Written By: Michael D. McClellan | So much has been written about Larry Bird, and yet the private superstar prefers to operate far from the spotlight. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Larry to discuss his brilliant career, but, because of his affinity for privacy, wanted to keep the on-the-record dialog short-and-sweet. Larry appreciated that greatly. Off the record, we joked about everything from our shared hick-dom (Larry Legend hailing from French Lick, me from West Virginia sticks) to life after stepping down as the Pacers’ president of basketball operations. What follows is a Q&A with one of the most significant players in NBA history.
When did you realize you could hang with the best in the NBA?
It wasn’t long after I joined the Celtics. The team was going through drills in training camp, and it didn’t seem like everyone was going all-out. And then we started playing exhibition games, and I was able to get my shots, make my cuts, things like that. When the season started, the game slowed down for me. I was able to think my way around the court and see plays develop before they actually happened. That’s when I realized I could play at a high level and be successful.
The Celtics played a couple of tough playoff series against Dr. J and the Sixers in the early ’80s.
We were down 3–1 in ’81 and came back to win, and were down 3–1 a year later and lost Game 7 in the Boston Garden. I thought we were going to win the championship in ’82. Didn’t happen. It was a disappointing loss for sure.
Tom Heinsohn pulled an exploding cigar prank on Red in the ’60s. Who was the biggest prankster on your team?
Those 82-game seasons are long, so you’ve got to have some fun. McHale was one of the biggest jokesters. Danny, too. Robert was quiet in public, but he was a different person in private. We had a lot of fun.
Xavier McDaniel says you were the game’s biggest trash talker.
Like I said, it’s a long season. Sometimes you’ve got to keep things interesting [laughs].
That ’84 Finals against the Lakers was pretty special.
Game 1, we lose at home. Game 2, if [Gerald] Henderson doesn’t steal the ball, we’re going to LA down 0–2. Game 3, they blow us out. Everything changed with Game 4. We played a little tougher, and we took them out of their flow. That’s what we wanted to do because we felt like the Lakers were easily distracted whenever we made life a little tougher on ’em. All of a sudden they aren’t running up and down the court, dunking and giving each other high fives. It was a battle in the trenches. That worked to our advantage, and we won the championship.
That 1986 Celtics team is considered one of the best ever. Tell me a little about Bill Walton.
Bill was a big addition for us, and everyone knew how talented he was. We also knew his history with injuries, so there were a lot of unknowns. Luckily, Bill was relatively healthy that year. We started off hot that season and were able to keep it up right through to the Finals. That year he played 80 games for us, and we were able to win a lot those games. Bill was a big part of our success.
Bill’s injury history wasn’t the only concern when he arrived.
We always said that Robert [Parish] was the one who had to sacrifice the most on the offensive end in order for us to be successful. And then here comes Bill. Bill understood the dynamic and reached out to Robert as soon as he got to Boston. He was a great teammate and was only concerned with team goals. He wasn’t coming to Boston to compete with Robert for playing time, he was coming to help make life easier on him. He broke the ice. It turned out to be a very positive thing. Bill and Robert became great friends.
Your steal against the Pistons is iconic. I interviewed Dennis Johnson before he passed away, and the respect he had for you was off the charts.
The steal doesn’t matter if DJ doesn’t have the presence of mind to cut to the basket. We lose that game. Dennis always played better when the stakes were higher. I thought the world of Dennis Johnson.
Two words: Len Bias.
A lot of people don’t know this, but I played against Len Bias when he was a sophomore at Maryland. Red used to have some of the top players from around the country come and work his camp, and I would work it some, too. Then at night, we’d play. Bias was incredible. He was going to be great.
You played your entire career with the Celtics.
That’s the way that I wanted it. I didn’t want to go anywhere else and play, and I wasn’t going anywhere else unless they traded me. I wanted to finish my career in Boston, and Red was a big part of that. He was very loyal, he didn’t trade me. That’s why he was so successful building and rebuilding those Celtic championship teams. I’m thankful that it worked out that way. I got to play with some great players. We won three championships and came close in a few others. I wanted to retire as a Boston Celtic. I’m very proud of that.
https://i0.wp.com/www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Larry_Bird.png?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1400600Michael McClellanhttps://www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/celtics-clover-logo2.pngMichael McClellan2019-10-07 23:15:392021-01-01 17:16:27The Larry Bird Interview
Written By: Michael D. McClellan | Imagine doing something so well that you are granted membership into one of the world’s most exclusive fraternities, where only one in every 10,000 is selected to perform before an audience of millions. Now imagine yourself sharing the stage with the preeminent talent in your chosen profession, at a time when history unfolds before you in unprecedented abundance, as if manna from heaven. You are there, in the middle of it all, plying your trade in the company of greatness. You know full well the good fortune of your circumstance, and understand that a lifetime dedication to your craft has put you in this, the most enviable of positions.
Who wouldn’t want to be you? Your stage is one of sport’s holiest cathedrals. Your teammates are the reigning world champions, and you have joined them in their quest to repeat and build a dynasty. Your debut comes off as scripted in Hollywood, with shots falling from almost impossible distances and the throaty, hometown crowd roaring its approval. Future hall-of-fame players slap you on the back, wish you well and accept you as one of their own. And when that magical game is finally over, you walk away secure in the fact that you’ve made the most of a golden opportunity.
Your name is Conner Henry. And you, my friend, have arrived.
For legions of basketball junkies, simply making it onto the Boston Celtics roster is the dreamiest of dream jobs. It is a franchise steeped in history, a standard-bearer in the realm of championships, an icon so resplendent in its deal-closing that even now, nearly twenty years removed from its last title, the rest of the NBA can only look up at those sixteen banners with a mixture of aspiration and envy. Now imagine being a Boston Celtic when the roster is populated with names such as Bird, McHale, Parish and Walton. These men are the Mount Rushmore of low-post play, and here you are, feeding the ball to them in practice. In games they find you for spot-open threes, confident that you will bury the shot if given the opportunity. This would be enough for almost anyone, but there are more surprises to come; perhaps no defending champion in NBA history battled as much adversity as the 1986-87 Boston Celtics, as a valiant playoff run would leave them two games short of their coveted repeat.
Most of us can only dream of reaching the NBA. Henry lived it. He was there the night that Larry Bird stole the ball from Isiah Thomas, and he was there to witness that dagger of a baby hook by a man named Magic. The blast-furnace otherwise known as the Boston Garden? Henry can tell you all about June basketball in the fabled Garden, about the heat and the rats and the obstructed view seating that gave the place its charm.
Conner Henry’s journey from unabashed hoop addict to solid NBA player began in Claremont, California, where his father worked as a college professor at Claremont McKenna College. It was here that he gained unfettered access to the athletic facilities, gravitating to the basketball court in large part because of his lithe frame. Henry played for long hours, sometimes with others, sometimes alone, always dreaming of one day making it onto the game’s biggest stage. His idol was “Pistol” Pete Maravich, and Henry molded his game after the flashy guard, landing at UC Santa Barbara with a repertoire of fancy passes and a reputation for deadly long-range accuracy. He started right away, overcame an injured knee during his junior season, and finished atop the career assists mark in the school’s record books.
The Houston Rockets drafted Henry in the fourth round of the 1986 NBA Draft – the same draft in which the Celtics would draft Maryland star Len Bias. Henry played just 18 games in Texas before landing in Boston, where he quickly made a name for himself as a three-point specialist. Close friends with Dennis Johnson, Henry found himself on the Celtics’ roster courtesy of the NBA’s 10-day contract. Facing the Milwaukee Bucks in his inaugural home game with Team Green, Henry drained his first shot – a three-pointer – and energized the Boston Garden faithful with his hard-nosed play. He would finish the contest by converting 4-of-five from behind the arc, finally exiting the court as the sellout crowd showered him with the spontaneous chant of “Ten more days.”
For Henry, life has come full circle; now the Associate Director of Career Counseling at Claremont McKenna, the former Boston Celtic is back home and doing what he loves. It is his new dream job, but the memories of the old one are still very much alive. He can close his eyes and see Robert Parish, hobbled by a severe ankle sprain, battle Bill Laimbeer and the Detroit Pistons on one leg. He can see Kevin McHale gutting out another superb performance on a broken foot. He can see Bird’s steal and Magic’s hook, and he can take satisfaction in knowing that he was there as hoop history was being written.
The rest of us should be so lucky.
Please tell me about your childhood, and how you came to be interested in basketball.
My father was a math professor in Decator, Georgia. He taught there until 1959, at which point he accepted a similar position in Claremont, California, so I literally grew up on the Claremont McKenna campus. Our house was directly behind the football field, which meant that you had to walk through the campus to get to it. I was involved in athletics very early in my life, serving as a ball boy in all three major sports at the age of five.
Growing up in a college environment allowed me to gain access to the athletic department and all of the facilities, and it wasn’t long before I gravitated to the basketball court. The fact that it was a safe environment allowed me to flourish as a young child. I was also fortunate to have some fantastic mentors in my life at that time, coaches and students who worked with me and helped to improve the different facets of my game. I remember playing basketball in the gym at all hours. I’d play until they kicked me out, which was usually around midnight, and then I’d run across the football field, crawl through a hole in the fence and slip in the backdoor to our house. That was my routine for ten-to-twelve years. It was a blessing to be in that place at that time, and to be around so many good people.
In four years at UC Santa Barbara you became the career leader in assists, and your 1,236 points ranks eighth all-time. Why US Santa Barbara?
I was fortunate to be recruited by three Division I schools. For me, it was a true thrill to visit each campus and also go through the selection process. I came away from it knowing that Santa Barbara had the worst program of the three and that I needed to play, not sit and watch. I made my decision to go there and hopefully play right away. That was the most important thing. I could have gone to either of the other schools but I knew that I wasn’t going to play right away, and that it might be a year or longer before I’d see any meaningful minutes. By choosing Santa Barbara I only had to wait six games into my freshman year before I started playing.
How difficult was your adjustment to major college hoops?
There was a huge adjustment period in terms of jumping from high school to college basketball. I wasn’t the biggest or the strongest, and initially the coaching staff didn’t know where to play me. I was between positions in many ways, a shooting guard with point guard instincts, and this presented some early problems as they tried to figure out what to do with me. We were so bad I was the only on who could get the ball up the court so eventually I played more and more point. Because of that change I was able to improve my game and eventually play basketball in the NBA.
Tell me about your time at UC Santa Barbara.
UC Santa Barbara may not have been a premiere basketball program in terms of championships and All-Americans, but we had some great battles during my four years there. We played the University of Houston when the team was ranked Number 1 in the country and also boasted Phi Slamma Jamma. They came to Santa Barbara with Hakeem (then known as Akeem) Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, and everyone expected them to run us out of our own building. Our tallest player was 6’-7”, and he had to battle Olajuwon on the blocks. It was a great atmosphere. The Thunderdome was sold out, and they were still letting people in – the fire department must have turned its eye in another direction for this game [laughs]. We jumped out to a huge lead, and were up by 19 points at halftime. We played tentative after intermission and nearly pulled off the upset, losing by two points. I ended up having a really good game and with a number of scouts there some of the NBA teams had finally seen me play. I guess that was the first time people had seen me play against a big time collegiate team.
The coaching staff was phenomenal. Ben Howland, the current head coach at UCLA, was an assistant coach at Santa Barbara at that time. Jerry Pimm was our head coach – he’d come over from the University of Utah, where he had developed NBA talents such as Tom Chambers, Danny Vranes and Pace Mannion. These were outstanding coaches – they pushed me to get into the weight room, which helped add fifteen pounds of muscle to my thin frame [laughs]. I was really skinny.
Former athletic director Jim Romeo stands out in mind during that period as well. He provided so much encouragement to a number of players on that team. To this day we are very good friends and we continue to discuss my team here as well as the NBA.
You injured your knee during your junior year. For a basketball junkie, what was it like not being able to play?
