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The Gene Guarilia Interview

By:  Michael D. McClellan |  Four years, four rings.  Few could ever accuse Gene Guarilia of not being in the right place at the right time, nor could they accuse him of not making the most of a truly golden opportunity.  Dropped into the greatest sports dynasty the world has ever known, Guarilia responded the only way he knew how:  By working hard to keep the world champion Boston Celtics squarely on top.  Whether those contributions occurred in a game or on the practice court is of little consequence, because for Guarilia, like everyone else who played for Arnold “Red” Auerbach during the make-hay days of the 1960s, winning championships was all that really mattered.  The Celtics conquered the NBA 11 times in 13 seasons because everyone who suited up for the green-and-white knew their role and played it to perfection.  From Bill Russell’s blocked shots and timely rebounds, to Sam Jones’ signature bank shots, to John Havlicek’s heroics off the bench, the Boston Celtics were the perfect amalgam of talent and intelligence, winning games as much with their wit as with their workmanship.  Guarilia was no exception.  He came to the Celtics with a reputation as a rugged rebounder and consummate team player, and for four seasons he roamed the Boston Garden’s fabled parquet floor, intent on adding to the Celtics’ growing cache of championship banners.

Guarilia was born on September 13th, 1937, in the Luzerne County borough of Duryea, Pennsylvania.  Located nine miles south of Scranton on the Lackawanna River, and with a population of just over 8,000 during the 1940s, Duryea was an uncomplicated, blue collar town where coal mining and the manufacture of silk had been the chief industries in the early years of its existence.  Duryea also proved to be the perfect place for the young Guarilia to hone his basketball skills.  He took to the sport at an early age, excelling on the makeshift hoops erected at Holy Rosary Grade School, and he remained keenly interested even though he didn’t play organized basketball until the ninth grade.  Still, few at the time would have expected Guarilia to earn a living roaming the hardwood; the Basketball Association of America and the rival National Basketball League – precursors to the NBA – had floundered during much of the 1940s, as ‘cage ball’ struggled to compete with baseball and football as a major professional sport.  Kids dreamed of being the next Babe Ruth, or perhaps the next Slingin’ Sammy Baugh.  But the next Bob Cousy, Bob Pettit, or Bill Russell?  Professional basketball had yet to produce its first wave of legends.  Sure, there was George Mikan, but he was more curiosity than charlatan, a 6’10” giant viewed by the masses as something straight from under P.T. Barnum’s circus tent.  Guarilia played the game without benefit of baseball’s rich history and larger-than-life heroes.  He played it without benefit of a Red Grange or a Jim Thorpe, athletes who lifted professional football to a status approaching that of our national pastime.  Gene Guarilia simply played it because it was fun, because he was good at it, and later because maybe – just maybe – scoring points and grabbing rebounds might one day help pay for a college education.

Gene Guarilia’s story begins in Duryea at the age of four, when he would follow his older brother Joseph to Holy Rosary Grade School, making such a nuisance of himself that the school’s nuns suggested that young Eugene might benefit from the structure of first grade.  Never mind that Guarilia was two years younger than the normal starting age; it was better to have him in class, where they could apply structure and discipline in equal doses, rather than contend with his disruptions from the street and the schoolyard.  This isn’t to suggest that Guarilia was a problem child – far from it, in fact; he simply looked up to his older brother, tagged along with him everywhere, and missed him terribly whenever school was in session.  So it was that Guarilia entered first grade at four, keeping pace with surprising ease and sparking a lifetime interest in education.

Starting school early means leaving school early, and Guarilia graduated at sixteen.  By then he was a strapping lad, big, strong and athletic.  He found himself being recruited by George Washington’s legendary coach, Bill Reinhart, but Reinhart and the coaching staff felt that he was too young to succeed in a major college environment.  They suggested that he enroll at a smaller prep school first, and then transfer.  Guarilia obliged, spending a year at Potomac State College in Keyser, West Virginia.

Potomac State proved to be the perfect stopping place for the young Guarilia.  He was able to acclimate himself to college life without the added pressure of the big city, and he was able to play basketball immediately, which wouldn’t have been the case had he gone directly to George Washington.  Competing against quality West Virginia Conference schools, such as NAIA power Fairmont State, and West Virginia Tech’s 100-point-per-game Century Club, Guarilia was able to log big minutes and gain invaluable game experience in the process.  He also grew three inches, from 6’-3” to 6’-6”, and began to excel underneath the basket.  It was just the type of physical and mental maturation that Reinhart had hoped would take place, and by 1956 Guarilia – now three inches taller and 70 pounds heavier than his senior season at Duryea High School –  was clearly ready to don a GW uniform.

As a sophomore, Guarilia averaged an incredible 18.6 rebounds-per-game, putting him among the nation’s leaders in that category.  He was an overnight sensation, a 1950s version of Charles Barkley.  His relentless play on the glass became his calling card, and helped trigger Reinhart’s classic fast break.  He finished his next two seasons as one college basketball’s top rebounders, catching the attention of Reinhart’s close friend and former pupil, the brash head coach of the Boston Celtics – Arnold “Red” Auerbach.

Auerbach had spent much of the 1950s winning games in Boston but never advancing to the NBA Finals.  That all changed in 1956, when Auerbach and team founder Walter Brown engineered the biggest trade in NBA history, sending “Easy” Ed Macauley to the St. Louis Hawks in exchange for the draft rights to Bill Russell.  In Russell, Auerbach finally had the missing piece to a dynasty-in-the-making.  He had his rebounder, shot-blocker, and fast break triggerman, all rolled into one.  Russell and fellow rookie Tom Heinsohn joined established stars Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman, and the Celtics captured their first NBA championship following the 1956-57 season.  An ankle injury to Russell prevented a repeat, but the Celtics were once again champions in 1958-59.

Guarilia was drafted in the second round following that title run, with the goal of providing additional toughness underneath the basket.  He didn’t disappoint, proving himself ever ready and always capable, doing whatever Auerbach needed to make the Celtics a better team.  He practiced hard and he played hard, earning the respect and admiration of Boston’s established stars.  Guarilia was rewarded for his unselfish commitment to team, as the Celtics repeated as NBA champions.  It was a third title in four years, and the Celtic Dynasty was officially underway.  Guarilia was right smack in the middle of it all.

Satch Sanders’ arrival in 1960 relegated Guarilia to a reserve role, but it was one that he played with pride.  The Celtics won titles in each of the next three years, with Guarilia playing well when called upon, until his retirement following the 1962-63 championship season.  When he walked away, he knew that the Celtic Dynasty was truly something special, and that the family atmosphere made it all the better.

