great Celtic.

 

In 2002, you were inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.  What does this honor mean to you?

It’s a great honor.  Indiana has long been known for its high school basketball, and it’s truly like no other place in that respect.  Back when I played high school ball, it was really the tail end of an era.  There was no cable TV, no computers, and no video games.  There was just so much more focus on high school basketball.  It’s really not the same today, so I’m glad that I grew up playing in that era.  Being inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, alongside guys like Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson, is as good as it gets.

 

Final Question:  If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?

Have a dream, have a goal, and work hard to achieve it.  Most people that end up at top are usually blessed with special gifts, whether it is in sports, music, or whatever the occupation might be.  For the rest of us, there is no substitute for hard work and dedication.

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The M.L. Carr Interview

By:  Michael D. McClellan | To a generation of Boston Celtics fans, M.L. Carr was the towel-waving agitator best remembered for antagonizing Lakers players and fans alike during that epic 1984 NBA Finals.  To another generation of fans, Carr was the Celtics’ coach and general manager during some of the darkest days in franchise history, overseeing one of the team’s worst seasons in a failed attempt to land Wake Forest star Tim Duncan.  Either way, Carr’s mark on the Boston Celtics is indelible.  He is a member of the ’81 and ’84 Celtic championship teams that overcame long odds to hang banners in the old Boston Garden, and he remains fiercely proud of his connection to one of the NBA’s greatest franchises.

Yes, M.L. Carr still bleeds green.

“There’s not another organization in sports that matches it,” he says quickly.  “The Boston Celtics epitomize greatness and tradition.  The Lakers are close, but they’re still looking up at us.  Just the way I like it.”

Carr’s road to basketball success started at tiny Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Picked by the Kansas City Kings in the fifth round of the 1973 NBA Draft, Carr also found himself selected by the ABA’s Kentucky Colonels.  However, the Wallace, North Carolina native quickly learned that the path to the pros wouldn’t be easy; cut by both the Kings and Colonels, Carr balled for the Hamilton Pat Pavers and the Scranton Apollos of the Eastern Basketball Association before playing for Israel Sabras in the European Pro Basketball league.

The year in Israel allowed Carr to hone his skills and grow as a player – he led Israel Sabras to a league title, topping the league in scoring and finishing second in rebounding en route to being named Most Valuable Player – before signing a one-year contract with the Spirits of St. Louis, a year before the league folded.

Carr’s brief ABA career earned him a spot on the league’s All-Rookie team.  It was enough to catch the eye of the Detroit Pistons, and Carr wasted little time signing his first NBA contract.  He would play three seasons in a Detroit uniform before signing a free agent contract with the Celtics, his arrival coinciding with the arrival of Indiana State forward Larry Bird and head coach Bill Fitch, returning Boston its familiar place among the NBA’s elite.

Winners of 29 games a season earlier, the Celtics would finish 61-21 during the 1979-80 regular season, reaching the 1980 Eastern Conference Finals.  Down 3-1 to the Philadelphia 76ers in the ’81 Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics rallied to win the series and advance to the 1981 NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets.  Six games later, the Celtics were champions and Carr was on top of the basketball world.

“Best feeling in the world,” he says quickly.

The Celtics would win another championship in 1984, defeating the hated Lakers in seven games.  It was a classic series, and remains one of the highest-rated NBA Finals in league history.  For Celtics fans of a certain age, the lasting image of Carr waving his trademark towel still reverberates.

“Fans identified with M.L. Carr and the towel,” says Bill Walton with a laugh.  “They lived vicariously through him, and they loved watching him get under the Lakers’ skin.”

Carr’s NBA career would end 47 games into the 1984-85 regular season, but his work with the Celtics was far from done.  He remained connected with team ownership, and in 1994 was named general manager.  He also coached the team for two seasons – 1995-96, and 1996-97.  It was a dark period in team history – Bird, McHale and Parish were long gone, and the team had lost budding star Reggie Lewis to a heart attack during the summer of ’93.  Still, Carr worked hard to restore glory to the once-proud franchise as GM.

“I have no regrets,” he says, settling in for the interview.  “I had a good run.  I have two NBA championship rings and a lifetime of memories to show for it.”

Please tell me a little about your childhood, and some of the things that led you to the basketball court.

I grew up in the segregated South, in the small town of Wallace, North Carolina.  It was an agricultural town.  I was twelve years old when I went out to the local golf course to get a job as a caddie.  I didn’t know anything about caddying, but I met a man there who would go on to have an incredible impact on my life.  His name is Davis Lee.  He took me under his wing that day and predicted that, with my attitude and his wallet, we’d make a great partnership.  We’ve remained close for 50 years – and he and I are now in business together in Huntsville, Alabama.

Not only did he hire me as a caddie that day, he also convinced me that I should help integrate the local high school.  There were people on both sides who didn’t think it was a good idea for me to go to a white high school, but it turned out to be a great decision.  He was also the one who convinced me to go out for basketball.  I told him that I didn’t like basketball, but he was persistent and really stayed after me.  When I told him that I wasn’t a very good player, he countered by paying my way to a basketball camp.  It was held at Kimble College – Kimble University now – and it was one of the oldest and largest camps in the country.  He said that I’d come back and make the high school basketball team.

 

How did it turn out?

That camp was a life-changing experience for me.  There were two reasons it was such a big deal for me – the legendary John Wooden was there, and so was ‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich.  It was an unbelievable experience.  Pete pulled me aside and let me hang out with him at the camp – it would be like LeBron James doing that one of the kids at his camp today, or a Larry Bird asking a kid to hang out with him for the week.  So that really got me excited about the game.

 

You played your college ball at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC.

Guilford is about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Wallace, close enough to home but still far enough away to fully experience life on a college campus.  My freshman year we placed fourth in the 1970 NAIA Tournament.  As a senior we finished with a 29-5 record and defeated the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore in the NAIA championship game.  I played forward for Coach [Jack] Jensen, and I learned so much from him.  Our team went 101-25 those four years.  I averaged 18 points and 12 rebounds my senior year and was name NAIA First Team All-American, but the thing I was most proud of was graduating from Guilford with academic honors and a history degree.  The decision to go to Guilford was one of the best decisions I ever made.  I’m still involved in the school today.