It was very frustrating. The injury occurred during practice – I was in a full sprint when someone clipped my heel from behind and I fell hard on my left knee. I was lucky in one respect, because I only stretched the ligament and didn’t actually tear it. The doctor equipped me with a steel knee brace so that I could continue to play. The brace was considered top of the line back then, but by today’s standards it was quite archaic. But it enabled me to continue playing which, in my eyes, was the most important thing at the time. I didn’t redshirt that season but, in retrospect, I probably should have taken the time to recover. I just didn’t fully understand the dynamics of the injury. As it was, the team’s starting point guard was dragging that big, cumbersome brace up and down the court [laughs].
You were drafted in the fourth round of the 1986 NBA Draft by the Houston Rockets. You played impressively in the Rockets rookie camp, averaging 16 points and 3 assists per game. Ironically, a strong preseason showing against the Celtics helped you make the team. Did you do anything special to celebrate?
Not really. It was an uncertain time – the Rockets had drafted Buck Johnson from Alabama with their first round pick, and had also taken Dave Feitl from Texas El-Paso in the second round. Anthony Bowie from Oklahoma was selected in the third, so entering camp I knew that all of these guys had a better chance of making the team than I did. Because of this, my attitude from the outset of training camp was to let it all hang out. All four of us made the team which was surprising because they had just gone to the Finals against the Celtics and got spanked. I think few people thought they would keep all of us but they did.
How I ended up in Houston was a funny twist of luck. Bill Fitch drafted me after watching a tape of one of our games. He’d requested the tape to take a look at the point guard on the other team, but he was intrigued by the way I played. He made some calls based on the tape and then selected me in the fourth round. To this day I have very good memories of Coach Fitch. He had confidence in me, and he showed it by playing me at the one. He knew that I could play the point and also shoot the three, and it didn’t hurt that big guards were the norm at the time. So I had size and not much speed (laughs), which helped, and I had that good game against the Celtics. I made the team, and my rookie year in the NBA was just beginning.
The Celtics signed you to a 10-day contract. On January 7, 1987, you made your Boston Garden debut by going 4-of-5 from behind the arc. The Boston Garden crowd, which had become famous for its chants of “Larry” and “Beat LA”, where suddenly chanting “Ten More Days!”
It was a magical night. I had no idea something like that might happen, although we were playing the Milwaukee Bucks and I had a feeling that I’d get into the game. I was very excited, very nervous, but once I got into the game I was able to settle down. I got my legs underneath me, which also helped, but the main thing was being a member of the Boston Celtics. When you have players like Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale to throw the ball to, you don’t feel as much pressure to go in and make things happen. They command so much attention that good movement and ball rotation will put me in a position to succeed that night. And that’s what happened. I got open and the first one went in. That relaxed me, and I was able to flow with the game the rest of the way. I kept moving and kept getting looks, and the shots kept going in. I’ll never forget the chants from the fans. It was incredible. By the end of the game I was breathing extremely hard because I was somewhat out of shape. I received a lot of support from that night.
Danny Ainge had this to say about you following that performance: “He’s a great shooter. He reminds me of Pistol Pete with his long hair, his outside shooting, and his behind the back passes.” Looking back, how does that make you feel?
It’s a wonderful compliment. For Danny to compare me to Pistol Pete, that’s something I’ll always cherish. My dad really liked Maravich, and growing up I had a Pistol Pete poster on my bedroom wall. I still have the clipping where Danny made that comment. It means a lot, especially because Maravich was my idol. I felt my game was similar to his in many respects (no where that good though)– while I was best known for my shooting, I considered passing my best skill. I felt that I did a good job of seeing the action develop in front of me, and that I instinctively knew what to do with the basketball.
Danny has been an amazing basketball executive in Boston. He received some criticism in the early-going, and much of it was unjustified. He knew what the team needed to change in order to win another championship, and he was unafraid to make the controversial move. He landed Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, and the Celtics won the championship. Then he went out and got a great coach in Brad Stevens. He knows how to build championship-caliber teams.
You were ahead of your time in terms of your three-point shot. Were you always comfortable shooting from long range?
Always – I was very fortunate to have good instruction at a very early age. As a young child I followed the classic approach, starting close to the basket and working my way out, but along the way I was taught to shoot the ball properly. I was taught to groove my stroke at a certain range, get comfortable and confident with it, and then move back and start the process all over again. Naturally, my range increased as my size and strength increased.
Being so sleight physically – a good breeze could probably knock me down [laughs] – I didn’t challenge the bigger guys underneath the basket. Shooting was the thing that helped me to make a name for myself. And the farther out the better. When I joined the Celtics, KC Jones was very supportive of me in this regard. He gave me his blessing to launch those shots from downtown, as long as they came within the flow of the offense – and as long as they went in [laughs].
Let’s talk music. Has your taste in music changed since your playing days, and what do you listen to now?
My musical tastes have evolved over the years. I still listen to a lot of classic rock, but my tastes have grown to include a broad range of music – I listen to Van Morrison, rhythm & blues, Earth, Wind & Fire, good country, Train, Creed, too. When I’m in my car I find myself listening more and more to talk radio, which has to do with being a father and getting older. Being an assistant coach I also hear all the current music that the boys play in the gym. Music still is a big part of my life.
You once said that if you went to the moon, one of the people you’d take with you would be Dennis Johnson, because DJ would keep everybody laughing. Please tell me about Dennis Johnson.
Dennis was great to me when I arrived in Boston. He helped me acclimate myself to the team and to the city. As it turned out, DJ was the first cousin of a good friend in California, so he sort of took me under his wing and took care of me. I lived with him that first month in Boston. He helped me understood what the team was trying to accomplish within the offensive and defensive schemes and the overall mentality. Dennis was a very complex person – he could be funny, serious or encouraging with me, depending on the situation. He showed the same attributes with team, and was very good in his role as a team leader. He had a tremendous amount of character and the players fed off of that. I had a great admiration for Dennis Johnson as a player and person, and it was a very sad day when I learned of his passing.
The Celtics swept past the Chicago Bulls in the opening round of the 1987 NBA Playoffs. What was Michael Jordan like in that series?
At that point in his career, Michael Jordan was the most physically dominating player in the game. He relied so much on his physical attributes – he simply jumped over, around or through the opposition, depending on what was needed to reach the hoop. The Bulls at that time were still a work in progress – the Celtics simply had too many weapons for them to overcome – but they were never out of a game with Michael Jordan on the floor. He brought that tongue-wagging confidence to the court.
I remember playing in the old Chicago Stadium and facing the Bulls – Kevin McHale was unstoppable in the low post, I think he finished with 52. He was pumped up and Larry told him to play some “D”. It was hilarious because the next time we played the Bulls Larry had 36 at half time and the game was basically over. There was a lot of smack being talked on and off the court which kept all of us loose. Watching Kevin and Larry play that year was as exciting as watching Jordan almost [laughs].
You were with the Celtics a relatively short period of time, but you were there to experience some of the most memorable moments in team history. One of them occurred in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Detroit Pistons, when Larry Bird stole the ball from Isiah Thomas. Please take me back to that play.
We had the lead when Larry drove baseline and missed a shot. Rick Mahorn rebounded the ball and immediately called timeout, and the Pistons came back with a play for Isiah Thomas. He knocked down a 17-foot jumper with 17 seconds remaining, putting Detroit up by one. Larry went hard to the basket, but his shot was blocked by Dennis Rodman, and then Mahorn knocked the ball off of Jerry Sichting’s leg and out of bounds. We all felt it was over. We needed a miracle at that point, and that’s exactly what happened. Larry stepped in and intercepted Isiah’s inbounds pass, and then flipped it to DJ, who was alert enough cut to the basket.
From the sideline all we could do was hope for a foul or a steal, but with so little time left the likelihood of either happening was slim to none. A foul, maybe, but a steal? At the time you don’t realize the true magnitude of something like that – you’re overcome with excitement, but you just don’t fully grasp the historical significance of that play. It’s only later that you realize what you’ve been a part of. When I see the play today, I can look at it and know that I was there. It’s a great feeling.
Robert Parish injured his right ankle in the semi-finals against Milwaukee, hobbling him for the rest of the playoffs. Because of Larry’s incredible steal, many people forget that Parish practically played Game 5 on one foot. What did Robert’s presence on the court mean to the team in that game?
Everyone knew that Robert was hurting, but all the credit goes to him for grinding it out through the pain. That was typical Robert – he’s the type of person who never complains, regardless of the situation, and he refused to let an injury become a distraction in the playoffs. He approached his role on the Celtics in the same way – he knew that Larry and Kevin were going to get the most attention offensively, and that he was there to do all the little things needed to win. He didn’t dominate the box score, but he rebounded, blocked shots and ran the court as well as any big man ever. Larry’s steal saved the series, but without “Chief”, the Celtics wouldn’t have made it to the Finals that year.
Bill Laimbeer mugged Larry Bird early in that series, and Parish later retaliated by clubbing Laimbeer to the floor. Please take me back to both of those events.
Detroit’s bruising style of play had never really existed at that level. The referees were letting them define their style, which was very physical and based on intimidation. The smothering defenses that you see today have their roots in what the Pistons were doing back then. Every possession was critical, and defending the basket became even more important than actually scoring on the offensive end. The Pistons would lay guys out, which is what Laimbeer did to Birdie in that series. Robert retaliated back in Boston, which was to be expected. There was a tremendous amount of animosity between the teams. The Celtics were the established power in the East, and the Pistons were the up-and-coming bad boys with a reputation for physical play. That series was a tremendous battle – we were able to hold them off that year, but the Pistons finally broke through the following season and reached the NBA Finals.
That 1987 playoff run was brutal. The Celtics battled the Milwaukee Bucks over seven games before moving on to the young and hungry Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals. With only one day off between series and so many injuries to key players, where was the team’s collective psyche as it prepared to face the Lakers in the Finals?
We had more than our share of nagging injuries. It’s tough to speak for the other guys, but that Milwaukee series was incredibly tough. If we had gotten through it in five games, then who knows what might have happened. The extra rest might have made a huge difference in terms of healing and getting ready to do battle in the next round. Kevin played on a broken foot, Robert had ankle problems, and Larry’s back was killing him – when he wasn’t playing he was getting therapy to help keep him on the floor. The team was exhausted by the time it reached the NBA Finals. The Lakers were far more healthy, making it through the Western Conference relatively unscathed. They were also a much more rested squad. They jumped on us from the outset and we were never able to recover.
The 1987 NBA Finals was the first to use the 2-3-2 format. After being beaten soundly in the first two games, played at the Forum in Los Angeles, the Celtics fought back to win Game 3 in Boston. The Celtics were clinging to a one-point lead in Game 4 when Magic Johnson hit his now-famous baby hook. That shot gave the Lakers a commanding 3-1 series lead. Take me back to that shot, and the ensuing shot by Bird that missed at the buzzer.
The game came down to those two possessions. Magic got the ball, turned, did that drive-whirl and let go with the baby hook. Kevin and Robert played it perfectly, both of them extending as far as they could to defend the shot, but the ball went over both of them and into the basket. It was a terrible blow to us, and we felt it long after the game was over. Instead of squaring the series at two games apiece, we had to win that third game in the Boston Garden and then win two more in Los Angeles. Given the physical condition of our team, it was just too much to expect.
Larry’s shot from the corner almost rescued that game for us. He had a clean look at the basket, and he was set up perfectly. It was right on target, just the slightest bit too long, and that was the ball game. But even though he missed, you wouldn’t want anyone else taking that shot. Larry Bird was the greatest clutch shooter in the history of the game.
On the play prior to Magic’s baby hook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was fouled. He made the first foul shot but missed the second, and the ball was batted out of bounds by Kevin McHale. To me it looked like it could have gone out on a Laker. Did the referees make the right call?
The call went against us, so we had to deal with the reality of the situation. As players, we’re taught to secure the rebound, and in this case we just weren’t able to do that. It’s one of those plays that just kills you, and makes you realize that every possession is as important as the rest.
Please tell me about the Boston Garden, and what it was like during the playoffs.