“Everybody was friends on that team,” he said when asked about those four very special years in a Boston Celtic uniform.  “There was no animosity toward one another.  We all ate at one another’s houses, including the black players.  Our wives got along great.  We were talking about that the other day when I was in Boston for a card show with Sam Jones and Jim Loscutoff.  We were saying how good everything was. It was a privilege to be associated with the men on that team.”

Guarilia returned to Duryea following retirement, where he pursued his other passion, working as a teacher in the public school system.  (The nuns at Holy Rosary would surely be proud.)  He also became a musician, earning a reputation as one of the best bass players in the country.  Still, his memories of his days as a Celtic remain as fresh as ever.  He is appreciative of his place in history, and of what he has been able to accomplish on the basketball court.  He was honored, along with the immortal Red Auerbach, as part of George Washington University’s All-Century men’s basketball team.  He has four NBA championship rings to show for his hard work and sacrifice.  He has played, practiced and sacrificed alongside some of the greatest players in NBA history.  Lucky?  No question about it.  But even luck requires a certain amount of diligence, and Guarilia was more prepared than most.

You were born on September 13, 1937, in Duryea, Pennsylvania, which is a few miles northeast of Pittston.  Please tell me a little about your childhood, and about your family  What are some of the things that stand out?

Right up the street from where we moved, in Duryea, was a Catholic school – Holy Rosary Grade School.   My brother was in second grade at the time, and I used to go up and sit on the street corner and call his name out while he was in class.  So, a nun called my mother and said, ‘You know, Eugene has been disturbing the lessons in my classroom.’  I was four at the time [laughs].  My mother said, ‘Gee, I don’t know what to tell you.  Every time Joseph goes to school, Gene follows along behind him because they’re used to playing together.’  So my mother suggested that the nun just take me into the school and keep me out of trouble.  The nun says, ‘I don’t know, he looks kind of young for first grade.’  But somehow my mother convinced her to take me in, and I did pretty good.  I kept up with the other first graders, who were all at least a year older than me.  So the nun calls my mother and says, ‘I think he’s going to be okay.’  And that’s how it started.

As I’ve said, my older brother was Joseph.  He was a very good football player at Duryea High School, but he hurt his knee.  He got married at a very early age – actually, it was the day after he got out of high school, and I was the best man in his wedding.  My younger brother’s name was Gerald.  He had rheumatic fever when he was a youngster, which was a very scary time.  He joined the navy after graduating from high school, then went to college, and became an administrator with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  Both Joseph and Gerald have since passed away, and my parents are no longer living.  I’m the last of the Mohicans.

I really didn’t play organized basketball at Holy Rosary.  What they had was physical education, and they put a couple of barrels on top of a table.  That’s how I got started [laughs].  I was pretty proficient at it, so I decided that I liked it because I could do it well.  The first time I played organized ball was in ninth grade, and we played every Saturday morning.  That was my extent of my basketball experience up to that point.

You were set to play collegiate ball at George Washington University, but you took a brief detour.  What happened?

When I graduated from high school, the George Washington basketball scouts came to me and said they thought I was kind of young – I graduated from high school when I was sixteen years old – and they wanted to send me to a prep school for a year.  Basically, they wanted me to mature a little bit.  So I went to Potomac State in Keyser, West Virginia.  That was a great experience playing for Potomac State, because we played a lot of four-year schools, and I was only a freshman.  I did pretty well, and there were so many great schools down there – Fairmont State, Glenville, West Virginia Tech, and Concord, just to name a few.  When we played West Virginia Tech, they were the highest scoring team in the nation at that time.  They were averaging something like 114 points-per-game.  They became known as the Century Club because they averaged more than 100 points-per-game that season.  They beat us, but it was actually a very good game.  It was 119-111, or something close to that.  Playing at Potomac State was quite an experience – I’ll never forget it.

From there, it was on to George Washington University.

After Potomac State I went down to George Washington.  Naturally, I had to be red-shirted because I left Potomac State after my freshman year.  If I had stayed for my sophomore year, then I could have gone straight into GW and played – that was the rule at the time.  So I got red-shirted – that meant I didn’t play at all for George Washington during my sophomore year.  So I played for Hagerstown-Fairchild, which was sponsored by Fairchild Industries, a big aircraft organization based in Hagerstown, Maryland.  I got to play against a lot of All-Americans, such as guys like Jesse Arnelle from Penn State.  We play mostly against Air Force bases, and other AAU teams.  So I kept busy during my sophomore year, rather than laying around and doing nothing.

You played collegiate basketball for Bill Reinhart at George Washington, as did Red Auerbach.  Auerbach admired Reinhart greatly, and patterned Boston’s up-tempo attack after the offense that Reinhart had installed at GW.  Please tell a little bit about Bill Reinhart.

Bill Reinhart, believe it or not, took the place of my father.  My father died when I was twelve years old – I had just finished up with Holy Rosary Grade School, and he died that following August.  So even though my mother re-married when I was a senior at Duryea High School, I really didn’t have a father during that period in my life. When I went to GW, Bill Reinhart called me in his office and he said he knew that I’d been through some tough sailing.  He was very supportive – he helped me out a lot, gave me a tremendous amount of very good advice, and he was the one who really set me on the straight and narrow.  He became my father figure – Reinhart was a great, great  man.

You led GW in rebounding three times during your college career, including an impressive 18.6 rebounds-per-game average in ‘59.  What was it that made you one of the premiere rebounders in the nation?

I was about 6’-6”, and I had pretty good leaping ability.  I also lifted weights, so I’d built myself up to become a lot stronger on the boards.  I was aggressive – that helped – and I had a pretty good nose for the ball.  I just knew where to be, which is something you can’t really teach.  It’s more of an instinct than anything else.  But those were some of the things that helped me to become a good rebounder.

On Saturday, March 1, 1958, George Washington squared off against West Virginia University.  Jerry West scored 25 points in the Mountaineers’ 113-107 victory.  Please tell me a little bit about Mr. West.  What was it like to play against him?

Jerry West was a great competitor.  What a leaper, too.  He could really get off the floor.  He could stop on a dime and shoot the jumper, and when he drove he could take it all the way in to the hoop and float that ball up above the bigger guys.  Later on I played against him when he was with the Lakers and I was with the Celtics.  His college coach – Freddie Schaus – later became his head coach in Los Angeles.