 

You took a circuitous route to the Celtics.  Please take me back to this period on your life.

I spent three years trying to figure out how to get into either the NBA or the ABA.  I was cut from three teams.  I ended playing in the old Eastern League, and that’s where Red [Auerbach] discovered me.  He thought I could eventually play at the NBA level, so he pulled some strings with a European League team called the Israel Sabras.  I experienced success and ended up getting noticed by scouts in both leagues.

 

How long were you in Israel?

I played one season there.  When I came back I decided to play for the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis under a one-year deal.

 

What was your time like with the Spirits of St. Louis?

It was a great group of players, a very talented group, but we really weren’t a real good team.  We had great individual stars.  On paper it was one of the most talented collection of players ever.  Moses Malone, Marvin Barnes, Caldwell Jones, Don Chaney, Mike D’Antoni.  Joe Mullaney started that season as the head coach, and Rod Thorn finished it.  It was a great learning experience for me because both of those men really knew their basketball.  It helped to transition me from the ABA to the NBA.

 

How did you end up playing for the Pistons?

The ABA folded in 1976, and the two leagues merged.  I was considered a free agent because I’d only signed for one year, and Detroit was offering me the best deal at the time – it was for three years, so I couldn’t turn that down.

 

In Detroit you played for Dick Vitale.

Dick Vitale was a very animated coach.  He came to the Pistons after coaching the University of Detroit.  It was his first pro coaching opportunity.  For anyone who’s seen him as an announcer, he was the same way as a coach.  He was so intense.  The one thing I’ll always remember him for – and thank him for – is that he let me play the third most minutes in the NBA during my free agent year, and that gave me the opportunity to become one of those high-paid athletes.

 

A year later you join the Celtics.  Things weren’t exactly rosy in Boston at the point in time.

The Celtics were in a rebuilding mode and were coming off a lot of turmoil.  Dave Cowens was making a real effort to be a part of the rebuild.  Tiny Archibald was coming back from an off year.  Gerald Henderson and Cedric Maxwell were also a part of that team.  We also had this young kid from French Lick that was supposed to be a pretty good player [laughs].

 

Red wasted little time getting the Celtics back on track.

Red had assembled a good nucleus to build around, and then he started getting rid of the players who were causing all of the problems.  He was willing to sacrifice talent but he wasn’t going to sacrifice character.  We had a very good year, winning 61 games and reaching the Eastern Conference Finals.  Even though we didn’t win it all, that year was crucial because it put us back on track and we became a championship caliber team.  The other good thing about season was that it gave me a chance to play with my mentor, Pete Maravich.  It was an unbelievable thrill to be on the same team with him.

 

Let’s talk ’81 Eastern Conference Finals.  The Celtics were down 3-1 to the heavily favored 76ers.  What happened?

Red explained that we had a great opportunity.  He told us not to look at it being down 3-1, that we needed to approach it a game at a time.  It’s a cliché, but it was exactly what we were up against.  They had to beat us one more time.  So Red just kept reinforcing that fact.  He just kept saying, ‘Don’t let them beat you.’  I remember being in Game 5 of that series, and getting a rebound and getting fouled by Dr. J.  And I’m going to the line and the Sixers call timeout to ice me, and Cedric Maxwell comes over and says, ‘Don’t worry about these foul shots – you make them both and we keep playing.  You miss and we get to go on summer vacation.’  It was an incredible comeback, that’s the reality of it, and we knew that once we beat the Sixers that it was pretty much anticlimactic.  We knew we were going to beat the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals.

 

There wasn’t any doubt?

We knew we were going to win.  We’d gone through such an incredible battle with the Sixers that there wasn’t a doubt in the world.  Beating the Rockets was a foregone conclusion.  We knew there was no way we’d come up short.  Talent-wise, we felt we were the superior team, and we had such a will to win after losing to the Sixers the year before and then coming back to beat them to reach the Finals.  We knew we were going to take care of business.

 

What was it like to finally win that championship?

As a Celtics fan growing up I was well aware of the ‘Celtic Mystique’ and what all of those championship banners were all about.  And like I said, when we beat the Sixers we knew we were going to win a championship and get to put our own banner up in the rafters of the old Boston Garden.  It was so special for me, because of everything I’d been through – being cut, having to play in Israel, everything leading up to me putting on a Celtics uniform.  And then to finally win that championship, there’s nothing in the world like that feeling.  It overcomes you.

 

What memory stands out most?

I remember coming back from Houston and landing at the airport, and all of the people that were there to greet us.  I’d never in my life experienced anything like that.  People were going crazy.  And I remember the parade, going through the city with all of the people there, and to me it just felt like it was more than just basketball.  I guess it was because we’d just carved out our own place among all of those other great Celtic teams.

 

Was race ever an issue when you played for the Celtics? 

I’m a history major.  You go back three years prior to us winning that championship, and it was the height of busing in Boston.  There were so many negative connotations around that.  I vividly remember seeing the young black men being poked with the American flag, and that was resonating with me as I traveled through the city as a hero.  I remember being amazed at how I was being treated, when just three years earlier Boston had given itself such a black eye with that incident.  The people were cheering us and celebrating our achievement, honoring us as champions, and I just wished we could have bottled that up and applied it to more than just the Celtics.  I wished it could have been used to transform the thinking of an entire region.  Obviously Boston has come around and it’s one of the greatest cities in the world right now, but it went through some dark days to get here, and I think the Celtics played a part in helping with that.

 

The Celtics win the 1981 NBA Championship, only to be swept out of the playoffs the very next year by the Milwaukee Bucks.  What happened?

We lost to the Bucks in four, but to be honest, any team in the playoffs that year could have beat us in four games.  To be quite frank:  We came to the conclusion, as a team, that it was time for our coach to go.  I make no bones about that.  Bill Fitch was a very good coach, but he was also very strict, and he couldn’t loosen up the reins after we became more of a veteran team.  He still wanted to control everything, and he wanted to beat you down over everything, and it eventually wore thin with the team.  And I’ll be honest with you – if we were properly motivated, there was no way in the world we would have lost for games to the Milwaukee Bucks that year.  No way.  But we did lose four in a row because there was some internal stuff going on.  If you remember, the next year we won a championship.