The Garden was like a very old high school gym. The lighting wasn’t the best, and the floor was soft, but those things played to our advantage. During the playoffs it was always a little hotter – in some cases a lot hotter. It was damp, it was humid, and it was a very tough place for the opposition to play. It was also a magical place to play – you could always count on the buzz from the crowd, an electricity that just made it special to be there. I’ll always cherish those memories. I had friends who drove three thousand miles to see those playoff games, which made it even better.
What is your greatest memory of Larry Bird?
The second game of the 1987 season. We were in D.C. to play the Washington Bullets, and the game went into double-overtime. Bird had an incredible game, hitting a jumper to send the game into overtime, and then hitting another to send it into the second overtime. I was on the court at the end of that frame – I was being used as a decoy because of my threat as an outside shooter. Birdie took the shot, of course, and won the game for us. To me, that was Larry Bird at his finest.
Everyone I’ve spoken to has there own favorite story about Red Auerbach. Is there one that you would like to share?
It’s interesting, but I only spoke to Red twice in the year that I was with the team. I was walking into practice at Brandeis University one morning when I saw him. I said ‘good morning’, and Red said, “How’s your back, kid?” I told him that it was getting better, and he seemed satisfied with that. End of conversation [laughs].
The Celtics headed for Bermuda following that difficult playoff run. You had the opportunity to play Bermuda’s famous Mid-Ocean course with KC Jones, Jimmy Rodgers and Chris Ford. Please tell a little about that trip, and also a little about each of these men.
I remember the golf course being spectacular, and I remember pink sand on the beach. It was a great opportunity to visit with the coaches outside of the basketball season. It was enjoyable. K.C. was very funny, but very direct. He’s a man that I admire very much. Jimmy talked with me a lot – I was his pet project in many ways. Jimmy was also known as the defensive coach for the Celtics, and he really worked with me in this area. I couldn’t guard my shadow!! Chris was the crazy one [laughs]. He wasn’t far removed from his playing days, so he was still somewhat in a player mode. He had that mentality. We’d always go at it before and after practice, the two of us talking junk and shooting on the court. Chris had a very good player rapport.
Final Question: You’ve achieved great success in your life. If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?
Slow down, listen more, and work extra hard on your weaknesses. If you’re not a good friend, work hard to become a good friend. If you’re not a good student, work on improving your grades. If you can only drive to your right, work hard on using your left hand. If you’re open, shoot the rock from deep!
https://i0.wp.com/www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Conner_Henry.png?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1400600Michael McClellanhttps://www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/celtics-clover-logo2.pngMichael McClellan2018-12-26 03:04:332018-12-26 03:04:50The Conner Henry Interview
Written By: Michael D. McClellan | Their journey begins with college basketball’s signature program and culminates with a two-year run as part of the NBA’s most-decorated franchise, their brotherhood built on hoops and hip-hop, their friendship sealed with slam dunks and Soul Train. They win a national championship as part of “The Untouchables,” Rick Pitino’s 1996 UK juggernaut that produces nine NBA players, and then reunite with Pitino protégé Jim O’Brien in Boston, their contributions appreciated but their Finals aspirations unfulfilled. Antoine Walker eventually gets his ring in Miami, winning a title alongside Shaq Diesel and D-Wade, but it’s his financial ruin that grabs the headlines and obscures a solid, 12-year NBA career that includes three All-Star Game appearances. That’s what happens when you blow $108 million in career earnings and land in bankruptcy court. Walker’s running mates, Walter McCarty and Tony Delk, have no rings to sell, but they leave their marks; McCarty plays seven and a half seasons in a Celtics uniform, never reaching the NBA Finals but becoming a fan favorite for his hustle and willingness to do the dirty work. Delk, who plays for eight teams in 10 seasons as the NBA’s quintessential journeyman, brings grit in helping the Celtics reach the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals. Together they grow from boys to men, looping Tupac and Biggie on the way to that ’96 national championship, their combined 32 years in the Association a testament to the professionals they become.
“Friends for life,” Walker says with a smile.
Bright, articulate, and big-hearted, Walker is arguably the most well-known member of the trio, his shimmy celebration floating around message boards, chat rooms, and MySpace pages long before memes become popular. He signs with adidas early in his Celtics career, dubbing himself “Employee No. 8” in one of the company’s shoe commercials, and later, when a reporter asks why he shoots so many threes, he responds, straight-faced, “Because there are no fours.” That the fun-loving Walker is even able to capitalize on his oversized sense of humor qualifies as a minor miracle.
“I was born on the South Side of Chicago, and my mother was a single parent,” he says. “I was the oldest of six, and we grew up poor, so I helped raise my siblings. My neighborhood wasn’t as bad as the press makes it out to be, but it wasn’t the safest place, either. There were gangs and drugs, and plenty of opportunity to get into trouble.” Basketball provides the escape.
“I came from an athletic family,” says Walker. “My uncle played professional baseball, and he’s a big reason that baseball was my first love. By the eighth grade, I was 6–4, so I shut down my baseball career and pursued basketball. I attended Mount Carmel High School, which was a private school on the South Side of Chicago. My basketball career really took off from there.”
While Walker navigates hood life and hones his game in Chicago, Delk is busy shooting buckets in the country.
“I made my name growing up in Brownsville, Tennessee,” Delk says. “I have brothers who are 15 to 20 years older than me, and they were my role models growing up. They didn’t drink or smoke, and were really good influences. I didn’t get to see them play because I was too young, but I lived vicariously through the stories that I heard from family and friends. They’re the ones who taught me how to play fundamental basketball.”
McCarty, for his part, gets his start in basketball-crazed Indiana.
“Evansville was a great place to grow up,” he says. “I shot ball occasionally, but I didn’t play organized basketball until I was in the fifth grade. Most of my friends and classmates were either coached by their parents or playing in some kind of league. I was just another kid shooting hoops in the neighborhood, which was what you did if you grew up in Indiana. It was during my freshman year at Harrison High School that I realized I could become a good basketball player if I put in the work. That motivated me. Before you know it, I was headed to Kentucky.”
Delk is the first of the three to land on the Wildcats’ roster. The long-armed shooting guard has plenty of options, most guaranteeing playing time right away, but the allure of playing at UK wins out.
“The recruiting process started for me when I began playing AAU basketball,” Delk says. “Coming from a small town, it was my opportunity to show the world that this country boy could play with the city guys. I came out of nowhere—I was this long-armed kid who could jump out of the gym and score the ball. We finished third in the nation when I was 15, and a year later, I was voted the most outstanding player in the whole AAU tournament. That put me on the map as far as being one of the top recruits in the country. All of the teams in the South started recruiting me—Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Memphis State. I signed a letter of intent to play at Kentucky, even though I knew that it was going to be tough. The Wildcats had guys like Jamal Mashburn and Travis Ford. They’d barely lost out on a Final Four berth against Duke, so I knew that this Kentucky team was pretty good.”
It’s Mashburn, not Pitino, who proves to be the lure for Walker.
“I was one of the top five players in the country during my junior and senior years in high school, but to be honest, Kentucky really didn’t have to pursue me,” Walker says. “I was a huge Jamal Mashburn fan, and I loved their style of play. I loved the pressing and the three-point shooting. Even though I went through the recruiting process and looked at a bunch of other schools, Kentucky was always my first and only choice. Mashburn was leaving to go pro, and I was able to step right in and get his number.”
For McCarty, Lexington is all about fit.
“Indiana University recruited me hard, and I was friends with Calbert Cheaney, but I really had no interest in going there,” McCarty says. “It boiled down to the style of ball they played, which was that classic Big 10 style with the big men confined to the post. I was just as comfortable being out on the perimeter. Pitino’s up-tempo system really fit me. I also got close with guys like Tony Delk and Jared Prickett by playing AAU ball, and that was a big factor in my decision.”
While Delk turns in a choppy freshman season, his potential is hard to ignore. The Wildcats finish the season 30–4, losing to Michigan’s Fab Five in the Final Four. By his senior season, Delk is the team’s go-to scorer.
“As a freshman, I didn’t play that much,” Delk says. “Dale Brown played my position. He was a ju co All-American, and he’d started as a junior, so I knew I couldn’t beat him out of his position. After three or four games, I was ready to transfer. I remember calling home to my mom and saying, ‘I don’t like it here. I’m not playing. Maybe I should look somewhere else.’ It was very disheartening to watch my peers play, knowing how hard I’d worked. Billy Donovan was an assistant coach at the time and started working out with me. We would lift in the mornings and then we’d play at night. He kept me in shape, and he kept me engaged, and he told me that my time would come if I just stayed ready.
“Dale Brown hurt his shoulder playing against Michigan in the Final Four,” Delk continues. “Coach Pitino put me in the game. We ended up losing in overtime, but I played well against the Fab Five. The next year I led the team in scoring. The whole experience taught me to work hard and not buy into your own hype, because there’s always someone out there working to take your job. Conversely, I learned that I wouldn’t be given the job. I had to go out and earn it.”
The 6-foot-10 McCarty is as comfortable shooting threes as he is finishing at the rim, something that’s commonplace today but rare when he plays. It’s his made three-pointer that completes Kentucky’s 31-point comeback over LSU in ’94—the biggest second-half rally in NCAA history.
“Coach Pitino trusted me to shoot from distance,” he says. “He knew I could knock those down, so he never tried to take away that aspect of my game.”
A fan favorite, the hometown fans routinely shower McCarty with love.
“UK fans are the greatest fans in the world,” he says. “It’s a high-pressure situation—Kentucky has a great tradition, and the expectation is to reach the Final Four and compete for a national championship. The support there is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Other schools may say the same thing, but Kentucky fans are insane about their team. It was a privilege to play there, and those were some of the best years of my life.”
Walker arrives on the scene in ’94, when Delk and McCarty are juniors. The three become fast friends.
“Tony and Walt were great teammates and guys that I looked up to when I came to school,” Walker says. “They were two years ahead of me, so they were the elder statesmen on the team. They welcomed me with open arms and really embraced me. I became very close to Tony and Walt. They would come back to Chicago with me during the summer and hang out with my family. They are special guys, and to this day, we’re all still very good friends. We’ve always had each other’s back.”
Kentucky dominates the college basketball world during the 1995–96 season, as Pitino’s Untouchables string together 25 consecutive wins, including a 16–0 mark in Southeastern Conference play, rolling to the school’s sixth national championship. Delk, Walker, and McCarty lead the team in scoring. The 76–67 win over Syracuse in the title game isn’t as close as the final score indicates, and it caps a magical run for the talented trio. It also creates memories to last a lifetime.
“The journey to the championship was incredible,” McCarty says. “We knew we were talented and had the potential to be great, but what we had went much farther than just talent. We were such a close team. We really enjoyed each other’s company and hanging out with each other away from the basketball court. We truly cared for each other, and those relationships stand to this day. And we worked hard—losing left a bad taste in our mouths, and we were determined to finish that season as the last team standing.
“There’s always going to be bumps along the way, it doesn’t matter what team you play for, and it’s more about how you react to that adversity—how you handle it—that determines your outcome. It’s the same thing when I went to the Celtics. There were times when I played a lot of minutes, and there were times when someone else was out there on the court. If I found myself not playing, I wanted to figure out what I needed to do to get those minutes back and to get back on the court. You just have to be excited about the opportunity to get back on your feet and make the most of every situation.”
Walker: “People were excited because we came into the season ranked Number One in the country. We lost our second game and then ended up winning 27 straight. It was a magical run. Obviously, I’m biased, but I believe that we were the best college team ever assembled. I’m sure that a lot of people would beg to differ. It was a very humble and very close-knit group. It was probably the most exciting season that I’ve ever had playing sports and just being a part of that team and the most fun. We dominated everybody, and then we went into the tournament and were able to bring a national championship home to Kentucky.”
For all three players, that championship season is as much about the fun away from the court as it is about cutting down the net.
“Tupac and Biggie were the artists on the rise back then,” Delk says. “Those guys were at the top of their games. When we won the championship, Tupac’s double CD, All Eyez on Me, was blowing up across the country. I can’t even tell you how many times I played that CD. He was a musical genius, just like Biggie. Friday also came out that year. Walter McCarty and I watched that movie over and over again.”