The game you’re referring to was the double-overtime game at Uline Arena, which was where the Washington Capitols used to play hockey.  That place was always cold [laughs].  But I remember that game well.  “Hot Rod” Hundley was also a Mountaineer at the time.  They had a great team.

You were honored, along with the immortal Red Auerbach, as part of George Washington University’s All-Century men’s basketball team.  What does this recognition mean to you personally, and what does it mean to share this honor with Mr. Auerbach?

Red was my coach at Boston, as you well know.  I always respected him, and to be linked with a person like him is a great honor, because George Washington had some pretty darned good basketball teams through the years.  Joe Holup was a Third Team All-American for GW in 1955-56.  At one time we were ranked fifth or sixth in the nation.  So there is a great tradition at GW, and it was an honor to be selected as a member of the All-Century team.

The Boston Celtics selected you in the 2nd round of the 1959 NBA Draft.  Two of your teammates were also drafted – Bill Telasky in Round 5 by Philadelphia, and Bucky McDonald in Round 6 by New York.  What does this say about the strength of that George Washington team?

Bucky died a few years ago – I went to his funeral.  He was an army person.  He came in midway through my sophomore season…he’d been discharged from the service.  As soon as he joined the team we really jelled.

Bill and I were recruited by GW in 1955.  There were 11 of us that came in together, but nine of us flunked out.  And a lot of the guys that we lost were big guys, 6’-9” and 6’-10”, and we were left without any height.  Naturally, we had a disastrous season my first year.  Had those guys been able to play it may have been a lot different, because some of them were really good players.  You take three or four guys off the team that are 6’-9” or 6’-10”, and there goes your inside game.  I was basically a corner player, and I played mostly on the wing or in the corner.  The loss of those guys forced me underneath.  I had to play with my back to the basket, which is something I’d never done – even in high school I was on the wing, because we had a big center.  I had a good corner shot, so the wing was my natural position.  Telasky and McDonald was a guard, and most of our forwards were 6’-4” and 6’-5”.  So we were usually over-matched on the glass.

The Celtics won their second consecutive NBA championship – and third overall – following your rookie season.  What was that first Celtics’ training camp like for you?

It was brutal [laughs].  It was two weeks of two-a-day practices, and after it was over I felt like a different person – I felt like I could run faster, jump higher, and move quicker.  I said to myself, ‘Boy, why didn’t I do this in high school and college?’  A lot of times, you may dog it a lot in practice, especially when you’re the kingpin.  The kingpin knows he has the team made – but when you get to the pros, all of that goes out the window because you have to prove yourself all over again.  If you’re a rookie, and you’re fighting for a roster spot, then you’re going to be out of work pretty quick if you dog it in practice.  With the Celtics, Bill Russell and Bob Cousy were the ones doing all the dogging, because they were the kingpins [laughs].  They knew they were going to be playing the big minutes when the season started.  They knew they had the team made.  Me, I was just a rookie trying to make it.

In Game 7 of the 1960 NBA Finals, Bill Russell pulled down 35 rebounds and scored 22 points as the Celtics defeated the St. Louis Hawks, 122-103.  Please take me back to that series – what was one of your most memorable moments in that series?

The game before that, we were leading 3-2.  In those days, the format was 2-2-1-1-1, and we were playing the sixth game in St. Louis.  We were down by 28 points going into the fourth quarter.  I guess Auerbach gave up on winning that game, because he pulled his starters and inserted me, KC Jones, Sam Jones, Gene Conley and Jim Loscutoff.  We tied the score with two minutes to go in the game – we couldn’t miss, and they couldn’t make a basket.  St. Louis called timeout with two minutes to go.  Auerbach says, ‘I don’t know if I should leave you guys in there, or put the first team back in.’  So he decides to put the first team back in there, and we end up losing the game in overtime.  Afterwards, Auerbach apologized.  He said, ‘I should have left you guys in there.  That was my mistake.’

Cousy and Sharman were the starters at the guard positions, but at that point in their careers KC and Sam were probably a little better – they were younger and had fresher legs.  Cousy and Sharman were fabulous shooters.  Sam was a fabulous shooter.  KC was a tremendous defensive player.  He had several big steals during that comeback.  I was guarding Sihugo Green, who had been an All-American at Duquesne, and I had a couple of big blocks against him.  That was at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.  It was quite a game.

Former Celtic “Easy” Ed Macauley was a member of that Hawk team.  Boston had traded him to St. Louis for the draft rights to Bill Russell, primarily on the advice of your college coach, Bill Reinhart.  Please tell me a little about the biggest trade in NBA history.

George Washington went out to play San Francisco in the Oklahoma City All-America Tournament.  I was red-shirting at that time, but I went out with the team because I was like the manger – it allowed me to keep my scholarship.  So when we went out there, Joe Holup had the reputation of being one of the greatest scorers in college basketball.  He was averaging 27 points-per-game, and Bill Russell just dominated him.  He held Joe Holup to 10 points, and blocked twelve-to-fifteen shots.  So we lost that game.  We came back to George Washington, and we were having breakfast in the athletic dormitory.  I was with my coach, and Red came in.  Reinhart turns to Red, and he says, ‘Red, I’m going to tell you something – I just saw the greatest player in the world.  His name is Bill Russell.   That guy is phenomenal.  Whatever you’ve got to do, get the draft rights to him.’  And that’s how Cliff Hagan and “Easy” Ed Macauley – two All-Pro players – were traded for the rights to draft Bill Russell.  The rest is history [laughs].

I know this for a fact – when Bill Russell was a rookie, he signed for $20,000.  Then he went up to $60,000, and then he went up to $100,001.  He had that extra dollar written into his contract because Wilt Chamberlain was the highest paid player in the NBA at the time, and he was making 100 grand.  Russell wanted to make sure that he was making more money that Wilt, so he insisted on that extra dollar.  I found that to be quite interesting.

The Celtics selected Satch Sanders the following season, and the rookie responded by playing the rugged, hard-nosed defense for which he is famous.  Bill Sharman also finished the season by leading the league in free-throw accuracy for the seventh consecutive year.  Please tell me a little about each of these men.

Well, when Sanders came in I knew that my playing time was going to go down.  I played quite a bit my rookie year.  I remember Sanders coming to his first practice wearing big knee pads and big glasses, and I’ll never forget Auerbach telling me, Frank Ramsey and Jim Loscutoff to grab Sanders’ knee pads and throw them away.  Auerbach didn’t want that extra weight, and he didn’t care how secure they made Sanders feel – to Auerbach, extra weight was not good.  The knee pads might only weigh three or four ounces each, but Auerbach didn’t want Sanders lugging those things up-and-down the court all game long.  So we hid his knee pads, and he ended up getting a pair of contact lenses.  That’s when he really started playing good ball.  He was a great leaper.