 

Indeed.  Red fires Fitch, and replaces him with KC Jones.

Bill Fitch was the perfect coach when the roster was populated with younger, immature guys with very little professional experience.  KC Jones was the perfect coach for a veteran team.  He worked us hard but he treated us like veterans.  He wasn’t soft – he was a very demanding coach who held us to the highest standards set by Celtics teams from the past, and he had a point of reference because he was on so many of those championship teams.  He let us know about it:  No matter how many rebounds you got, your head couldn’t get too big because [Bill] Russell had gone out and gotten 40.  No matter how many points you scored, it didn’t matter because [John] Havlicek had the team record with 56.

 

As a coach, KC always looked cool under pressure.

He’d played in so many important games where the Celtics would be down six with a minute to go, so he knew how to get the best out of us without leaning on us in a negative way.  By the time KC arrived Larry [Bird] had already matured, and he had a bunch of veterans around him – Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, guys like that – so it was an ideal time for KC to take over.

 

That 1983-84 team was special.

Our motto that year was ‘Don’t Be Denied’.  And we weren’t.  We won the championship that no one thought we would win.

 

What do you remember most about beating the Lakers?

The final seconds of Game 7.  No one thought we could beat the Lakers.  They were the thoroughbreds, we were the Clydesdales.  It was a very physical series, and that’s exactly what we wanted because we knew that’s the only way we could beat those guys.  If you remember, there was Kevin McHale’s hit on Kurt Rambis, and there was Larry Bird bumping Michael Cooper out-of-bounds.  The series was full of things like that.  We knew that we had to physically beat them, because they had never played that kind of game.  It didn’t take the Lakers long to learn, but in that series it was the element of surprise that we needed.  So, for me, being back in the old Boston Garden for Game 7, with twelve seconds left on the clock, and knowing that we were going to be world champions when absolutely no one gave us a chance but us…that is the thing that I remember the most.

 

That series is still one of the highest rated series in NBA Finals history.

There were so many things that captured the fascination of fans everywhere.  You had Jack Nicholson in the stands, giving us the choke sign.  You had the fight with Rambis and McHale.  You had the East Coast team going up against the West Coast team.  Glitz going up against blue collar.  And the history between the two teams – that intense rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain – only added fuel to the fire.  It was the perfect storm and it seemed like everyone stopped what they were doing to focus on that series.

 

Your passion and positive attitude are well known – do you feel like this had an influence on how that series played out?

I think so.  My goal was to make sure that we played as loose and as confidently as possible, and if that meant being a cheerleader and a motivator, then that was my role.  And at that point in my career I wasn’t on the court a lot.  When I did get in the game I tried my best to make a positive impact to help the team – a big steal, a three point shot, a key rebound, a couple of minutes of tough defense, whatever I could contribute.  The media didn’t get to see us at practice or behind-the-scenes, but I made sure I kept reminding the guys that this opportunity was special, and that we might not get this chance again.  I kept telling them that we had to stay focused and to seize the moment.

 

In Los Angeles, you were Public Enemy Number One.

People remember me as an antagonist because I waved that towel and got under the opposing team’s skin.  That was all part of the plan.  If I could take some of the pressure and attention off of Larry, Robert and Kevin, then I was doing my job because they could loosen up and focus on playing basketball.  Just leave the antagonizing to me.  It was a bravado that got under the skin of the fans more than the players, but it helped us as a team remember who we were.  I never let them forget that we were the Celtics and that we expect to win.

 

Lakers fans have long memories.

[Laughs.]  I remember going to LA after that series and a guy at a restaurant refused to serve me.  He said he wasn’t going to serve anyone associated with the Boston Celtics.  I just said, ‘Great, I don’t want your greasy burgers anyway.’

 

You won 2 NBA Championships.  Which one means the most to you, and why?

The 1984 championship, without a doubt.  The first one was really special, but everyone expected us to beat the Houston Rockets.  We didn’t have a lot to prove in terms of being the best in the ’81 NBA Finals, because once we got by the Sixers everyone knew that we’d just beaten the best team in the playoffs.

No one thought we’d beat the Lakers in ’84.  Even the writers in our own city.  We had to prove we were better than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, and we were able to do that.  That series is talked about today because we were able to defy those odds.  So many memories – Gerald Henderson with the big steal, Dennis Johnson with the big baskets when we needed them the most in Game 4, Cedric Maxwell telling us to jump on his back in Game 7 and then delivering with a huge game to help wrap up the series.  McHale dominating down low, Larry hitting shots from all over the court.  It was a great team effort.

 

You were cut by the Celtics 47 games into the 1984-85 regular season.  Were you prepared for that?

I was, because I knew what getting cut felt like.  I didn’t go into the league as a first round pick with lots of money.  I made mine the hard way and was able to take care of what I’d made, and I knew that there was another world out there beyond playing professional basketball.  And I knew what it was like to work – I’d worked in a federal penitentiary and I’d sold cars on the front side of my career, and I made sure that I learned from my mentors so that I’d be prepared for life after basketball.

 

What was the transition like?

Robert Kraft, who now owns the New England Patriots, asked me to serve as a board member for Channel 7, which helped me how big businesses work behind the scenes.  The president of the Bank of Boston gave me an opportunity to become involved in a community outreach program.  Jim Davis, the founder and chairman of New Balance, brought me on as a board member.  All of these things helped with the transition, because idle time is the biggest thing any athlete faces when transitioning from their playing days.  When the cheers stop coming, the boos stop coming, the ball stops bouncing, and the team camaraderie comes to an end, that’s when everything stops abruptly and there’s a deafening silence that causes a lot of guys to go into a deep depression.  They’re not equipped to deal with that.  But I was prepared, so I didn’t have to deal with figuring out the next chapter in my life.

 

You weren’t there for that ’86 championship, but I hear you stayed closely connected to the players.