Walker: “Roderick Rhodes was our teammate at Kentucky, and he’s the guy who introduced me to the music of my man Biggie Smalls—the Notorious B.I.G. Prior to that I listened to people like MC Hammer, Rob Base, and then Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and those type of rappers coming in. But as soon as I got to Kentucky, I started listening to Biggie. I remember when Tupac died, it was September 1996. I was at home in Chicago, getting ready for my first training camp.”
“I was an N.W.A fan as a kid,” Delk continues. “I remember when Ice Cube left the group and came out with his first CD, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, which I had on cassette tape. I’ll never forget being at a team camp in high school, and our coach walked in when we were playing it. He heard the profanity, made this face…and then he took my tape [laughs]! It was a big deal to me at the time, because back then you had to go out and buy your music, and cassette tapes were like $14 or $15. I had to save up for it . . . but I never got it back [laughs].
“Music was a huge part of my life back then. I listened to old school R&B legends like Marvin Gaye and the Temptations. Michael Jackson was a favorite. I grew up during the Ice Cube era, so I also listened to Public Enemy, Run DMC, Fat Boys, Houdini, Eric B, Rakim, the list goes on and on. Those artists were from my generation and brought in a completely different style of hip-hop and rap. It addressed topics like police brutality, which is still a major concern in the black community today.”
McCarty: “I’m all over the place musically, but R&B and Motown were big for me. Growing up I used to listen to Stevie Wonder. I was a huge fan of the Jackson 5. In high school, I started listening to Boyz II Men, Babyface, and Brian McKnight. In college, it was hard to ignore what guys like Tupac and Biggie were doing with their rap.”
Delk: “My favorite Tupac song ever is “Hit ‘Em Up”. Tupac fired off at anybody that had something negative to say, and you’d better not say anything negative about him because he would come back hard. He put some lyrics together, and “Hit ‘Em Up” is a prime example. Tupac could spit fire. You could feel the venom that was coming out of his mouth whenever he was rapping. There was an intensity to his rap that very few could match.
“When I played the game, my intensity level went off the charts. Off the court, I like to have fun and joke around, but on the court, I wanted to rip your heart out. A lot of that fire came from sitting the bench at Kentucky, watching my peers play and knowing that I should be on the court. I took it personally, and I was pissed off. I’d take the court pissed off at the person guarding me, even if they didn’t know it. I wanted to annihilate them. That has to be your mentality. I tell kids today, you have to have a soft voice and a killer instinct. All of the great ones have that.”
Walker lands in Boston via the ’96 NBA Draft. He’s the sixth overall selection. Ten picks later, Delk goes to Charlotte. New York snags McCarty with the 19th selection.
“The draft was very special,” Walker says. “I got the opportunity to fulfill my dream. To be among the best in your chosen profession is the ultimate feat, so it was very special for me and my family. I came from a very humble beginning, and being drafted gave us an opportunity to escape poverty. After so many years watching my mom struggle taking care of six of us, to be able to take care of her and do things for her was very special for me.”
McCarty: “To be able to do things for your family that you never thought you’d be able to do, that’s just the greatest feeling in the world. I’d always dreamed of buying my parents a new house and giving them a new car, but you don’t think you’ll ever be in that position. And then suddenly you’re able to help take some of that pressure off of them. I never took it for granted. I knew that I had to prove myself and that I had to go out there every day and show the coaches that I belonged in the NBA. I also knew that I had to earn my salary, and fortunately I had the work ethic to go out there and do the things to perform in this league.”
While Walker spins up his career in a Celtics uniform, McCarty plays 35 games during the 1996–97 regular season, averaging 5.5 minutes and 1.8 points. And then, on the cusp of his second season in a Knicks uniform, he finds himself traded to Boston.
“I was getting ready to play in the last preseason game, which was against the Celtics when I got a call in my room. It was Jeff Van Gundy telling me that I’ve been traded to Boston,” McCarty says. “It was the highlight of my NBA career, being traded to the Celtics, because Boston is the place that I call home. The fans are the best in the world. They know their basketball, and they appreciate blue-collar players who play hard and know their role. That was me. I tried to do my best to help the team win—if that meant diving for loose balls or running to my spot and shooting a three, I could tell that the fans appreciated what I brought to the court.”
It’s in Boston that McCarty carves out his niche, something the oft-traded Delk knows all too well.
“It’s about being in the right situation and being on the right team,” Delk says. “Walter had that in Boston. I bounced around a little more than he did. I had really good seasons with certain teams . . . I was finding my rhythm, loving the city, and enjoying my teammates . . . and then I would get traded and have to start all over again. That was the hardest thing for me.”
For a young Antoine Walker, Boston is the ideal situation. It’s also unique in that the Celtics, led by head coach M. L. Carr, are tanking games for a shot at Tim Duncan in the ’97 NBA Draft. Walker averages 36 minutes-per-game and lands on the All-Rookie Team.
“My rookie season was rough as far as wins and losses, but individually I thought I played great from start to finish. I was around a lot of great veterans, guys like Purvis Ellison, Dee Brown, Frank Brickowski, and Rick Fox. Playing for M. L. Carr was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Not only did he help me as a basketball player, but he was also a father figure away from the court. He made sure that I did the right things, that I made the right decisions. He helped me with the whole process of transitioning to the NBA because I came into the league at 19 years old and didn’t know anything. He really helped me to stay balanced and understand what it takes to be a pro.”
Despite two lottery picks, the Celtics whiff in the Duncan Sweepstakes. Carr is ousted, and ownership signs Rick Pitino to the richest coaching contract in sports, a 10-year, 70 million dollar contract giving complete control over basketball operations. The deal opens the door for a UK pipeline into Boston, as Pitino brings Jim O’Brien and Frank Vogel with him, but the honeymoon ends quickly.
“Coach Pitino wasn’t patient,” Walker says. “He’d sign guys and trade them right away. He didn’t give guys like that time to develop. We drafted Chauncey Billups and traded him after half a season. Coach also wanted guys who could play his style, but that style didn’t translate to the pro game. You can’t press for 48 minutes in the NBA. The season’s too long.”
McCarty: “I don’t think he or anyone else really knew whether it would work or not. We were still trying to find ourselves as basketball players, so it wasn’t something we could plug into the NBA and guarantee success. But Coach P. believed in it. He needed guys who knew his system if he was going to pull it off, and what better group of guys than Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer, and myself? We’d played for him in college, but it was hard to find twelve guys who would buy into his system at the pro level. Mentally, it wore on him. I think that’s why he quit.”
When Pitino walks away, O’Brien is elevated to head coach. Delk arrives in Boston via trade late in the 2001–02 regular season, plays 22 games, and immediately makes an impact.
“Once I got to Boston it felt familiar,” Delk says. “Walter, Antoine, and Coach O’Brien were all there. Those guys knew me, and they knew my game. Coach O’Brien allowed me to play to my strengths. He knew that I wasn’t a traditional point guard, so he would have guys like Antoine help handle the ball. My role was to play tough defense and put the ball in the hole.”
The overachieving Celtics reach the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals, storming back with a 41-point fourth quarter to take Game 3—and a 2–1 series lead—against the heavily-favored New Jersey Nets.
“That was the highlight of my Celtics career,” Walker says. “We were down 23 points and ended up winning the game. It was probably my finest moment in a Boston Celtics uniform. Being able to win that game, and going up 2–1 in that series, and believing that we could actually get this team to the Finals . . . that was an incredible game and an incredible moment in my career. Whenever I’m in Boston, people still bring it up.”
McCarty: “We trusted each other and played great help defense. If someone got past me, I knew that Eric Williams was going to be there. If someone got by Eric, we knew that Tony Battie was going to be waiting. It was a great experience for us, but also disappointing because we came within two games of reaching the NBA Finals.”
The Celtics take a step back the next season, finishing the season 44–38 before being swept away by the Nets in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. A new ownership group arrives, and Danny Ainge is hired to oversee an on-the-fly rebuild.
“My second season with the Celtics was a lot better,” Delk says. “I suffered a bad ankle injury partway through the season, but I finished strong in the playoffs. Danny Ainge was hired and had a different vision. I wasn’t part of the plans. That’s life in the NBA. My time in Boston was amazing. Getting to play for one of the greatest franchises in history, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Playing for the Boston Celtics means you’re part of an exclusive club that includes royalty like Bill Russell and Red Auerbach.
“Bill was around the organization a lot, especially early in my career,” Walker says. “We had a few private talks when he would just talk to me about the game, and that was very special. It’s a humbling experience to learn what he had to go through when racism was rampant in Boston when his house was vandalized and all of that. He’s an amazing man and a great friend. He paved the way for black athletes like myself to succeed in Boston.”
Delk: “Bill Russell has the best stories, and he is one of the funniest guys. That laugh is contagious. You might not know what he’s laughing about, but whatever it is, you’re laughing right along with him. He is one of the greatest men I have ever met. He’s a guy that’s helped pave the way for our culture, and what’s he’s done beyond the basketball court is remarkable. He is a true pioneer.”
McCarty: “Bill Russell stayed close to the team while I was there. And I always called him Captain. Never Bill, never Mr. Russell. Always Captain, because he was the captain of all those Celtics championship teams. Funny story about Bill Russell: At one point he came into the locker room, and at the time we were a pretty tough defensive team. But offensively, everybody knew that Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker were going to take most of the shots. And I guess the papers were talking a lot about how much Antoine liked to shoot the ball. It was a pretty big deal in the media at the time. Well, Bill came in, and he holds up a copy of that article, and he looks at everyone in the room but Antoine. And he tells us that the secret’s out, that Antoine is going to be taking a ton of shots, and that if we wanted to get our shots we shouldn’t wait for him to pass —we should wait for him to miss. And then he looks at Antoine, and he says, ‘From what I’ve seen out of your shot selection, there should be plenty of misses to go around.’ And then the whole room busts out laughing.”
Walker: “When I came in as a rookie, Red Auerbach was still very much an active part of the organization. He would come to practices here and there, and the occasional game. My fondest memories of Red are of him coming to practice and still having the authority to smoke a cigar in the building while we were practicing. It was a no smoking facility, like just about every place in America today, but no one said a word. Red would still fire up that cigar like the boss that he was, that’s what winning all of those championships does for you [laughs].
“Red was very good to me,” Walker continues. “I had the great opportunity to meet him when he was still very relevant. He understood the game, and he would always share advice with me. He would always watch the games, even though he was spending a lot of time in the DC area by that time, and he wouldn’t hesitate to tell me what I needed to work on. I have a couple of cool portraits that I’ve maintained through the years, photos of me with Red, and I’ll cherish them forever. He was a great, great, guy and a great person to be associated with. He was the biggest Boston Celtic of them all.”
McCarty: “Red was great to be around. No matter where you were, you could always smell those cigars in the gym.”
Delk: “I never met Red Auerbach, but I remember him coming to the practice facility, and I could smell his cigar. We all knew that he was in the building. I never got a chance to speak with him, but I appreciate what he did for black culture. He was one of the first to open up the door and bring in black players and provide them with opportunities that hadn’t existed before.”
Mention Walter McCarty to a Celtics fan, and it isn’t long before talk of “Tommy Points” and “I love Waltah” surfaces. Tommy Heinsohn has a special place in his heart for McCarty.
“I think Tommy appreciated what I brought to the table, maybe more than anyone. My role on that team wasn’t to be the leading scorer. It was to play great defense, shut down the other team’s best scorer, run the floor, knock down shots in the flow of the offense, and hustle all over the court. I was the guy who scrapped for the rebound, who would dive on the floor for loose balls—you know, the type of player who did a lot of the dirty work that maybe other players didn’t like to do.
“He kept a tally of ‘Tommy Points’ for guys who did things that didn’t show up in the stat sheet, and that was really borne out of him watching me play. He knew that everybody focused on the guy scoring 35 points or the guy grabbing 20 rebounds, but he changed the way that people look at basketball by pointing out the little things that make a big difference in wins and losses.”
For McCarty, his relationship with Heinsohn and the Celtics family runs deep.
“I’ve been so lucky, privileged, and blessed. To get to know people like Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, and Tom Heinsohn, I could never truly put into words what these people mean to me.