A lot of people mistook Sanders on the planes for Bill Russell, because Sanders was 6’-7” or 6’-8”, and Russell was about 6’-9”.  Russell always told people that he was 6’-9” and fifteen-sixteenths [laughs].  That was his running joke.  But Sanders was a great defensive player.  He had a wingspan like you wouldn’t believe.  It was a wingspan of someone who was seven-feet tall.

Sharman was an unbelievable free throw shooter.  He used to challenge you in practice – he’d say, “Come on, I’ll shoot fouls [foul shots] with you.  I’ll spot you two and shoot you twenty-five fouls.’  He’d beat you every time.  Even if you made twenty-one out of twenty-five from the line, he’d still beat you – and that’s counting the spot [laughs].  He was a great shooter, and a great competitor.

The Celtics battled the Lakers in the 1962 NBA Finals, a classic series that went seven games and turned on Frank Selvy’s misfire that could have won Game 7 – and the championship – for the Lakers.  Please take me back to that classic series in general, and that game in particular.

Actually, the game before that was in Los Angeles, and the Lakers were ahead 3-2.  We had to win out there or we were done.  We played a great game out in LA, and we ended up making it 3-3.  The final game was in Boston Garden and we got lucky, we really did.  Frank Selvy took a shot, it bounced up off the rim, Elgin Baylor tipped it, it hit the rim and came off, and that was the end of regulation.

It was nip-and-tuck in the first overtime.  Baylor had 64 points by that juncture.  At the end of the first overtime, all of our forwards had fouled out – Ramsey fouled out, Sanders fouled out, Loscutoff fouled out.  Auerbach said, ‘Gene, go in there.’  I was nervous.  Red said, ‘Hey, kid, do the best you can.  Just play like you do in practice.  Just play hard, and everything will fall into place.’  I had to guard Elgin Baylor.  I tried to keep him from getting the ball – I tried to front him, and he didn’t get a point off of me…I played the whole overtime, and he did not score one point off of me.  I grabbed two or three key rebounds.  Russell came over to me afterwards and congratulated me.  He said that the Celtics probably wouldn’t have won that game if I hadn’t done a great job on Baylor.  But you have to remember that Baylor was tired, and I was fresh – I hadn’t played the whole game and I had a lot of energy.  Boy, I was keyed up afterwards – I don’t think I slept for two days [laughs].

Let’s talk road life in the NBA.  I’ve heard that Red would front you in the card games that inevitably broke out on those long flights to and from games.  Notoriously tight with his money, Red must have seen something in your card-playing.  Were you a team’s card shark?

I don’t know about that [laughs].  We used to play high-low poker.  On the planes we always played hearts, because we didn’t want the passengers or the crew to see money on the table.  When we’d get to the hotels, we’d designate somebody’s room and we’d play poker…either after the game, or if we had a layover.  In high-low poker there were always two winners – if you were going high, you put one quarter in your hand so nobody would see it, and if you were going low you put two quarters in your hand.  If you were going both ways – you could actually be high and low – then you put three quarters in your hand.  Then you would get the whole pot.  And it was always seven card stud.  It never got into serious money.  We used to get $8 a day in meal money, which was $40 if we were on the road a week.  If you lost that $40 in a poker game, that was considered a lot.  So it wasn’t outrageous money.  And if you ran short, Auerbach would always loan you enough money to eat on until you got back to Boston.

What about those annual preseason barnstorming trips that involved the Celtics and another NBA team, usually the Lakers?

My second year with the Celtics we played the Lakers – they’d selected Jerry West that year, so he was a rookie – and we played our way up through New England.  We played in places like Bangor, Maine, and Augusta, Maine.  We played in Hanover, New Hampshire, where Dartmouth is located.  Would you believe that we beat the Lakers fourteen out fifteen times during that tour, and then the regular season starts.  We’re playing the Lakers in Minneapolis, we were 7-0, and they smeared us in that game.  They murdered us.  Baylor went nuts in that game – I think he had 60 points when it was over.  Nobody could guard him, not even me.  I couldn’t believe it.

But New England is beautiful in the fall.  It’s a gorgeous place to be.  In fact, we even took in a football game when we were on that that tour.  I think it was Colby versus Amherst, up in Maine, and what a setting – beautiful small college campus, the fall foliage…it was a great break from all of those games against the Lakers [laughs].

We didn’t take buses on those trips – I rode with Red and Gene Conley…I think Gene had a red Ford convertible.  Russell took his car…he had a big Lincoln.  Bob Brannum drove his car.  And the writer that was covering the exhibition games at the time always took his car.  We had some great times on those trips, but we were always glad when they were over.

Please tell me about Walter Brown.

Walter Brown, what a great guy.  If you wanted more money, you went to Walter Brown.  If you talked contract with Red, you always ended up with $2,000 less than you probably should have [laughs].  I went to Walter Brown – he was the guy to see.  Great, great guy.

You played four seasons with the Celtics, winning four NBA championships.  Which championship is most meaningful to you, and why?

I think the one in 1962, when I held Elgin Baylor scoreless, was the most meaningful to me.  I say that because anytime you help your team win, then you feel like you are a part of something special.  And it was big for me to come in like that and guard Baylor the way that I did.  So that championship probably means a little more to me than the others.  I’ll never forget it – all of the sportswriters came into the locker room, wanting to talk to Bill Russell, who played the whole game, including the two overtimes.  He said, ‘Today you’re interviewing the wrong guy…go over there – that kid over there, Gene Guarilia, he’s the one that won it for us.’  So coming from Russell, that made me feel pretty good…the man was responsible for 11 championships.

The 1963-64 season marked your last with the team, as the Celtics completed that campaign by winning it’s fifth consecutive championship.  Two other memorable events occurred that season; John Havlicek was selected out of Ohio State, and an emotional “Bob Cousy Day” was celebrated on the last regular-season playing date at the Boston Garden.

John Havlicek was drafted Number 1 by the Celtics.  We rented a house with Clyde Lovellette in Brighton, Massachusetts.  He was my roommate on the road.  Great guy.  The only thing was that he was a health fanatic – you couldn’t play the radio, you couldn’t watch TV…he had a window open all the way in the middle of the winter [laughs].  Everything had to be quiet – he had to get his rest.  And if you went to a restaurant with him, it would take forty-five minutes to eat a steak – he would trim every little piece of fat off of it [laughs].