To me, that 1986 Celtics team is the greatest team ever assembled.  But the team that impressed me the most was the ’87 team.  I have more respect for that team than any team that I ever saw play.  There was so much adversity.  Parish playing with two twisted ankles in the playoffs.  Larry with the elbow injury.  Kevin McHale playing on a broken foot.  Bill Walton battling the foot problems and unable to play.  And these guys take this thing to Game 6 of the ’87 NBA Finals – a series that they had no business being in, quite frankly.  They just kept getting up off the mat and battling.  They lost that series to the Lakers, but they didn’t get beat.

 

Let’s talk about the legendary Red Auerbach.

When I first met Red, I’d just gotten cut from the Kansas City Kings.  Red called and said he’d like to meet with me, so I went to Boston and met with him in his office.  He tells me to sit down, and then he tells me that he doesn’t have a spot for me on this team.  I’m thinking to myself that he could have told me that over the phone.  Then he tells me that he thinks he’ll have a spot for me next year.  He says he wants to send me to Israel to play,where he could hide me while I get another year’s worth of experience under my belt.  I’m thinking to myself, ‘Israel?’  If he wanted to hide me, why didn’t he try to hide me somewhere in Harlem instead [laughs]?  But I didn’t ask any questions.  If Red Auerbach thought a year in Israel could get me into the NBA then I’d pack my bags and head overseas.  And that’s exactly what I did.

 

Red always seemed a step ahead of the competition.

Red had a vision, and he always talked about getting people to buy into that vision.  He preached having a clarity of vision.  Larry Bird was another example of Red’s vision – he drafted Larry a year early and then waited for him to turn pro.  And we all know how that turned out.

 

Tell me about Bill Russell.

The first time I met Bill Russell I’d just signed with the Celtics.  He was doing broadcasting work for CBS-TV at the time, and we were getting ready to play Philly.  He walks up to me and says, ‘M.L. Carr.’  And I say, ‘How are you doing, Mr. Russell?’  He says, ‘Fine.  Guess What?  I’m going to turn you into a household word today.  You know what word that is?’  I said, ‘No, what?’  He says, ‘Garbage.’  And then he breaks out in a big grin and lets loose with that famous laugh of his.  That was his good-natured way of welcoming me to the team.  Russ has been very supportive to me over the years.

 

Tell me about John Havlicek.

My first encounter with John came when I was a member of the Detroit Pistons.  It was my first game against the Celtics – and trust me, I was a Celtics fan growing up – and I had the task of guarding John Havlicek.  He got the quickest and easiest 27 points that anybody had ever scored on me.  He would run down the court and run me off of either Paul Silas or Dave Cowens, and then he’d be wide open for an easy jumper.

Well, later that season we play the Celtics in Boston, and I decided I wasn’t going to let John run me into Silas or Cowens, and that I wouldn’t let them pop me in the chest the way they did in the previous game.  My strategy was to rough up John before he could get me into those screens.  Well, the first time down the court I bump John pretty hard, and I learned that that’s the worst thing you could do in Boston.  I thought the fans were going to come out of the stands after me.  It was almost like I’d hit the pope [laughs].

 

Do you think that Havlicek’s accomplishments tend to get overshadowed by the players that came after him – especially Larry Bird and Paul Pierce?

Not only that, when you look at what guys like Havlicek accomplished you realize that it was a different era.  It was tougher back then.  The travel was tougher.  They didn’t have the same nutrition that they have today.  Sports medicine was in the Dark Ages back then.  What John did was unbelievable when you think about it.  Guys like John, Jerry West, Russ and Chamberlain.  That’s why I don’t like to compare eras.  When I retired we flew first class.  Guys back then traveled by car and train.  Teams today have their own private jets.

 

You came back to the Celtics in the ‘90s and took over as the team’s general manager.

It was a great opportunity that came about because I was chasing [team owner] Paul Gaston and constantly trying to buy the team from him – I’d put together an ownership group that would have had the resources to purchase the Celtics.  He had no interest in selling at the time, so he asked me if I’d be interested in running the team.  For me, I thought that would be the next best thing, and that it would give me the inside track if he ever did decide to sell.

 

What was that experience like for you?

It was a great experience, because it gave me a chance to give back to a Celtics family that had been so great to me over the years.  It gave me the opportunity to guide the team through some very tough times.  When I arrived, the talent level clearly wasn’t where it had been.  The team was in transition.  And realistically, it was going to be a few years before we got it back.  So I eventually decided to run the basketball operations, and then to also coach it at the same time.

 

Did you ever have second thoughts to becoming the head coach?

[Boston Globe sportswriter] Will McDonough was up front and honest with me.  I was talking to him about the coaching position, and I asked him what he thought.  He said, ‘Are you kidding?  Get the longest contract you can get, and get the most money you can get.   That way, when I kick the crap out of you in the paper, and you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.’

 

Your two-year stint as head coach didn’t end well.

Red tried to talk me out of it.  He didn’t like the idea.  He said that I had such a good name in the city, and that I had the respect of the fans, and that it was going to be a big risk.  He said that my reputation could take a big hit.  I listened to what he had to say, but I was convinced that I was the best person to take the team through what was certain to be a very rough period in franchise history.  I was willing to take the hits in order to get the team into a place where we had some good draft picks, and then I knew it would be time to step aside.

 

Was coaching as hard as you’d envisioned?

Much more difficult.  I never could have envisioned some of the things that were said and done by the fans during that time.  I’ve never talked about it until now, but I’d walk into my office and my assistant, Becky, would be in tears.  I’d ask her what was going on.  She was reading letters from irate fans – there were death threats and all kinds of stuff coming in.  And I just never thought it would go to that level.  I’d discuss it privately with Red and keep it behind closed doors, and then I’d only let the public see my positive side, but it was tough.

 

Did the fan criticism ever cross the line?

There were people who were trying to dig up dirt on me.  People who would go down to my mother’s house unannounced, and without my knowledge, and of course she’s going to let them in and make them feel at home.  They were there to dig up dirt on me, all because I was running and coaching the Celtics and the team was going through some tough times.  It was very hard on my family.