“It was so special to feel like you’re a part of the family, part of one of the greatest organizations in sports. You just don’t get that anywhere else. For me as a kid, to think that I would get to sit down and talk to guys like that—guys like Red Auerbach, Satch Sanders, Hondo—the list goes on and on, it was just remarkable. As a kid growing up in Evansville, I never could have imagined any of that to be possible.”
Walter McCarty isn’t afraid to put himself out there. After retiring from basketball, he moves into the music game. Truth is, music has always been a part of his DNA.
“When I was four or five, I was singing with my family in the church,” McCarty says. “My aunt got me started—I’d sing in the afternoon services. So I grew up singing, and from a very early age, it was always a passion of mine. And as I got older, I started singing in middle school choir, then high school and church choir, and on the street corners with my friends.
“In 2003, I released my first CD, Moment for Love, but I really didn’t have the time I needed to promote it due to playing basketball. In 2011, I released my second CD, Emotionally, and a year later released Unbreakable. My friends give me a hard time because I’m always singing, but I love it. It’s the thing I like to do most—that’s just me, I love music, and I really enjoy being able to express myself musically.
Go back a few years, and the old Antoine Walker has trouble saying no. He spends lavishly on friends and family, invests heavily in a shady real estate venture that goes belly up, places million dollar bets at the casino, and blows every dime of the $108 million he’s earned in the NBA. It’s a hard, painful lesson, but one from which he emerges stronger. This Antoine Walker, who, at the height of his career, never wears the same suit twice, is gone. In its place is a fiscally responsible Antoine Walker, now evangelizes financial literacy to up-and-coming athletes.
“Coming into the league at 19, there was no way that I thought I’d be broke at 39. I was soon making so much money that I thought it would never end . . . The type of money that today’s NBA players make is generational wealth; if you’re smart, you’re able to pass it down. I try to share my story and hope it makes a difference in someone’s life. Money is like everything else. It doesn’t last forever.”
Their playing careers over, Walker, McCarty, and Delk have nothing but fond memories of their time together. They have that ’96 national championship and everything that goes along with it. And even though they don’t win it all together in Boston, there are no regrets.
“The highlight of my career was to be drafted by an organization like the Boston Celtics,” says Walker. “When you look at a team with some of the all-time greats, we’re talking about Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson, K. C. Jones, Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, just to name a few. To be drafted by the Celtics and to have my name attached to that organization is the greatest thing that could ever happen to me professionally.”
“Boston’s a pretty special place,” Tony Delk says. “To be able to play there with these guys, it just doesn’t get much better than that. We competed hard. We were able to play with an all-time great in Paul Pierce. We got to play under all of those championship banners and in front of the best fans in the world. I enjoyed my time in Boston.”
“Everyone likes to point out that I didn’t win an NBA title, but I’ve always loved the game of basketball,” says Walter McCarty. “I would have loved to have won an NBA championship, but I had a great time, and I’m content to have walked away from the game like I did without winning it. I was fortunate to win a championship at Kentucky, and I was able to play 10 years in the NBA, many of those with the greatest franchise in professional basketball. And if I were to ever wonder why I didn’t win it all as a professional, I would lean on the words in Proverbs 3:5–6: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.’”
https://i0.wp.com/www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Antoine_Walker.png?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1400600Michael McClellanhttps://www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/celtics-clover-logo2.pngMichael McClellan2018-12-25 05:31:122018-12-26 03:29:20The Antoine Walker Interview
Written By: Michael D. McClellan | It’s the same everywhere he goes. Not a day passes that Dee Brown isn’t asked about The Dunk, a spontaneous act of showmanship that makes him famous, draws Michael Jordan’s ire, and brings urban sneaker culture one step closer to the mainstream. Mistaken for Shawn Kemp’s little brother during the 1991 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Brown, an unknown rookie out of Jacksonville, becomes a household name when he takes down Seattle’s “Reign Man” with a jam so original that it ushers in the contest’s prop era, replete with dunkers soaring over cars, teammates, and mascots. Sure, Brown only uses his arm, but when you close your eyes and dab in midair . . .
Pump the brakes: Dab? In midair?
The dunk contest, which begins in 1984, is still something of a novelty when Brown signs on as a late add. He’s 6-foot-1, rail-thin, practically a runt standing next to the muscular, 6-foot-10 Kemp. There are others in the contest—leapers like Blue Edwards, Kenny Smith, Kendall Gill, Otis Smith, Rex Chapman, and Kenny Williams—but the SuperSonics’ precocious man-child is the odds-on favorite. Kemp can leap like Nique and destroy the rim like Chocolate Thunder. Brown? He barely fills out his uniform. Julius Erving is one of the judges on this night. A student of the game, Brown has Erving’s dossier memorized. He knows all about Rucker Park, the Virginia Squires, and the New Jersey Nets. He knows about that sick reverse layup against the Lakers in the 1980 NBA Finals, a scoop shot for the ages. He also understands that while Doc isn’t the first player to levitate, he’s the first to transform dunking into an art form. Erving is Jackson Pollock, the ball his brush, the court his canvas.
“A lot of guys can dunk. Very few leave their mark,” Brown says.
On this night all those years ago, Dee Brown decides to leave his mark.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Dee Brown’s story is bigger than the night he delivers that jam for the ages. The dunk makes him a star, but there’s more to the Dee Brown mosaic than a singular night in Charlotte midway through his rookie season. That doesn’t keep the haters from dissing Brown’s 12-year career—he doesn’t win a championship, his basketball résumé never fulfills the glitz promised by that dunk contest—but the critics who throw shade fail to grasp the NBA landscape onto which he lands. Everything starts to unravel in Boston when Auerbach’s maneuvering for Len Bias backfires and compounds a year later when the Celtics select Northeastern’s Reggie Lewis, two future cornerstones wiped out in tragic fashion. The C’s still have stars on the roster when Brown arrives via the nineteenth pick in the 1990 NBA Draft, but age and injury limit the effectiveness of all-time players Bird, McHale, and Parish. Brown can’t possibly fill their shoes.
“People forget what it was like back then,” Brown says. “Those teams in the ’90s struggled to recover from the deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis. The Big Three were breaking down. The team was in decline.”
Welcome to the post-apocalyptic world that is Boston Celtics basketball through much of the ’90s—dark days fueled by tragedy, exacerbated by miserable ownership, and prolonged by a string of forgettable draft busts. Drop Dee Brown into a different era—when the Big Three were going gangbusters—and the Celtics might have another banner hanging from the rafters. That’s not meant to diminish Brown’s legacy in Boston. He epitomizes Celtic Pride during his time with the team, joining a list of uber-legends as team captain. He plays alongside the Big Three, and he’s on the floor during the last game in the Boston Garden. He represents the organization with class while bridging the chasm between Bird and Pierce. Get to know Brown for more than a dunk contest, and it’s easy to see why his light shines brightest during the team’s darkest days.
Jacksonville is hardly a basketball hotbed, but Jax is where this NBA-bound story starts. Brown grows up there auspiciously, which is to say that his isn’t a discourse on hood life.
“I was the oldest of three kids,” Brown begins. “My parents were young when they had me—my mom was 16 and my dad was 17—and they’re still together today. We weren’t from the ghetto, we weren’t hood. Both of my parents worked. I always had a roof over my head, and there was plenty of food to eat, so it wasn’t that story.”
The Browns are a sports family. His dad is a basketball junkie, a rec league baller with instincts he passes down to his son. Dee’s uncles aren’t much older than he is, so it’s like having a pack of big brothers around. They’re always at the park, where Dee learns to pitch, pass, and shoot. Soon he’s playing organized sports year-round.
“Being from Florida, I played whatever sport was in season. I was really good at baseball and football, but basketball was something that I loved.”
Brown doesn’t hone his game on a Jacksonville equivalent to Rucker Park, and those looking to perpetuate the gangsta stereotype are sorely disappointed. He attends the Bolles School, a private college preparatory school with an international reputation for both academic and athletic excellence. More than 50 Olympic swimmers graduate from Bolles. Chipper Jones, the ’99 Major League Baseball MVP, is a freshman when Brown is a senior. Jackie Crosby and Kevin Sack, both Pulitzer Prize winners in journalism, are Bolles alums. Brown is the only African American in his graduating class.
“I got the chance to be around a lot of affluent people that weren’t my color,” he says. “It helped me to see things in a completely different light.”
For Brown, basketball isn’t his only passion.
“Break dancing was big during the ’80s, and I was a breaker,” Brown confesses with a laugh. “I had a cardboard box in my garage, and I had that big boom box with dual cassette decks. I remember taking it to the park and blasting the music as loud as we could, and those batteries would be dead within an hour.
“Back then, hip-hop was just starting. My high school years were 1983 through 1986. I was listening to the Sugar Hill Gang, Kurtis Blow, and LL Cool J. For me, that whole period was really about the New York rappers because there really weren’t any Florida rappers or hip-hop artists. Heavy D & The Boyz had that album Big Tyme. I wore it out. “We had a group, and we would go to these dance competitions at the local skating rink. We would play basketball all day and break dance at night. I’d listen to the New York rappers and various deejays like DJ Kid Capri. From there I started listening to acts like Public Enemy, Eric B. and Rakim, and Heavy D. Today they are considered old school, but to true fans like me, they are better known as the Godfathers of Rap.”
What the Bolles Experience doesn’t do is give Brown street cred with college recruiters.
“Not a single Division I college was interested in me,” Brown says. “Zero. I was 30th in my graduating class, I had a 3.7 GPA, and I scored 1200 on the SAT, so it wasn’t an academic thing. Florida is a football state, and there weren’t a lot of big-time basketball players coming out of Jacksonville. Bolles was a small, private school with an AA classification, and it was basically all-white, so even though I was one of the best players in the state, I wasn’t on anyone’s radar when Florida basketball prospects were discussed. I only had one scholarship offer coming out of high school. That was an NAIA school, Presbyterian College, in North Carolina.”
Brown decides on a local junior college instead. His plan is simple: Prove that he can play and hope that a D-I school offers him a scholarship. All of that changes late in the summer of ’86.
“Florida holds an annual Olympic-style festival called the Sunshine State Games,” Brown explains. “Other states do something similar—in New York, it’s called the Empire State Games. There are all kinds of events: track and field, swimming, boxing, basketball, and so forth. I went to Lakeland with my high school team and competed against all the top players, including Florida’s Mr. Basketball. I averaged 37 points-per-game and broke the scoring record.
“The Thursday before the tournament, I had one offer from an NAIA school. The following Monday, I had 15 Division I scholarship offers. Every major college in the South wanted me because I was still eligible to sign. School was starting in one week, so I had to make a snap decision. Since I was already mentally prepared to stay home and go to school, I signed with Jacksonville University.”
The Dolphins are D-I but barely a blip on the national hoops scene. The school’s most famous baller is Artis Gilmore, a Consensus First-Team All-American in 1971 and a Hall of Famer. Otis Smith (the same Otis Smith in that 1990 dunk contest) is a senior when Brown is a freshman. From 1987–90, Brown carves out his own legacy. He scores 1,503 points, sets the school’s single-season steals record, and leaves with zero regrets.
“Jacksonville was right for me,” he says. “It was a small school in the Sun Belt Conference, which had competitive programs like Virginia Commonwealth, South Alabama, and UNC Charlotte. And our non-conference schedule was tough—we played schools like Virginia and North Carolina, so I had experience going against some of the best competition in the country.”
Brown proves that he can ball with the best, but, in the pre-Internet world in which he lives, word is slow to spread. With the 1990 NBA Draft looming, Brown’s draft status is anything but a slam dunk.
“The draft was reduced to two rounds the year before I came out,” Brown says. “I had a great senior season, but I wasn’t an All-American so there was no guarantee that I’d get drafted. It was just like high school all over again—the Sun Belt Conference was inferior to the ACC, I hadn’t proved myself consistently against blue-chip schools, the NBA was too physical for me, and on and on.”
Determined to change minds, Dee Brown hits the road.