Bob Cousy Day – that was the first time I’d ever seen Bob Cousy cry.  They gave him a new car, and all kinds of elaborate things…like a television, which was a big deal back them.  That’s the first time I fully realized how important Bob Cousy was to Boston.

Please tell me about great battles between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.

The first time they ever played against each other was in Minneapolis.  It was benefit game – Ingemar Johansson was at the game; he was the new heavyweight champion, because he’d just beaten Floyd Patterson.  It was some kind of fundraiser. Russell held Chamberlain to 16 points in that game.  Obviously, the Celtics won.  That was the first of many battles between them.  I’ll never forget how cold it was – that has to be the coldest place in the United States [laughs].

Russell could always key himself up for a big game – and those games against Wilt were always big, regardless of what was at stake.  Wilt Chamberlain was drafted the same year as me, in 1959, but he played with the Globetrotters before joining the NBA.  It seemed that Wilt was always the one with the greater statistics, but Russell was the one who almost always came out on top in the win column.  You can’t argue with 11 championships in 13 years.  Russell was the greatest ever.

From an offensive standpoint, Sam Jones was the go-to guy for the Boston Celtics.  Please tell me a little about Sam Jones.

Sam was a great shooter.  He had a nickname – he was so fast that they called him ‘Slippery Sam’.  He was cat-like; he could run, jump and stop on a dime.  He was a fabulous basketball player.

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?

I’m a retired coach and teacher, and I’ve always told this to my kids – I coached and I taught.  There’s more to life than basketball.  Education is the most important thing in your life.  If you’re an educated man, then the possibilities are endless.

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The Bob Cousy Interview

By: Michael D. McClellan | “Before Elvis, there was nothing,” observes John Lennon, this in reference to all those popular singers who croon so statically and politely in front of rigid dance bands in the style of Perry Como. But Elvis is different; he grows up in Memphis, drawn to the blues and hooked on the black artists of the day, so when he takes the stage and pumps his legs, everything changes. Pop music is suddenly freed from its well-mannered straitjacket, opening the door for future artists. Elvis’s appearance transforms the music industry from something relatively benign to something inherently dangerous, injecting it with color, lacing it with sexuality, and unleashing the torrent of emotion.

NBA basketball is on a parallel track with pre-Elvis pop in the early 1950s, the game played below the rim, set shots all the rage. It’s a nearly all-white league, played in front of nearly all-while crowds in mostly dank, smoke-filled gyms. The product on the court is medieval by today’s standards. Bruisers clog the lanes, while coaches, in the absence of a shot clock, often resort to stall tactics in order to protect a lead. Gamblers hang around the action like flies, giving the game an unsavory feel, which is fine for the hardcore fans who shout obscenities from the cheap seats and cheer loudest when the pushing and shoving escalates into fistfights.

Bob Cousy comes along and changes all of that.

Drafted third overall in 1950 by the Tri-Cities Blackhawks before landing in Boston when his name is literally drawn out of a hat, Cousy immediately brings sizzle and showmanship to the pro game. He’s a hoops equivalent of Elvis whose arrival on the scene polarizes everyone who pays to watch him play. There is no middle ground when it comes to Bob Cousy: You are either a hater, dismissing him as a shameless self-promoter with a showboater’s flair, or you see him as a ball-handling magician whose game jolts the drab world of 1950s professional basketball with brilliant splashes of color.

Today, the criticism leveled at Cousy during those early years is downright laughable. It’s also ironic, given that Cousy not only became one of the league’s biggest stars, but remains in the conversation as one of the greatest point guards to ever dribble a basketball. More importantly, he serves as a gateway through which a generation of celebrity athletes will ultimately flow. Consider the lineage: Without Cousy, one could argue that there could have been no “Pistol” Pete Maravich, no Magic Johnson, no Steph Curry.

Bob Cousy had to happen.

And with each wraparound pass, with each behind-the-back dribble, Cousy pushes the game out of the Dark Ages and toward the global, multi-billion dollar business it is today.

~  ~  ~

The prevailing mythos—that Bob Cousy saved a league teetering on extinction—is dandy fine, but there’s more to the story than grandiose hyperbole and overused narratives. The story doesn’t begin at Holy Cross, where he wins a national championship and is named a consensus All American, or with the Boston Celtics, where he wins six NBA titles and helps spark the game’s first basketball dynasty. It begins instead in a tenement block on East 83rd Street in Manhattan, a full year before the stock market crash that plunges the United States headlong into the Great Depression.

“We lived in Yorkville, which is located on the East End of Manhattan,” Cousy says. “It’s farther east than Hell’s Kitchen, and back then it was the kind of place where the roaches were big enough to carry away small children [laughs]. My father drove a cab for a living. My family was poor, but we felt normal because everybody else was in the same boat. I didn’t realize how difficult our situation actually was, which was the case with most of the children growing up on the East End during that era. We hung out on the streets, played stickball, and did all of the same things as other kids of the day. My family was French, but Yorkville was a melting pot of races and cultures. There were African American families, Jewish families, you name it. For the most part we all got along, because we all faced the same economic situation.”

Cousy is twelve when the family moves to Queens, renting a small house on 112th Avenue that seems a world away from the gritty East End.

“It was a great move in more ways than one, because it led me to the game that changed my life,” Cousy says. “I was thirteen when I really started to play basketball, which was kind of old even way back then. But once I started playing, I was hooked. Except for the occasional stickball games in the neighborhood, and I found myself spending more and more time at O’Connell Playground, or over at P.S. 36’s schoolyard.”

It’s at O’Connell that Cousy meets Morty Arkin, the playground director who shows him the fundamentals. Cousy is introverted at the time, rail thin, and smallish for his age. He soaks up Arkin’s advice and works hard to execute the various drills.

“Morty worked with the kids who came around the playground and showed an interest in basketball,” Cousy says. “I was just another skinny kid hanging around the courts. He couldn’t have seen much potential in me, but I think he could tell how much I liked to play and how determined I was to improve.”

Cousy tries out as a ninth grader, but he’s cut on the first day without hardly a look. Cousy is devastated when he doesn’t make the team.

“Maybe it was a case of youthful overconfidence, or just plain ignorance” he says, “but I was getting better, and I wanted a chance to show what I could do. There were so many other kids trying out—bigger, stronger, older, and more experienced. Looking back now I didn’t have a realistic chance of making the team, but you couldn’t have convinced me of that at the time.”