 

How different would things have been if Len Bias and Reggie Lewis had lived?

The team wouldn’t have gone through the slide, and I wouldn’t have been general manager and head coach.  There would have been a nice transition from Bird, McHale and Parish, and I think the team would have remained very competitive during the ‘90s.  Those were two great players.

 

Where were you when you heard that Bias had passed away?

I was walking to a meeting with my financial adviser, and someone on the street asked me if Len Bias was going to be okay.  I said that he was going to be more than okay, that he was going to be unbelievable.  Then I walk a little farther and someone else asks me the same thing, and I’m talking about how he’s going to be the next great Celtic, and that’s when this person tells me that Bias had had a heart attack and died.  I refused to believe it.  But then I walked into my financial adviser’s office and he’s telling me about news reports of Bias’ death.

 

How did Bias’s death effect Red?

Red was devastated.  That was the first time that I could ever remember Red not having an answer for something.  He really liked Len.  It broke his heart.  He also knew that the Celtics had lost someone who was going to be special.  He said he knew this kid, and that there was no way Bias would do drugs.

 

Last question – If you could give someone a piece of advice what would that be?

Don’t be afraid to ask for help – and always be willing to give help.  Too many times we are afraid to ask for help; asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.  And remember, riches are to enrich the lives of others.  We’ve all had people help us in this life.  We should be sure to do the same whenever we can.

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The Scott Wedman Interview

By: Michael D. McClellan | It’s easy to get lost in Larry Bird’s shadow, but Scott Wedman was never about limelight or acclaim.  The quiet Kansan with the picture-perfect release and feathery touch may have flown under the radar during his time with the Celtics, but his contributions were never lost on those who played alongside him.  Bird, never one to offer feint praise, long admired Wedman’s work ethic and commitment to diet and exercise, calling him the best-conditioned athlete on the team.  Bill Walton raved about his selflessness.  Kevin McHale called him a super sub. Head coach KC Jones compared him to the Celtics first great Sixth Man, Frank Ramsey.

“There were times out there when Scott Wedman was the best player on the planet and he couldn’t get in the game because Larry was playing so well,” says Walton.  “But that is what helped make those teams so great.  Scott sacrificed his own game for the greater good, and he was always ready when called upon.”

“When I arrived in Boston, everyone knew it was Larry’s team,” Wedman says.  “Larry would always tell me I was too short to guard him, then he’d post me up, and he’d score a lot in there. Then he’d tell me he was going to do it again. He made me a much tougher player mentally.  He helped to keep me sharp.”

As a member of two NBA World Championship teams with the Boston Celtics, Wedman earned a well-deserved reputation as both a dead-eye marksman and quintessential teammate.  A vegetarian who drank bottled water and practiced yoga regularly, Wedman was ahead of his time in his holistic approach to fitness.

“Scott was was taking care of his body in ways that separated him from other NBA players during that era,” says KC Jones.  “Back then, you didn’t see players meditating, or doing yoga, or eating organic food.  That was Scott.  And he was always ready to play.  He was a vital piece of our team. He knew that players like Larry and Kevin were going to get their minutes, and he accepted his role without hesitation. He had the perfect attitude. As a coach, you couldn’t ask for anything more.  He was an important piece of two championship teams.”

Wedman’s championship journey began at his parent’s farm in Harper, Kansas, where he practiced shooting baskets on a rim nailed to the family barn.  After relocating to Denver, Wedman became an All-State player at Mullen High School, sparking a recruiting war between Wyoming and Colorado. Colorado won out.  By the end of his junior season he had begun to attract the attention of NBA scouts.

The Kansas City Kings selected Wedman sixth overall in the 1974 NBA Draft, where he made the All-Rookie First Team.  He played seven seasons for the Kings, becoming a two-time NBA All-Star, before signing a free agent contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers.  After a season and a half in Cleveland, Wedman’s career experienced a much-needed reboot, and along with it, a renaissance; the January 14, 1983 trade sending Wedman to the Celtics for Darren Tillis and cash produced championships over the Lakers in ’84 and the Rockets in ’86.  Wedman, who had been a starter and offensive focal point in both Kansas City and Cleveland, was suddenly cast as a rotation player behind Larry Bird, but the selfless super-sub could have cared less.

“I wanted to win,” he says with a smile.  “Being traded to Boston was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

You were born on July 29th, 1952 in Harper, Kansas.  Take me back to your childhood.

We lived in Harper a very short time during my childhood– my parents moved to Denver when I was five years old.  Harper was a farming community, so there were plenty of wide-open spaces for kids to play.  Both sets of grandparents were there, so it was a good, wholesome family atmosphere.  We moved back to Harper briefly, which was during my fourth and fifth grade years, before moving to Denver for good.  I have fond memories of my time there, though.  Being close to my grandparents and enjoying them are probably the memories that stand out most.

 

You played your high school ball in Denver.

I was raised Catholic and attended Mullen, which is a Christian Brothers Catholic school.  It’s known for both academics and athletics, so the majority of the student body was there to excel in one or the other – or, in some cases, both.  As a freshman I wasn’t much athletically.  I was 5’-6” tall and 120 pounds, which made me one of the smallest players on the team.  That first year I was second string on the B team, but at least I didn’t get cut [laughs].  It took me a while for my body to catch up with my skill level.  Ny my senior year I was 6’-4” varsity player and made the All-State team.

 

Who were some of the people who helped shape your game?

I was fortunate to have a good basketball foundation prior to attending Mullen.  A gentleman named Bill Harris was my first significant coach, and he did a fantastic job of teaching me the fundamentals.  He was a Denver policeman who volunteered his time and energy, and who provided a real calming effect as I began my career in competitive athletics.  He coached my sixth grade team to the city championship, worked with me for more than two years, and helped to get my game on solid footing.

My high school coach at Mullen was Rick Egloff, who played quarterback at the University of Wyoming.  He led the Cowboys to the 1966 Sun Bowl team.  He was a young head coach, probably twenty-four or twenty-five at the time, and was very supportive in my development as a basketball player.  He contacted Bill Strannigan, then the head coach at the University of Wyoming, who offered me a full scholarship to play basketball.  The University of Colorado entered the picture at about the same time, so I had two schools from which to choose.  I ended up choosing Colorado and went there on a partial scholarship.