“There were all of these different camps during the summer,” he says. “My first camp was the Orlando Invitational. All of the top players played, except for guys like Derrick Coleman, Gary Payton, Dennis Scott, and Chris Jackson, who were already locked into the top five spots. I made the all-tournament team and showed what I could do against guys like Bimbo Coles and Travis Mays. That’s when I started moving up in the draft. I went from maybe being selected in the second round, to being a solid second round pick, or maybe even being picked early in the second round.
“The next camp was in Chicago. I played well there and impressed teams during the interview process, and all of a sudden there was talk about me being a high first-round pick. Those camps helped teams see me in a different light.”
The rest of the summer is a blur. Brown, no longer a fringe player, now has multiple suitors wanting closer looks.
“I visited three teams ahead of the draft,” Brown says. “I went to Detroit—they were still champions at that time—and I also visited Houston and Boston. Back then, there weren’t any rules. You could stay with a team for days on end. I went to Houston for a week and played pick-up ball with the veterans. That was how the coaching staff ran their pre-draft workout—no drills, no analytics, no scientific evaluation. Just go play. If the players like you, we like you. It was the same thing in Detroit. Boston was different. When I visited the Celtics, I had a very short workout. I figured they weren’t impressed with me.”
More memorable for Brown is what happens off the court.
“I had an interview with Red, in his office on Causeway Street. I was a basketball history buff anyway, so walking into his office was better than walking into the Hall of Fame. There was so much history on the walls, on his desk, everywhere you looked. I sat there, awestruck, unable to believe that I was having a face-to-face conversation with Red Auerbach. It was surreal. Me being a 20-year-old kid from Jacksonville, who’d never left home before, and suddenly I’m in Boston and talking to the man who’d started it all. I knew the history of the team; I’d watched so many Celtics games on CBS when Tommy Heinsohn was broadcasting. I’d been glued to the TV during all of those ’80s battles between the Lakers and the Celtics. To be in Red’s office was a life-changing experience. Even if I didn’t get drafted by Boston, I knew that I’d talked to one of the greatest basketball minds of all time.”
Brown’s dream comes true on June 27, 1990, when the Celtics select the athletic combo guard with the 19th pick in the first round.
“The best thing about being drafted by the Celtics is that Red Auerbach made the pick. People talk about the dunk contest, but the draft was the best moment of my life. Just to think about all of the other players he’s selected in the past—Russell, Havlicek, Cowens, Bird . . . for me to be put in that company is unbelievable. You couldn’t ask for a better feeling.”
Dee Brown plays nearly eight seasons in a Celtics uniform. The best days come early. The team sprints out to a 29–5 record to start the 1990–91 regular season, finishes 56–26, and falls to the hated Pistons in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. He lands on the ’91 NBA All-Rookie First Team.
“The Big Three were older when I got drafted, and the Celtics had started transitioning from a frontcourt-oriented team to a team that featured the backcourt,” Brown says. “The offense featured younger, faster players like Brian Shaw, Reggie Lewis, Kevin Gamble, and myself. For the first time in a long time—or maybe ever—the Celtics were throwing down alley-oop dunks, running backdoor cuts, dunking on people, and doing windmill dunks during the game. The fans didn’t know what to think. They called us the ‘Zip Boys.’ Tommie Heinsohn gave us that nickname.”
Despite the injection of youth, the Boston Celtics are slowly crumbling when Dee Brown arrives, the fissures almost imperceptible at first.
“When I got there, Larry, Kevin, and Chief were still playing at a high level. This was before Larry got hurt, before Kevin got hurt again, and before Reggie passed. So even though we lost Lenny, we had an opportunity to be a great team. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.
“My first eight years in the league, there were only two NBA champions: Chicago and Houston. That was it. Like most players of that era, I came around at the wrong time because my career coincided with Jordan’s prime. But then again, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and so many other great players could say the same thing. They just came around when the greatest player who ever lived happened to be playing basketball.”
Brown’s early years in Boston are spent balling in the game’s most storied venue.
“People talk about Chicago Stadium and Madison Square Garden, but the old Boston Garden was great,” Brown says, smiling. “It was all about one thing: Basketball without distractions. There were no cheerleaders. No dancers. You had the organ. You had the dead spots. You had the obstructed view seats. You had the conspiracy theories of Red turning off the hot water to the showers or turning off the air conditioning during the playoffs. It was pure basketball, played in front of the best fans in the world.”
A young Dee Brown loves talking shop with the Celtics’ aging patriarch. Auerbach takes an instant liking to the acrobatic dunker with the old school vibe and pogo sticks for legs. The memories made are priceless.
“We were playing a home game, and I’m sitting in the locker room when Red walks in,” Brown says. “I think it was the year that Reggie Lewis had passed away, and I was playing close to 38 minutes a game. By this point in the season, I’m exhausted because I’m playing both guard positions. One game I’m guarding Mitch Richmond, the next game it’s Michael Jordan, and the next it’s Tim Hardaway. I’m guarding these guys, and I’m giving up 20 to 30 pounds. They’re bigger and stronger.
“So I’m sitting in the locker room and Red walks in. I never called him ‘Red.’ I always called him ‘Arnold.’ He loved it. I said, ‘Arnold, I’m exhausted, sore, and beat up.’ He looks at me and says, ‘Dee, let me tell you something. One year Bill Russell averaged 47 minutes per game for an entire season. And guess what? He owes me a minute. So you’d better never complain about playing all of these minutes because he played 47 and he owes me a minute, and until I get it from him, I’m going to keep chasing him.’”
Brown laughs at the retelling.
“I never complained about minutes again,” Brown says. “For him to be pissed off because Bill Russell didn’t play 48 minutes a game, the greatest Celtic of them all, who am I to complain [laughs]? Besides, playing 38 minutes a night was a lot better than sitting the bench. I loved Red. He always came into the locker room with a story.”
Away from the court, Brown soaks up Boston’s nightlife. His musical tastes continue to grow and evolve, but he’s still hooked on hip-hop.
“It was the early ’90s, so Biggie had just hit big. I listened to Busta Rhymes and EPMD, so I still liked the New York rap scene. There were a couple of Florida groups coming out of that time, like 2 Live Crew. People were like, ‘You can’t listen to that in Boston.’ But I was from Florida, so I had to represent. 69 Boyz were from Jacksonville. So was 95 South. They had a hit with ‘Whoot, There It Is.’ Living in Boston, I also go to see plenty of concerts. I was a Janet Jackson fan, a Faith Evans fan, a Stacy Lattisaw fan. Whitney Houston. I saw them all in Boston.”
If you’re a Boston Celtics fan during the ’90s, your allegiance to the team is sorely tested. Brown understands this perhaps better than anyone.
“A lot of people tend to dismiss that era of Celtics basketball,” Brown says. “They remember me winning the dunk contest, and then it jumps to Paul Pierce. The best years were early in the decade and were bookmarked by two tragedies that disrupted the future of the franchise. Len and Reggie weren’t lost due to injury. They weren’t traded away for other players. These were great talents who passed away tragically. You can’t plan for that.
“People forget that I joined the team just a few years after Lenny died, and I was part of the whole Reggie situation. I was there for eight years, and the Celtics were still trying to recover when I was traded to Toronto. We had some good players. Dominique Wilkins was there for a couple of years. Xavier McDaniel. Sherman Douglas. Dino Radja. Rick Fox was there before he went to Los Angeles. Chris Ford was one of the best coaches that I ever had.
“Nobody even talks about the ’90s, and nobody really brings up my career in Boston,” Brown continues. “That era has become a footnote in Celtics history. I consider myself lucky. I played in the last game in the old Boston Garden and the first game in the Fleet Center. I was the last person to play with the Big Three. I was the last of Red’s last picks to make significant contributions in a Celtics uniform. Those are the things I back on with pride.”
Brown understands that winning the ’91 NBA Slam Dunk Contest is a sexier headline and the thing people still remember most. But for him, being named Celtics captain is the ultimate honor.
“They don’t give that title out every day, nor do they give it away lightly. You have to earn it. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be a Celtic captain. It helped being around Larry, Kevin, Robert, and DJ on a daily basis. Through them, you learn that Celtic Pride isn’t a catchphrase. It’s a way of life.”
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Brown, who embraces his new role, quickly appreciates its burden.
“When I first became captain, I don’t think I fully grasped the magnitude,” Brown says. “It was great to be recognized as a leader, but I didn’t realize how difficult it was to be captain. It was a handful. And then, when you look at the list of captains that came before—Cousy, Russell, Havlicek, Cowens, Bird, Parish—you’re talking about some of the greatest players to pick up a basketball. That’s pressure. Just to be mentioned in the same breath with these guys is an honor. I didn’t have a career to match theirs, but I felt like I carried the same respect for what it means to be a Boston Celtic.”
As the team’s fortunes sag through the ’90s, Brown’s career stalls like a hurricane over the Florida coast. He battles a knee injury, watches legends retire, and endures a string of draft busts. There’s negativity at every turn.
“I was the biggest name on the roster at the time, but I was thrust into a situation that I really wasn’t prepared to handle. Reggie Lewis dies, and all of a sudden you go from being a complementary player to being the face of the franchise. There’s no way to prepare for that.”
The Dunk. It always comes back to The Dunk.
Funny thing is, Brown’s iconic sky dab almost never happens.
“I had a lot of dunks during my rookie year,” Brown says. “The All-Star Weekend was coming up, and Jon Jennings, a Celtics assistant coach at the time, was telling everybody that I needed to be included in the dunk contest. Thanks to his lobbying I was added as an alternate, and eventually slid into the lineup when one of the top guys pulled out.”
Shawn Kemp creates all of the buzz, while Brown arrives in Charlotte to little fanfare and even less recognition.
“It’s a few hours before the contest, and I’m sitting in the stands with Shawn Kemp and the rest of the guys,” he says. “We’re dressed in regular clothes, and I’m right beside Shawn, and this kid comes up and asks for his autograph. The kid points at me and says to Shawn, ‘Hey is that your little brother?’ I just looked at the kid and thought to myself, ‘You have no idea what I’m about to do in this contest.’”
Brown draws the seventh slot in the dunk order and wastes little time making an impression. Before his first dunk, he stands near midcourt, bends over and pumps the inflatable air bladders in his black Reebok Pump Omni Lite sneakers with both hands. The crowd, which includes an array of megastars like Will Smith, goes wild.
“I’d already signed a contract with Reebok, but pumping up my shoes before that first dunk wasn’t scripted,” he says. “I just said to myself, ‘This is for fun, you may never be in this situation again.’ I’d seen the contest on TV plenty of times, and I want to do something different. I want to get the crowd into it. Obviously, it worked.”
With that single act of showmanship, Brown accelerates the convergence between sneakers, hip-hop culture, and the American mainstream. An unknown wisp at 6-foot-2, 165 pounds just seconds before, the scrawny Boston rookie—Brown’s words—is suddenly the star of the NBA All-Star Weekend.
“People could relate to me,” he says. “I looked like an average guy, not a superhero in basketball shorts. There was an instant connection with the fans.”
Brown continues pumping before each subsequent dunk. After eliminating Kemp in the final round with a two-ball double-stuff that includes raking a ball placed on the back of the rim, followed by a 360 dunk off a bounce, Brown lines up for that final, iconic assault on the basket.
“I’d never done that dunk before,” Brown says. “I literally made it up on the spot. I wanted to do something that everybody would remember, like Michael Jordan taking off and dunking from the free-throw line, or Dominique Wilkins throwing down a vicious windmill dunk. I wanted people to remember Dee Brown doing something that nobody had ever done before. All those thoughts ran through my mind as I started running from half-court. When I jumped, I closed my eyes and put my head in my elbow. I knew that I was either going to make it, and everybody would be talking about me 25 years later, or I was going to miss it, and everybody was going to be talking about it 25 years later [laughs].”
Even without social media, Brown’s spontaneous improvisation brings instant fame.
“Larry Bird said, ‘Before that dunk, everybody wanted to shoot like me, and now everybody wants to dunk like Dee.’ It was the first time since he’d been in Boston that people would run past Larry Bird to get someone else’s autograph. He thought it was funny, and he didn’t mind at all.