Getting cut seems like the end of the world, until a friend introduces Cousy to a local league sponsored by the Long Island Press. It isn’t high school hoops, but it’s competitive basketball, and it allows him to test his skills against better players in actual game situations.

Cousy tries out again as a sophomore and is cut once more. The Press League again provides a landing net. In a twist, Lew Grummond, Andrew Jackson’s head coach who also runs the rec league program, happens to be working the same night that Cousy is on the court. He’s immediately struck by the skinny kid’s ball handle.

“When I was thirteen, I fell from a tree and broke my right arm, which forced me to become ambidextrous,” Cousy says. “Grummond was impressed with the way I could dribble with both hands, and after the game he asked me if I wanted to try out for junior varsity. I looked at the opportunity as my big break. I took it very seriously.”

Cousy plays the rest of the season with the JV. He heads into his junior year as a favorite to start for the varsity, but a failing grade forces him to sit out the first semester. He scores 28 points in his return. The performance is hyped in the Long Island Press sports section.

“Being written up wasn’t anything that I dwelled on,” Cousy says. “I was just happy to be on the team. I got up the next day and went to school like everyone else.”

Andrew Jackson goes on to win the highly competitive Queens division, a feat it duplicates during Cousy’s senior year. In just a year and a half, the slick ball handler goes from relative obscurity to the most talked-about basketball phenom in New York. He puts up 28 points in his final game, securing the city’s coveted scoring championship.

“I was coming into my own by that point,” he says. “I was playing the game confidently, and for the first time it really sank in—basketball was going to be my path to a college education. There were moments when I thought college was out of reach—we weren’t rich—but by my senior season I knew the dream was going to come true.”

~  ~  ~

Bob Cousy has options.

Turns out he doesn’t have as many as one might think.

A generation of aspiring basketball players lace up their Chuck Taylors and pretend to be the Celtics’ incomparable All-Star, whose pedal-to-the-metal style fuels Boston’s vaunted fast-break, and whose no-look, behind-the-back passes rescue the NBA from life support. Ferraris should corner like Cousy. And yet, coming out of high school, Cousy doesn’t find himself buried under an avalanche of recruiting letters. He lacks the Bunyonesque size of the Minneapolis Lakers’ George Mikan, and he doesn’t go on scoring binges like the NBA’s other star of the day, Dolph Schayes. He’s just another averaged-sized point guard looking to play college ball.

Boston College offers a full scholarship, but Cousy balks at the thought of commuting to a college with no dorms. Holy Cross, on the other hand, has student housing. Cousy also sees a chance to contribute right away.

“Doggie [Julian] didn’t know anything about me, but Ken Haggerty, the co-captain of the 1947 team, had played at my high school. Haggerty said to Julian, ‘Dog, there’s a hot-shot guard at my old high school, and I think he’d be a great fit on the team. You should offer him a scholarship.’ You have to remember, it was much different in the 1940s. There was no ESPN. There was no film to study. A lot of times players were recruited word-of-mouth. It was very nepotistic in that respect. That’s how I ended up getting the letter from Doggie.”

Julian wastes little time putting Holy Cross on the basketball map. Holy Cross winning the NCAAs during Cousy’s freshman season is a seminal moment in terms of generating basketball interest in New England. The Crusaders play some of its home games at the Boston Garden, which helps generate buzz, and sellouts become the norm by Cousy’s senior season.

“Worcester is only forty miles from Boston,” he says. “Before we arrived on the scene, sports fans in New England followed the Red Sox and the Bruins. Holy Cross winning the championship changed that. Basketball wasn’t even played in some high schools at the time. It became extremely popular in New England after we won.”

That first year at Holy Cross is a mixed bag for Cousy, who expects to be a major part of the rotation. Instead, he’s relegated to the second unit, entering games to give the starters a few minutes rest before heading back to the bench. Still, it’s hard to argue with Julian’s methods; the Crusaders start slowly, going 4–3 over its first seven games, but win twenty consecutive games to enter the tournament on a roll.

The Crusaders are one of eight teams invited to the 1947 NCAA Tournament. Suddenly, Cousy is playing for a championship in his own backyard.

“We had a bunch of New York and New Jersey kids on the roster,” he says, “so getting a chance to play at Madison Square Garden was a really big deal.”

Holy Cross beats Navy, CCNY, and Oklahoma to win the championship—the title game played in front of 18,445 fans in a smoky haze. The Crusaders are the toast of New England, but by then Cousy and Julian barely speak. Rumors spread from bars to barbershops that Julian is annoyed with Cousy’s propensity to showboat, something Cousy does not dispute. The frayed relationship spills over to his sophomore year, and Cousy briefly considers transferring to St. John’s. The coach at the time, Joe Lapchick, convinces the talented guard to stick it out. An uneasy truce with Julian lasts until Cousy arrives late to practice two days before a game against Loyola.

“There was an emotional exchange between player and coach. It wasn’t a big deal,” Cousy says. “It was more newspaper talk than anything else.” Julian buries Cousy on the bench when the game starts, but relents with five minutes remaining and Loyola up by seven, the chants finally winning out.

WE WANT COUSY! WE WANT COUSY!

The sophomore responds by hitting six of seven shots in the Crusaders’ comeback win. Just like that, the “Wizard of Worcester” is born.

“Transferring to St. John’s was the best decision I never made,” says Cousy, who finishes his career as a consensus first-team All-American. “There were times when I questioned my decision, but I’m glad I stayed at Holy Cross. I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

~  ~  ~

Now, about that hat.

How does Bob Cousy go from being a potential number one selection in the 1950 NBA Draft to being the short straw drawn by a team whose coach doesn’t want him in the first place? Cousy should never have landed in Boston. Hired to fix the woeful Celtics—owners of the worst record in the league the year before—Auerbach makes it clear he’s on the prowl for size, not sleight of hand.

“We need a big man,” Auerbach growls, dismissing a reporter’s question about the prospect of seeing Cousy in Celtic green. “Little men are a dime a dozen. I’m supposed to win, not go after local yokels.”

Auerbach drafts 6-foot-11 Chuck Share of Bowling Green, and Cousy is selected by the Tri-Cities Blackhawks two picks later. While Blackhawks owner Bob Kerner wants Cousy to be the face of his franchise, Cousy has no interest in playing for Tri-Cities. He feels he can make more money starting a driving school in Worcester. After negotiations break down, Kerner trades Cousy’s rights to the Chicago Stags.