 

At Colorado, you set the field goal percentage record by shooting 53.5% from the floor.  As a professional, you shot above 50% for three consecutive seasons and earned a reputation as one of the NBA’s most deadly shooters.  What was the secret to such outstanding marksmanship?

I think my secret was a love of the game.  For me, practice was never laborious.  I would practice with the team and then work out on my own, and I truly enjoyed ever moment of it.  My goal was always the same – to make ever shot.  This helped me to stay focused on the proper mechanics, such as squaring up, releasing the ball, and following through.  I think enjoying basketball so much was a big advantage for me, because I wanted to learn more and I stayed longer to practice on that aspect of my game.  Also, it really helped that I had excellent coaches and teachers along the way.

 

How much of an adjustment was the jump from high school to college?

At Colorado, freshman weren’t allowed to play on the varsity team.  That was probably a good thing for me, because I don’t think I was ready to play at that level of competition.  Cliff Meely was on the varsity squad – he would later go on to play several years with the Houston Rockets in the NBA – and I remember going against him in practice for the first time.  He was the most awesome player I’d ever seen.  It felt like playing against a super being [laughs].  But those types of experiences make you better, and by my sophomore year I was ready to play major college basketball.  The team suffered some injuries and we started the season 0-8, but we ended up having a pretty good year.  I think I averaged 15 points-per-game.

 

What aspect of your game did you focus on after that first season?

I concentrated on my jumping.  I worked hard to improve my vertical leap – I’d put on a weight vest and do between 100 and 200 explosive jumps – because I felt that it would help me to become a better player.  Spring was always one of my favorite times to work on my game.  I could play without restriction once the season was over, and this gave me the opportunity to expand on my skills.  It became an extension of what I was doing during basketball season, and I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.

Russell “Sox” Walseth was the head coach at Colorado, and he was the one who really helped to improve my defense.  Sox was an icon at CU, where he coached both the men’s and women’s basketball teams.  I enjoyed his practices tremendously – I was usually the first to arrive and the last to leave – and his instruction was so valuable in terms of my growth as a basketball player.  He passed away earlier this year.  It was a great loss – Sox meant a great deal to me.

 

Sounds like you were a gym rat.

I never stopped shooting.  While with the Celtics, I remember Danny Ainge giving me a hard time for shooting so much.  He used to tell me that I was going to wear myself out, and that I needed to save myself for the games.  He was probably right [laughs], but I really enjoyed shooting the basketball.

 

When did you start thinking about the pro game as a career?

The prospect of playing professional basketball came as quite a shock, especially for someone still learning to play the college game.  I didn’t think about the NBA until after my junior season.  I was surprised to learn that some scouts had watched me play, and that they’d shown some interest in drafting me.  The Kings sent scouts to watch me play in the Big Eight Tournament.  Until then, the NBA – or the ABA, for that matter – seemed too far-fetched for me to take seriously.

 

Did the prospect of a pro career change how you approached the game?

Not really.  I just kept working hard and getting ready for my senior season, and I always went out onto the court determined to do my best.

 

You suffered an injury late in your senior season.

I tore my ankle with three or four games left on our schedule.  I was sure that the injury would hurt my chances of being drafted, but the Kings flew a doctor in to examine my ankle.  I passed the physical – they cut the cast off, the doctor checked me out, and they put another cast back on.  Shortly after that, the Kings drew up a contract and I decided to play in the NBA.  My only concern at that point was being introduced at the press conference.  I wanted to walk in without limping, so I rehabbed the ankle around the clock [laughs].

 

You were selected sixth overall by the Kansas City Kings, in the 1974 NBA Draft.  That same year, you were also drafted by Memphis of the American Basketball Association.  Did you ever consider signing with Memphis?

I considered Memphis.  My heart was in the NBA – it was the established league, and I wanted to play against the best competition – but I wanted to look at all of the possibilities.

 

Your first season in Kansas City was a success.  The Kings won 44 games, finishing three games out of first place.  You averaged 11 points-per-game and was named to the NBA All-Rookie team.  What was it like to play NBA ball?

I didn’t really have to make any adjustments as far as my game was concerned.  It was more of a mental challenge.  Those first few games I didn’t play much, and I was despondent because of that.  It bothered me to sit on the bench and not contribute.  I was young, and I didn’t realize the importance of playing a role on a team, especially if that role involved a lot of sitting [laughs].  Eventually I began to understand what was expected of me.  I kept working hard in practice.  I kept myself ready.  It paid off, because I got my opportunity in a game against the Houston Rockets.  [Kings head coach] Phil Johnson put me in and I was doing anything to help the team win.  I had blood on both knees from diving for loose balls.  After the game he singled me out, and said that he wished he had more guys playing defense the way I played it that night.

After getting playing time, the biggest adjustment was probably on defense.  Back then there were plenty of talented forwards to contend with on a nightly basis – guys like Rick Barry, Bingo Smith, Sydney Wicks, Chet Walker and Curtis Rowe.  You had to be prepared to play solid defense every time you stepped onto the court against those guys.

 

Tiny Archibald was your teammate during your first two seasons in Kansas City.

Tiny was very quiet.  He didn’t communicate a lot back then, and I was somewhat quiet as well.  So neither of us really said a whole lot during my rookie year.

 

What kind of player was he?

Tiny was a great basketball player.  His speed and quickness was right there for everyone to see.  He was a 6’-1” left-handed guard with explosiveness, and yet he made everything look almost effortless.  He had the nickname “Nate the Skate” because he looked so smooth dribbling the basketball.  I quickly learned where to be when he had the ball, because if you were open the pass was coming.  It didn’t matter if it were baseline or perimeter; he drew so much attention that could penetrate and then kick the ball out for an open shot.

 

In January, 1980, you had a career night against Utah.  You scored 45 points on 19-of-31 shooting, many of which came against NBA star Adrian Dantley.  You also had 12 rebounds and seven assists in that game.