“Outside of Boston, nobody knew who I was before that dunk,” Brown continues. “Having somebody from the Boston Celtics in a dunk contest was kind of like it snowing in San Diego. I literally became a household name overnight. After the contest, I couldn’t go anywhere in New England without being recognized by people who didn’t even follow the Celtics that closely. I was on TV all the time; I was doing Dunkin’ Donuts commercials, Reebok commercials, car commercials, radio spots. I was doing appearances in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island. For a while, I was New England.”
Brown’s run in Boston ends with the arrival of Rick Pitino. Hailed as a savior when he arrives, Pitino trades away players at a dizzying rate, to his own detriment. Brown is a casualty of the house cleaning when he, along with Chauncey Billups, is traded to Toronto midway through the 1997–98 regular season.
“I was a bridge between the great Celtics teams of the ’80s and Rick Pitino’s Celtics,” Brown says. “I never thought I would leave Boston. I never asked for a trade from Boston. A new regime comes in and they want their own people, their own players. Pitino didn’t want the old Celtics there. He wanted his people there. I got it. Basketball’s a business. But I was very, very hurt.”
They say you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. It works both way for Dee Brown and the Boston Celtics fans he leaves behind, fans who watch Rick Pitino push the Celtics deeper into disrepair.
“My biggest regret is not enjoying it as much I should have. When you’re in the moment, sometimes you don’t appreciate where you are in life. Then when it’s over, you miss it. That was me. I wish I had enjoyed being an NBA basketball player and the captain of the Boston Celtics more than I did. Back then you were either in the NBA and had a job or you didn’t. There was no D-League to fall back on. I think that fear of losing my job took a lot of the fun and enjoyment away from it. I didn’t savor the good times as much as I should have. I wish I could change that.”
Today, Brown looks back on his career and the era of Celtics basketball in which he played with great fondness.
“My 12-year-old son searches for me on Google. He’ll watch old footage on YouTube, and he’ll say, ‘Dad, you were pretty good.’ It helps me appreciate my career. When you’re grinding, you lose track of the fact that you’re playing against some of the best athletes in the world. Look at the NBA’s 50 Greatest list, and 20 to 25 of those players played during my era. I played against them. In order to have a 12-year NBA career, you have to play at a very high level. I did that, and I got to spend most of those years playing for the Boston Celtics, the best organization in the NBA. I was twenty when I was drafted. The Celtics raised me. I have nothing but love for Boston. I’ll always be a Celtic.”
https://i0.wp.com/www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Dee_Brown.png?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1400600Michael McClellanhttps://www.celtic-nation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/celtics-clover-logo2.pngMichael McClellan2018-12-23 23:25:182018-12-26 03:32:54The Dee Brown Interview
Written By: Michael D. McClellan | The sports world is buzzing on February 7, 1994, when Michael Jordan—who retires from basketball four months earlier at the height of his career—signs a contract to play minor league baseball for the Chicago White Sox. The announcement generates a flurry of attention for a two-sport athlete from another era, a winner of 88 Major League Baseball games and three NBA championships, a man who throws heat and blocks shots and wins rings and plays alongside 17 future Hall of Famers. It’s a renaissance he doesn’t see coming—the greatest baller in history decides to take up baseball, and his phone blows up—but he doesn’t seem to mind. The unexpected string of interviews breathes new life into a career that includes 11 seasons in the majors and six in the NBA.
“It was nonstop for a couple of weeks,” says Gene Conley of the attention generated by MJ’s foray into baseball. “I thought people had forgotten about me a long time ago.” For the uninitiated, Gene Conley is the only athlete to win both a World Series title and an NBA championship and the only man on the planet who can call both Hank Aaron and Bill Russell teammates. He can say he’s struck out Ted Williams in a Major League All-Star Game, shattered Billy Martin’s jaw with a punch, and held Wilt Chamberlain to 19 points while nursing a hangover.
“Gene was larger than life,” says former Celtics teammate Gene Guarilia. “He might not have been the best player on the team, but nobody had better stories.”
Mixing two professional sports with two-fisted drinking, Conley is Bo Jackson before Bo, with a little George Jones thrown in for good measure. As a pitcher for the Red Sox, he gives up eight runs in two-plus innings against New York in Yankee Stadium. When the team bus becomes mired in New York City traffic on the way to the airport, Conley and teammate Pumpsie Green step off to find a restroom, only to discover the bus gone when they return. Left to their own devices, Conley and Green start drinking heavily. Green eventually sobers up and contritely returns to the team, but Conley continues his binge for several days, eventually surfacing at Idlewild Airport (later JFK) and purchasing a ticket bound for Jerusalem. He’s denied access to the flight because he has no valid passport. The incident generates front page headlines and is famously dubbed Conley’s “Intentional Walk” by the press.
As an incoming student at Washington State, the 6-foot-8 Conley is coaxed into a car by three University of Idaho students in the middle of the night, driven from the campus barracks to Moscow, Idaho, where he is asked to shoot baskets the next morning. A man Conley believes is the Idaho football coach tries to talk him out of going to WSU and instead transferring to Idaho, offering him a car and money from a slot machine operation. Conley is able to call his father, who threatens to involve the police if Conley’s abductors don’t drive him back to WSU. The incident ends up going public, and Idaho is fined for tampering.
“As hard as it is to believe, that actually happened,” Conley says with a laugh.
As a major league pitcher, Conley wins a World Series ring with the Milwaukee Braves and then turns around and wins three championships as a member of those dynastic Boston Celtic teams anchored by Russell, all while drinking any eager taker under the table. Conley later bets his hometown drinking buddies five bucks each that he can hold Chamberlain under 20 points when his new team, the New York Knicks, play Wilt’s San Francisco Warriors. Chamberlain, averaging nearly 45 points at the time, only scores 19. Conley’s buddies never pay up.
Selected to play alongside Musial in that ’55 Midsummer Classic, Conley takes the mound in the 12th inning and pitches the National League to victory, fanning future Hall of Famer Al Kaline, two-time batting champ Mickey Vernon, and two-time RBI champ Al Rosen.
“I was the winning pitcher, but Stan Musial hits the home run and is the hero of the game!”
Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, at the onset of the Great Depression, Conley becomes a Knothole Gang member of the Class D Muskogee Reds, going to games with his father and watching players like Stan Musial move through the minor league. He has no way of knowing that he’ll later team with Musial to win the 1955 All-Star Game.
Conley’s journey to the NBA and MLB begins when his father finds work in Richland, Washington. At Columbia High School, Conley grows to 6-foot-8 by his senior year, lettering in baseball, basketball, and track. He shows so much basketball promise that Adolph Rupp wants him at Kentucky. Slats Gill wants him at Oregon State. Hank Iba makes overtures. He decides to join his older brother at Washington State University, where a wealthy alum offers to provide an automobile and pay for his expenses, infractions that go undetected and unpunished.
Conley captains the freshman basketball team and shows flashes of the skill that later lands him in the NBA. A year later, he excels as a baseball player, representing the Northwest in the 1949 Hearst All-Star Game, which pits all-stars from the Greater New York area against the top players from the rest of the country. Conley is named the United States All-Stars captain for the game, which is played at the Polo Grounds, where he is the winning pitcher. During the spring of 1950, Conley is a starter on a WSU baseball team that finishes 32–6 and is runner-up for the national championship. He pitches in 16 games during WSU’s run to the College World Series, winning five (with two shutouts), saving two more, and averaging .417 at the plate.
“I was the starting center during my sophomore year at Washington State, and I led the PAC-8 Northern Division in scoring that season,” Conley says. “George Yardley was the leading scorer who later played in the NBA and ended up in the Hall of Fame. I also played baseball as a sophomore with a guy named Ted Tappe. Ted and I both signed major league contracts right after the national tournament in Omaha, Nebraska. He signed with the Cincinnati Reds, and I signed with the Boston Braves.
“I really didn’t give professional sports a thought,” Conley says. “I’d played some semi-pro baseball for the Walla Walla Bears when I was 18. A lot of scouts attended those games because there were some terrific ballplayers out there, which really helped my development as a pitcher, and that’s when they really started watching me.”
Conley pauses. He smiles. “Actually, I was doing all of this illegally because I was going to school on scholarship and picking up 35 bucks a game for playing semi-pro ball. The guy who sponsored it owned a jewelry store, and he would pay me under the table.”
The scouts continue to follow Conley’s exploits at WSU, their interest peaking following that run to the College World Series.
“I had offers from Detroit, the Yankees, and several other teams. I wasn’t very interested in playing pro baseball at first, but then I realized that I didn’t enjoy college all that much, either [laughs]. I talked to my father about it, and he thought I’d be better off signing with the Boston Braves because Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn were past their primes and I’d have a better chance of making the team.”
The Braves assign Conley to their Class A team at Hartford of the Eastern League for 1951. His debut season is lights out—20 wins, a 2.16 ERA, and a strikeout-to-walk ratio well over 3-to-1. He’s honored as the league’s Most Valuable Player and is named Minor League Player of the Year by The Sporting News.
It’s in the Eastern League that Conley crosses paths with future Celtics great Bill Sharman, who later recommends him to Red Auerbach. The Celtics take Conley with the 90th overall pick in the 1952 NBA Draft.
“Bill Sharman is a great man and a great friend,” Conley says. “He played a big part in my getting a chance to try out with the Celtics. He went to Red and told him I could play basketball, and that I could help the team. Red trusted Bill’s opinion—back then that’s how a lot of basketball decisions were made. Red hadn’t seen me play, but he trusted Bill, and that was good enough for him.”
Conley’s rapid development means his stay in the Eastern League is short-lived. The Braves promote him to the major leagues as the fourth starter in 1952, but after three dismal starts, he’s reassigned to the team’s top farm club in Milwaukee.
“I think they moved me into the major leagues too quickly. I was barely 21 when I took the mound against the Brooklyn Dodgers. They had Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Lou Campanella. I did okay, but I was so nervous that I wasn’t pitching up to my potential. They sent me back down to the minor leagues. I won 23 games in AAA, which proved that I was good enough to eventually play in the big leagues.”
Money is tight, so Conley decides to try out for the Celtics when the baseball season ends. Surprisingly, Braves general manager John Quinn grants him permission to play. Conley lives in the Lenox Hotel during the season, one floor below his coach.
“My first season with the team I didn’t play that much,” Conley says, “but I always had a good relationship with Red. My family was back in Milwaukee, and the kids were in school, and I stayed at the Lenox. I didn’t have a car. I used to ride with Red to the practices every day, or to the Boston Garden when we played a game. Sometimes we’d pick up Walter Brown. I’d sit in the back seat, and we’d talk about everything, so I got to know them both well.”
The Celtics reach the ’53 NBA Playoffs but are eliminated in the second round. By then, Conley has already reported for spring training.
“The Celtics were good that year, but we weren’t going to win a championship, so Auerbach agreed to cut me loose so that I could return to baseball. It was a nice gesture on his part. That was the end of my basketball career, until about six years later.”
Back on the mound, Conley ends up being assigned to the Braves’ top farm team in Toledo. He starts fast but breaks down late in the season, sidelined by a balky back. Still, he wins 23 games and is named the American Association’s Most Valuable Player and, for the second time, The Sporting News selects him as its Minor League Player of the Year.
“It was the first time a player won that award more than once,” he says proudly, “but the back injury put me in a Toledo hospital. The doctors fitted me with a brace. I was supposed to wear it for six weeks, but I threw it away two weeks later and skipped town without completing the physical therapy. I wanted to make it back to Boston in time for training camp. I had a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed.”
Conley is on the verge of signing with the Celtics when Quinn intervenes and matches Auerbach’s offer. Conley instead spends the winter rehabbing in Toledo and recovers in time for spring training. His stuff is good enough to make the Braves’ ’54 Opening Day roster, joining a pitching staff headlined by Warren Spahn. Conley responds by winning 14 games and finishing third in the National League Rookie of the Year balloting. He’s also selected to play in the 1954 All-Star Game. On August 31, Conley throws a complete-game, three-hit shutout against Brooklyn, beating Don Newcombe 2–0. He fans Duke Snider three times and coaxes the legendary Jackie Robinson into 0-for-3.