“I had just gotten married,” Cousy says. “Frank Oftring, a good friend and teammate at Holy Cross, partnered with me to open up a gas station in Worcester. The problem was, we didn’t know much about fixing cars, so we started a driving school instead. That summer we had three cars going around the clock, and I wasn’t giving a pro basketball career much thought. Then somebody calls me and says, ‘Congratulations, you’re the number one pick of the Tri-Cities Blackhawks.’ My response was something like, ‘I was a pretty good student, but I must have been sound asleep in geography class. What the hell is a Tri-Cities Blackhawk?’

“I met with Mr. Kerner, but he wasn’t able to meet the give me the $10,000 salary I needed, so I flew home and continued teaching ladies to drive. It wasn’t long before I learned that I’d been traded to the Chicago Stags.

“That’s where the hat comes in,” Cousy continues. “The Stags folded almost immediately after I was traded, so the players were dispersed. There were three guys left—Andy Phillip, Max Zaslofsky, and myself—and there were three teams that hadn’t picked yet. Walter went to New York where they were drawing the names, and Arnold said to him, ‘I don’t care what you do, just bring home anyone but Cousy.’ As luck would have it, Philadelphia pulled Andy’s name out of the hat first, and then New York drew Max. My name was the only one left.

“Well, I went to Boston and met with Walter. I remember sitting in the men’s room because there were people in his office. He said, ‘What do you need, Cooz?’ I said, ‘Mr. Brown, I need $10,000.’ And he said, ‘I can’t do that. How about nine?’ And I said, ‘Fine.’ That was the negotiation, no agent, no holdout, just a brief conversation between player and owner.”

~  ~  ~

The franchise is worth north of a billion dollars today, but the Boston Celtics in the early days are barely able to pay the bills, emerging from the NBA’s primordial ooze only after the arrival of Bob Cousy. They play their games in the cavernous Boston Garden, its signature parquet floor made from leftover scraps of wood due to the shortage caused by World War II. Cousy’s arrival in Boston sells tickets, but many wonder how he’ll coalesce with his fiery new head coach.

“I read the papers like everyone else,” Cousy says, “but there were no hard feelings. Arnold did what anyone in that position would do—he drafted Charlie Share, who had the size that the Celtics needed underneath the basket.”

With Cousy running the show and Auerbach calling the shots, the Celtics post their first winning season in franchise history. There’s an immediate spike in ticket sales, boosting the balance sheet.
“There were a lot of lean years even after I became a Celtic,” continues Cousy, who plays in the NBA All-Star Game as a rookie. “I remember players accepting those IOUs instead of the agreed upon playoff shares, but we had a very strong relationship with Walter Brown. He’d invested his life savings in the Boston Celtics, so a little sacrifice on our part was no big deal.

“There was a time when Walter approached me and Ed Macauley about the team’s financial situation. He said that he was going to take out another mortgage on his house to get the Celtics through a rough patch, and that things were going to ease up in the fall. Guys were getting good wages, so there wasn’t a lot of negative discussion about the IOUs. It was more of a hardship on Walter than it was on us.”

Even with Cousy’s charisma at the box office, the Celtics continue to struggle financially. Auerbach helps Brown keep a close eye on the bottom line.

“Arnold could be a bit of a pain in the ass,” Cousy says with a laugh. “There were times when four of us would jump in a cab together and if you had a rookie in the group, you’d try to get him to ride with you. All of us would pile out the minute the cab got to the hotel. We’d pop the trunk, grab our bags, and sprint away like banshees, leaving the poor rookie to pay for the taxi. It was better to stick it to the rookie because Arnold was such a pain in the tail when it came to expenses.”

Eventually, the Celtics start flying to away games. “The Douglas DC-3s were the safest planes made at the time, so we didn’t have any near-death experiences,” Cousy says, laughing. “We’d take the trainer’s money playing gin rummy, but he was too sick from the turbulence to care.”

Another big difference between then and now: Teams today play a small number of exhibition games in state-of-the-art facilities, while teams in the 1950s often went on preseason barnstorming tours, playing the same team night after night.

“It was barnstorming in the purest sense of the word,” Cousy recalls. “Back then every small town had a gym, and if it seated more than 2,000, then we’d be interested in playing in it. We’d travel with the same team and play them every night. When you play 17 games against the same team, by the end of the trip you could always count on short tempers and fights breaking out. It was a requirement of the times.”

Despite the grind, Cousy did find time to have fun at his coach’s expense.

“We called him ‘Mario Andretti’ because he drove so damned fast. On one occasion a bunch of us piled into a car and left for a game in Bangor. Nature called, so we pulled over, and in the distance we could see Arnold’s car approaching in a cloud of dust. We told him we’d ran out of gas. We gave him a few minutes, and then raced by the one-pump station where he’d gone to get gas. You should have seen the expression on his face.”

~  ~  ~

Cousy’s game—and his popularity—continues to grow throughout the 1950s. By the 1952–53 season he’s a First-Team All-NBA selection and firmly in control of the Celtics’ fast break. He flips passes from every angle imaginable en route to the first of eight consecutive assist titles, a remarkable feat in the pre-shot clock era. Cooz is the biggest star in the league. The Elvis of the basketball court has arrived.

While Cousy’s playmaking eventually transforms the NBA, wholesale change doesn’t happen overnight. There are still plenty of hatchet men in the league, and fights are still commonplace.

“There were riots in just about every game we played with Syracuse,” Cousy remembers. “That seemed to be the case with most of the teams based in the smaller towns—the fans were more rabid, and they literally wanted to kill the opposition. The New York State Police had to be called because there were problems in every damned game that we played.”

The Celtics are flawed but improving. Auerbach’s fast break attack scores points and win games during the regular season, but the team continues to struggle on the defensive end, a weakness that routinely leads to playoff disappointment. All of that changes prior to the 1956–57 regular season, when Auerbach trades Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan for the draft rights to draft Bill Russell.

“As much as we liked Ed, we weren’t going to lose a lot of sleep over that trade,” he says. “Before Russell, we were a decent offensive team, but we couldn’t play championship-caliber defense. Bringing in players like Jim Loscutoff and Tom Heinsohn helped a hell of a lot, but we would have been lucky to win one championship without Russell. He was the most dominant defensive player in the history of the game. It didn’t take us long to figure out what we had.”