That night I didn’t think I could miss – obviously I did miss, but every shot felt good when it left my hands.  It’s hard to describe.  I was in a pretty good groove that season.  I remember going back to Utah later that year and hitting my first seven field goals.  I was so hot that night that I took shots that I normally wouldn’t have taken.  But that’s the way it works when you feel it.  Over the course of my career I had four or five games where I didn’t miss a shot.  I just got going good and didn’t let up.  The superstars – the Larry Birds of the world – are able to step onto the court and recreate those moments almost at will.

 

You helped the Kings reach the Western Conference finals in 1981, battling Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets.

We didn’t shoot as well as we should have in that series.  As a team, our percentage was down from our season average.  We beat the Portland Trail Blazers and the Phoenix Suns to reach the Conference Finals, and we felt good about our chances against the Rockets.  But Phil Ford and Otis Birdsong got hurt, and that forced us to change our rotation.  Ernie Grunfeld had to play more forward than he was used to, and I was also out of position a bit.  As a team, we were out of our flow.  The Rockets had Moses, Calvin Murphy, Robert Reid, Rudy Tomjanovich and Mike Dunleavy.  Quality guys.  So they were a very good team.  It was a great disappointment to lose, because I’ve always felt that we matched up better with the Celtics that year.  The Rockets fell 4-2 in the 1981 NBA Finals.  I’ve always wondered how we would have done against Larry Bird, Kevin [McHale] and Robert [Parish].

 

Kings ownership broke up the team following the loss to the Rockets, and you signed a free agent contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

To be honest, I expected to stay in Kansas City my entire career.  It felt good – I knew the offense, the system, and everything about the situation just fit.  But ownership wasn’t looking to spend, and Cleveland was aggressive.  From a basketball standpoint it may not have been the best fit for me, but that was an unknown at the time.  When I got there I quickly realized how much was different.

 

You arrived in Boston following a mid-season trade between the Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

I vividly remember the day that I was traded – it was January 16th, 1981.  Ironically, my first game as a Boston Celtic was against the Cavaliers in Cleveland.  I remember how strange it felt to dress in the road locker room.  Back then the players carried their own shoes and uniforms.  I had my road uniform and a pair of white basketball shoes with me, which posed something of a problem.  The Celtics either played in black or green basketball shoes.  So I had to paint my shoes green for the game [laughs].

I remember going out on the court for warm-ups – running the drills and shooting the ball – and I don’t think I missed a shot.  I felt really good – I was excited to be a part of Boston Celtics, and to be playing with such a talented group of players.  And then the reality of the situation set in; I didn’t get into the game, and I quickly learned that I was going to spend a lot of time sitting behind Bird.  It was very disappointing.  But by the end of that game I understood how close-knit that team was, and that it was going to take some time to figure out where I fit.

 

How quickly were you accepted by your new teammates?

The guys didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms, but I can understand their point-of-view; no one wants to see his minutes go down, and suddenly another player is thrown into the mix.  After the Cleveland game I doubted whether Boston was the ideal situation for me.  Confidence-wise, it was a very tough three-or-four month period because [Bill] Fitch had a set rotation.  Cedric Maxwell was a starter, and McHale was the sixth man.  Danny Ainge was slotted behind Gerald Henderson in the backcourt.  Looking back, I think my biggest contributions those first few months came in the practices.  I think I was brought in to push Larry in practice, to help keep him focused and motivated.  Larry was very hard on me – he was always testing me, and challenging me the whole way.  He’d talk so much trash.  He’d try to show me up.  It was a very difficult adjustment to make, because I wasn’t used to that type of environment.

 

For a team used to winning championships, your first season in a Celtic uniform was a disappointment.

The team played well after the trade, but Larry ended up getting hurt and we were swept out of the playoffs by Milwaukee.

 

Larry Bird was famous for working on his game during the summer.  What wrinkles did yo work on?

I used the summer to regroup.  I worked with a personal trainer to improve my strength and conditioning, and when training camp opened I went right at Larry.  He’d dish it out, and I’d give it right back.  I wanted to prove that I belonged, and that I could fit into a productive role on the team.  I became a contributor.  I felt I was a key piece of the puzzle.  At the same time, Larry began his run as the league’s Most Valuable Player.  He was the MVP from 1984 to 1986, and I like to think I had a little to do with that.  We had some great battles in practice.

 

Following that sweep by the Bucks, Red Auerbach fired Bill Fitch and replaced him with KC Jones.

KC was the assistant coach when I arrived from Cleveland.  He was a quiet, soft-spoken man, but he was also very humorous.  As an assistant, you knew you had a friend you could trust and lean on.  He could be a great buffer.  To be a successful NBA coach, you have to possess a certain degree of honesty, loyalty and integrity.  KC had those qualities.  KC was the perfect person for the head coaching job – we were a veteran team, so the X’s and O’s weren’t the most important factors for us.  We needed someone who would let us go out there and play.  It was a great move.

 

Auerbach also acquired Dennis Johnson in a trade with Phoenix.  Tell me about Dennis.

Dennis was very unusual.  He was so casual and relaxed, and was always having fun.  He was a true junkyard dog in many respects, a player who would do whatever the situation called for, and someone who  always rose to the occasion.  And he was such a great defensive player.  He drew the tough assignments, always did great work defensively, and then was so dangerous on the other end of the court.

 

DJ came to Boston with a reputation.

There were some questions about Dennis when the trade was made.  There had been reports of run-ins with coaches in Seattle and Phoenix, and speculation that his personality was going to make him a problem.  We welcomed him with open arms.  He had a clean slate in Boston, and we were all determined to form our own opinions about Dennis Johnson.  Larry and Dennis bonded almost immediately.  There was a great deal of mutual respect between them.  Three or four games into the exhibition season Larry made his famous statement to the press, saying that DJ was the best basketball player he’d ever played with.  It was a great move by Larry, who was a master communicator and one of the best at working the press.  He paid a great amount of respect to DJ, and DJ responded by fitting in perfectly.  Larry was sincere when he made that comment, because he was never one to offer compliments easily.  He quickly saw qualities in DJ that he liked, and he made no secret of his feelings.