“If Jackie didn’t get a hit, he’d work you for a walk, or get his elbow in the way of a pitch, anything to get on base,” Conley says. “He was a tough competitor.”
Braves management again discourages Conley from playing basketball when the baseball season ends, but Conley heads off to the Celtics’ training camp anyway. He easily makes the roster. This time, he shocks the Celtics by leaving the team on the eve of the season opener. It’s a decision that doesn’t sit well with Auerbach, who demands loyalty and famously holds grudges.
“I was going to play for the Celtics in ’54, but the Braves stopped me. They thought I might get hurt. I tried to convince them that I could keep my legs in shape by playing for the Celtics. The Braves countered by offering more money not to join up with Boston that fall. I asked them how much—it was $5,000, so I said, ‘You know, maybe I should stick to baseball.’ I was kind of dirtying up on the Celtics, to tell you the truth. But in those days you had to play the game. I had kids to feed. Besides, management played the game, too.”
A year later he finds himself in that ’55 All-Star Game, fanning Kaline, Vernon, and Al Rosen. That Conley is even able to take the mound is a testament to his toughness; after starting the season 8–3, he injures his rotator cuff throwing against Philadelphia. He doesn’t win again after the All-Star Game and is eventually shut down for the rest of the season. The injury plagues him the rest of his career and requires more than 100 cortisone injections.
“I was hard on my body,” Conley says. “I played hard and drank hard. After a while, the punishment takes its toll.”
His shoulder still aching, Conley starts the 1956 season on the disabled list. He returns for the first time, in a relief appearance, on May 28. He’s used sparingly by new Braves manager Fred Haney over the remainder of the season, winning eight games as Milwaukee finishes in second place, one game behind the Dodgers.
The following season, Conley alternates between starting and the bullpen. The Braves catch fire at the right time, winning the National League pennant before beating the Yankees in the World Series.
“I didn’t start off bad during the ’57 season, but I just wasn’t winning games,” Conley says. “And then I get hot in July and win five or six big games down the stretch. I felt like I had really played a part in helping the Braves win the pennant, especially in a rotation that included guys like Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, and Bob Buhl. Spahn won 21 games that season. To this day I tell people that I’ve never seen another pitcher accomplish what Burdette did during that World Series and not get the notoriety that he deserved. He pitched three complete games against the New York Yankees, two of them at Yankee Stadium, and he won all three games—including Game 7 to win the World Series. I celebrated a little too much and had a hangover for a week.”
Conley’s shoulder is still bothering him when training camp opens in 1958, and when he takes the mound, it’s as a reliever. Frustrated with his role, he continues drinking heavily, a cycle that puts him at odds with Haney. Finishing the season with an 0–6 record doesn’t help. When the Braves return to the World Series, again against the Yankees, Conley doesn’t make it onto the field.
Despondent, a cash-strapped Gene Conley decides to give basketball another try. He calls Auerbach, but the Celtics have added Bill Russell and Tom Heinsohn to its frontline, resulting in two consecutive trips to the NBA Finals and the team’s first championship banner. Then there are the hard feelings that linger from Conley bailing on the Celtics in ’54.
“Red hadn’t forgotten,” Conley says with a laugh. “Boy, he let me know about it.”
Luckily for Conley, championships trump old grudges. Auerbach agrees to a tryout, with stipulations.
“I got on the phone, and I called Red. He said, ‘Gene, you haven’t been playing. You’ve been playing baseball. We’ve still got Cousy and Sharman. We’ve got Bill Russell and Sam Jones. We’ve got Tommy Heinsohn. We’ve got All-Americans. I don’t think you have a chance, but I’ll pay your way to Boston. If you don’t make the team, you’ve got to figure out your own way home.’ Somehow I made the team.”
Conley rejoins a Celtics team fresh off two straight trips to the NBA Finals. He knows that Russell is something special, but now he gets to see him up close.
“The Celtics were the class of the league after Russell came aboard,” Conley says. “He revolutionized the center position. He wasn’t a great shooter, but he was the best defender to ever play the game. I got along really well with Russell. People considered me as his backup. That was probably the case on paper, but there were a lot of times that we were on the court together. Sometimes I’d be out there in the middle, and that would free him up a little bit.”
The NBA is evolving, but Conley still gets into his share of fights.
“I think a lot of the NBA players resented a baseball player coming in and playing professional basketball in their league,” he says. “These guys had played basketball in college, and many of them had been All-Americans, and then here comes this baseball player trying to play their sport. Some guys thought I was trying to show off, but I had three kids by then, and I desperately needed the money. I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder, but I definitely felt that they were picking on me a little bit. Consequently, I had to put my fists up against a few of them.”
The Celtics roll through the 1958–59 regular season en route to the NBA title, making Conley the only professional athlete to win championships in two major sports.
“I was excited, believe me. We easily swept the Minneapolis Lakers in the Finals. They had Elgin Baylor and a few other good players, but George Mikan had retired, and Wilt was still in college. Playing Syracuse in the Eastern Division Finals was more challenging than playing the Lakers. They had Dolph Schayes, Hal Greer, Johnny Kerr, and Al Bianchi. It took us seven games to beat them. As a matter of fact, I think Russell fouled out of Game 7, and I had to finish it out.”
On March 31, 1959, the Braves trade their towering pitcher, along with infielders Joe Koppe and Harry Hanebrink, to the Philadelphia Phillies for catcher Stan Lopata and shortstops Ted Kazanski and Johnny O’Brien. The move is prompted, in part, by Conley’s nagging injuries, but the bigger reason is his refusal to give up basketball.
Conley goes 12–7 for the 1959 Phillies, making his first appearance near the end of April, just a few short weeks after the Celtics’ title run. He begins the season as a reliever but is soon moved into the starting rotation, finishing with those 12 wins for the last-place Phillies. He is picked by his former manager, Fred Haney, for the 1959 All-Star Game in Los Angeles, where he pitches two perfect innings that includes strikeouts of Ted Williams and Yogi Berra.
“Not many people can say that they struck out Ted Williams and Yogi Berra in the same game,” says Conley.
His last win comes on August 19, a three-hitter against the Cubs. In the third inning, Conley is hit on the pitching hand while batting against Glen Hobbie. Amazingly, he pitches the rest of the game with a fracture, allowing only a single over the last six innings. It’s not the only break involving Conley; earlier in the season, he broke Billy Martin’s jaw.
“I was playing for the Phillies and pitching a game in Cincinnati,” he says, smiling. “The opposing pitcher threw a couple of pitches inside and hit me with one. We had a fiery manager, Gene Mauch. I started down to first base. All of a sudden, I saw Mauch running past me as fast as he could, going after the pitcher for hitting me. Well, I ran out there, and here comes Billy Martin. Boy, I let him have it. I smacked him a good one.”
After the season Conley signs two contracts, one with the Phillies and another with the Celtics, and wastes little time shifting back into basketball mode. Boston, with Conley in the fold, finishes 59–16 and tops the Hawks 4–3 in the 1960 NBA Finals.
“We had to go through the Philadelphia Warriors with Chamberlain and that bunch, just to face the St. Louis Hawks in the Finals. They had Bob Pettit and Cliff Hagan. They were very good players, but we had Russell. That’s the difference between good and great.”
A second NBA championship in hand, Conley joins the Phillies for spring training. He stumbles to an 8–14 record with a 3.68 ERA. The Phillies offer him $20,000 to skip basketball the next winter and focus on baseball. Conley refuses and rejoins the Celtics when the baseball season ends. The Phillies have had enough. On December 15, 1960, they trade Conley to the Boston Red Sox.
“It was the biggest trade in baseball,” he says with a wink, “because I was 6-foot-8 and Frank Sullivan was 6-foot-7. Trades don’t get much bigger than that.”
Conley suddenly finds himself playing two professional sports in the same city. The 1960–61 Celtics capture a third straight NBA championship, with Conley a key contributor. He is especially valuable helping Russell guard Chamberlain in the Eastern Division Finals.
“It was a challenge getting past Wilt, but Russell was Russell,” Conley says. “We faced Pettit and the Hawks in the NBA Finals again. Personally, I played really well in that series, much better than I did during my first trip to the Finals. But if I had to choose, getting that first championship in ’59 was really special. I felt like a rookie that year, because I hadn’t played basketball since ’52.”
Nine days after winning a third NBA championship, Conley takes the mound and pitches the Red Sox to victory, becoming the only athlete to ever play for both the Celtics and Red Sox.
“That makes me the answer to another trivia question,” he says, laughing. “People often ask me about that, but most of the time they want to hear about me playing with Hank Aaron and Bill Russell.
“When I broke into the big leagues with Aaron in 1954, we were both just a couple of wide-eyed rookies trying to make a living doing something that we loved. He used to come over to the house, but the fact that we knew each other was nothing special. We were both making just $6,000 a year. We were just teammates trying to make the big leagues and win games. We knew who Warren Spahn was, of course. But even Spahn was down-to-earth, like anybody else.”
Auerbach decides to leave Conley unprotected in the NBA’s 1961 Expansion Draft, and Conley finds himself selected by the Chicago Packers. He chooses not to report, intending to take the winter off. Instead, he signs with the Washington Tapers of the fledgling American Basketball League.
“I didn’t want to leave the Celtics, but Red was gearing up to go in another direction. I could make some extra money playing for the Tapers while waiting for baseball season to start.”
Conley wins a career-high 15 games for the Red Sox in 1962, but the wins are overshadowed by the now infamous “Intentional Walk.”
“I honestly don’t know why I did it,” Conley says of the incident for which he’s most known. “Alcohol is a demon that’s hard to explain.”
Conley drinks heavily as far back as he can remember. He’s able to function for the most part, performing well even when hungover from too much alcohol the night before, and only those who know him best are aware of his drinking problems. The “Intentional Walk” changes all of that.
“It was national news,” he says. “There was nowhere to hide.”
The Red Sox fine Green $1,000 for his disappearance. Conley is suspended without pay, fined $2,000, and out an additional $2,000 for the plane ticket. He addresses the media and expresses his remorse, and the Red Sox decide to give him a second chance, allowing him to return to finish the season. He posts a 15–14 record with a 3.95 ERA.
“Tom Yawkey was the owner of the Boston Red Sox at the time, and I’ll never forget his understanding and kindness. He called me into his office and said, ‘Gene, we would all like to do what you did, but we can’t. I’m going to fine you $2,000, but if you stay in line for the rest of the year, I’ll give it back.’ I did, and he did. It’s a good thing because I really needed the money.”
Before the 1962 baseball season ends, Conley’s NBA rights are traded to the New York Knicks. He signs on and plays center for what turns out to be the NBA’s worst team, averaging a career-high 9 points and competing against his good friend Russell in the Garden.
“I wasn’t in real good shape,” Conley says, smiling. “I ask Russell if he’ll take it easy on me, and he says, ‘I’ve got to do it to you.’ I take my first shot, and Russell blocks it. Then he alters my next two shots, so I say to myself, ‘The heck with this.’ Gene Shue passes me the ball way outside, and I let it fly. It hits nothing but net. I just looked at Russell and said, ‘Bill, I’ve got to do it to you.’ He grinned from ear-to-ear. We still laugh about that. Russell is a sweetheart.”
Released by the Red Sox during spring training in 1964, Conley signs with the Cleveland Indians for a dollar and is assigned to the Indians’ minor league team in Burlington, North Carolina. Conley pitches in only two games and decides that he’s had enough. He retires from baseball, gives his life over to Jesus Christ, and has his last drink in 1966.
“I always tell people that I was the luckiest athlete alive because I had a job to go to—baseball—and then I could follow that up by playing another sport that I really loved. How can you beat that? I was very fortunate. I played 13 seasons and went six and a half years going from one sport to the next. And if you think about it, I didn’t have a college education to fall back on, so I had to keep playing until I ran out of juice.”
All of which makes Conley’s story worth the price of admission.
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