 

The Celtics beat the Lakers for the 1984 NBA Championship.  What was that like for you?

Greatest feeling in the world.  It was the culmination of everything that I’d worked for as a basketball player.  That series was the biggest thing in the sporting world that year – everybody was talking about Bird playing against Magic in the Finals before the season even started.  The hype was incredible.  There were so many reporters covering that series, and there were so many storylines.  Iconic franchises.  Bird versus Magic.  The Big Three.  Kareem and Worthy.  To be a part of that chapter of Celtics history is hard to describe.

 

The 1985 NBA Finals featured a rematch with the Lakers.  The Celtics won Game 1 on Memorial Day, 148-114, and you were a perfect 11-for-11 from the floor including four three-pointers.

As a professional basketball player, your performance on the court is partly a reflection of where you are emotionally and spiritually.  It’s also directly impacted by your relationship with family and friends.  All of those things were very positive for me when we played the Lakers that day.  I was in a really good place mentally.  I had good friends around me, and all of the elements were right for a strong performance.  I remember that Ainge had a great game, and that I was mentally focused to come off of the bench.  If I’d learned anything from the previous season, it was that I needed to be prepared to contribute when my number was called.  I’d learned to cheer the team when I wasn’t playing, and to keep myself in a very positive frame of mind.  And that day there were no negative thoughts at all.  My first shot didn’t feel good when I released it, but it went in and I knew immediately that I was going to have a good game.

 

The Lakers bounced back in Game 2, and ultimately won the championship.

It was extremely disappointing.  We wanted to be the first team since the ’69 Celtics to repeat as champions.  Kareem was suffering from migraines in the first game, but he bounce back and had a great series.  The Lakers were an excellent team, very talented.  They scored a lot of fast-break points in that series, and Kareem really took it to us.

 

The Celtics made a major trade for Bill Walton following the loss to the Lakers.

We were really disappointed to lose Cedric Maxwell.  He was quite a player, and he had a great personality.  He’d limped through the season with a knee injury, which was tough, and then Red decided to make the trade with the Clippers.  Bill was like a kid in a candy store.  He was thrilled to be a Boston Celtic, thrilled to be playing with Larry Bird, but also aware of how he might be perceived by his teammates – especially Robert Parish.  So one of the first things he did was to call Robert, and to assure him that he was still the starter.  It was a smart move, because it made Robert very receptive to the trade.

 

What was it like having Bill join you on the second unit?

Bill made our practice team much, much better.  Those practices were so intense.  Everyone talked trash.  There was a lot of pride at stake.  And it made the team better – we were 40-1 at home that season, and a lot of that had to do with the nature of our practices.  They were as competitive as many of the games we played that season, because everyone wanted to perform at a high level.  The Big Three set the tone, but the practice team always wanted to take it to them.  And we won our fair share of games [laughs].

 

The 1985-86 Boston Celtics won 67 games on its way to the NBA championship.  Where do you think it ranks in terms of the best teams ever?

I don’t know.  When you look at all of the great players on our team, you have to look at McHale and ask yourself who would have to guard him.  You might find someone to match up with Robert or Larry to some degree, but then who would take care of Kevin?  He was such an incredible low-post player – how many teams would have someone capable of stopping him?  And our bench strength was so great that year that we had depth at all positions.  Jerry Sichting could come in for Ainge and bring incredible shooting accuracy.  Bill brought that trademark intensity, not to mention great passing in the low-post.  I felt I could shoot the ball and defend.  It was a great team, but it’s so hard to compare teams from different eras.  I still like our chances against any team in NBA history.

 

How did the death of Lenny Bias alter the state of the franchise?
Lenny was going to be an impact player for twelve to fifteen years.  I saw him play while he was at the University of Maryland, but I never had the opportunity to play against him.  It was devastating to the Celtics, because he was going to be the team’s future.  A player of that caliber was also going to extend Larry’s career, so it was tremendous blow to the organization.

 

You are close friends with Larry Bird.  Please tell me a little about your former teammate, perhaps a side that the public doesn’t see all that often.

I can tell you a story about him that not many people know.  I liked to run after practice, and Larry used to give me a hard time about it.  But then one day I saw Larry running around the court after we’d finished up our drills, and the next thing you know it had become a part of his routine.  Well, I had an aerobic instructor named Louise Bollen who also happened to be a marathoner.  She was going to run in a charity 10K that spring, and it fell during a break in our playing schedule.  She wanted me to run it with her, so I asked Larry if he wanted to join us.  Larry talked to K.C. about it, who was a little concerned that we might pull a hamstring and spend some time on injured reserve.  But he was somehow able to get K.C.’s blessing to let us run.  The race started in front of the Boston Garden.  It was a beautiful day, and I was surprised to see so many people show up for a 10K.  At that point I realized that we’re in a legitimate race.

We started out in the middle of the pack, with Louise setting a comfortable pace.  Most of the people were very respectful.  They would offer a kind word or wave as they passed us.  But as the race went on, we heard more than one person say “Hey, I’m passing Larry Bird!”, and I could tell that it was starting to bother Larry.  Finally, we’re one mile away from the finish line.  It’s downhill.  Larry said, “That’s it, nobody else is passing me.”  And off he went, hitting that last mile in a dead sprint.  For me, it was a chance to see the heart of a champion in an arena other than basketball.   I was able to fully experience Larry’s drive, and his will to win.  It was an incredible sight – although I’m not sure that K.C. would have been happy with Larry going all-out like that [laughs].

 

Kevin McHale was known as a big practical joker.  Were you ever on the receiving end of his pranks?

I only drank bottled water, and Kevin claims that he poured it out on many occasions and replaced it with tap water.  He teased me about it many times back then, and still sticks to his story.

 

You were a two-time NBA All-Star.  Looking back, how does it feel to be recognized in such a way?

It was an honor to be recognized in that way, but I’m more proud of my selection to the All-Defensive second team.  Because of injury I was only able to play in one All-Star game, but it was a very rewarding experience.

 

Final Question:  If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?

Follow your heart.  It’s the surest way to realize true happiness in life.