With Russell triggering the fast break and Cousy pushing the tempo, the Celtics blitz their way through the regular season. Cousy’s magical season includes being named the NBA All-Star Game MVP. He also wins the league’s MVP award. Boston, in its first trip to the NBA Finals, defeats Bob Pettit and the St. Louis Hawks, winning Game 7 in double overtime.

“The MVP award was very satisfying in terms of personal accomplishments, but the championship was by far the most significant,” Cousy says proudly. “I’d endured six years of frustration, so I think winning it all meant a little more to me than most of the others on the team.”

In 1958, the Hawks and Celtics again meet in the NBA Finals. Boston is heavily favored to repeat, but Russell rolls his ankle in Game 2 and isn’t the same player. The Hawks take the series, giving Macauley his first and only championship. The Celtics respond by winning the next eight titles. It’s part of an unprecedented run of 11 titles in 13 seasons.

“I retired following the 1963 season, which was our fifth consecutive championship, and sixth overall at the time,” Cousy says. “Being part of that team was a truly unique situation.”

Indeed. The Celtics are the first team to draft an African American player, the first to start five black players in an NBA game, and the first to have an African American head coach. Cousy vividly remembers the time when, early in his career, the Celtics were scheduled to play a game in Raleigh, North Carolina. When Chuck Cooper is denied a hotel room on the basis of his color, Cousy’s response was immediate.

“We got out of town,” he says emphatically. “Cooper was my road roommate, but on this trip he was going to be forced to sleep in another hotel and eat in a different restaurant, just because of his color. He didn’t feel comfortable with that, so Arnold let him take the train out of town that night. I asked if I could go with him so he wasn’t alone. Arnold didn’t have a problem with that. That was part of Arnold’s genius.”

~  ~  ~

Bob Cousy isn’t known for his stats, although he could certainly put them up. On February 27, 1959, he sets an NBA record by dishing out 28 assists against the Minneapolis Lakers. Two months later he records 19 dimes against the same Lakers during the NBA Finals.

“The first game was a meaningless Sunday afternoon contest,” he says. “We ran up and down the court and set records. It was a lot different in the playoffs because a championship was at stake and both teams were playing their best basketball. Accumulating 19 assists in the Finals meant a whole lot more to me than the 28 that I put up a couple of months earlier.”

Cousy retires following the 1963 season, walking away with six titles, 13 All-Star Game appearances, 10 consecutive All-NBA First Team selections, two NBA All-Star Game MVP awards, and one NBA MVP award. Not a bad haul for a shy, skinny kid from the East End ghetto.

“I was very fortunate,” he says quietly. “I had a lot of help along the way, a lot of lucky breaks. I got to play with some of the greatest players of my era, and one of the greatest of all-time, in Bill Russell. I played for Arnold. I played for the best owner in the world. And I think I retired at the right time. Physically, I could still play at a high level. Psychologically, I was spent. The toll of trying to be the best and stay at the top eventually wore me down. I was ready to spend time with my family and make up for a lot of time that I missed because I was traveling with the team.”

On March 17, 1963, Cousy stands in front of a microphone on the Boston Garden parquet and says goodbye. The sellout crowd, which cheered so loudly for him over his thirteen year career, watches their hero read from a handwritten note, weeping softly in between the sentences.

And then, when nothing would come, four words ring out: “We love ya, Cooz!”

The crowd erupts. Bob Cousy’s career fades to black that day, but by then his work is done. The drab, cash-strapped NBA is no more, pushed closer to the mainstream by his improvisational brilliance.

“Bob Cousy was a baller,” says Grammy-winning rapper and NBA fan Big Daddy Kane. “Tiny Archibald made his name at Rucker Park, but Cousy would have matched Tiny break-for-break, no-look for no-look. Cousy owned the NBA. He would have owned The Ruck.”

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The Frank Ramsey Interview

Written By: Michael D. McClellan | Frank Ramsey, the NBA’s first great Sixth Man, is as likeable and as easygoing as they come, but he has an image problem; in the December 9, 1963 issue of Sports Illustrated, Ramsey writes a first-person tell-all that pulls the curtain back on what later becomes known as flopping. Ramsey isn’t the first to flop, and he certainly isn’t the last—flopping becomes such a blight that in 1997 the league introduces a four-foot dotted line area around the center of the basket, and in 2012 starts fining players for the con—but the SI cover story makes him the first player to talk publicly about it: “Drawing fouls chiefly requires the ability to provide good, heartwarming drama and to direct it to the right audience. I never forget where the referees are when I go into an act.”

The reaction to Ramsey’s cover story, Smart Moves by a Master of Deception, is fast and furious. Everyone, it seems, is throwing shade: The New York Post calls him a flimflammer, NBA president Walter Kennedy sends him a letter of censure, and a Madison Square Garden crowd serenades him with cries of “Fake!”. While Ramsey’s rep takes a hit with the SI piece, the 6-foot-3 swingman continues to provide instant offense coming off the bench, helping the Celtics win seven NBA titles in his nine seasons with the team. Before Ramsey, the “Sixth Man” role doesn’t exist. Today, the league hands out the prestigious NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award, with a lineage that includes Celtics greats Kevin McHale and Bill Walton.

Flimflammery aside, it’s Ramsey’s contributions off the bench that deserve attention. His career 13.4 points-per-game average is hardly eye-popping stuff, but he plays the game in a different era, decades before the introduction of the three-point line. He’s also known as a clutch shooter with a knack for peaking at the right time, producing several dominant runs that help the Celtics win numerous titles. From 1957–1961, Ramsey averages 17.1 points and 6.4 rebounds during the playoffs. His single-best postseason is in 1958–59, when he averages 23.2 points and grabs 6.2 rebounds while helping Boston win its second NBA title.

Ramsey grows up in Madisonville, Kentucky, living in his grandparent’s simple farmhouse. He shoots baskets in his spare time because there’s nothing else to do. He’s 10 years old when Japan launches its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and remembers it like it’s yesterday.

“There was an extra section in the newspaper devoted to the attack,” Ramsey says. “It happened on a Sunday, and we had an assembly in the school auditorium the next day. We sat and listened to President Roosevelt’s radio address to the nation, and that’s when we learned that the United States had officially declared war on Japan.”

Ramsey works the farm until he learns to drive, and then he makes what money he can working an assortment of odd jobs—painting houses, digging ditches, and cleaning the streets, to name a few. He also plays multiple sports at Madisonville High School, earning All-State honors in baseball and honorable mention in football. Basketball remains his first love.

Ramsey ends up playing college ball for the legendary Adolph Rupp at the University of Kentucky. It’s a perfect fit with the homegrown Kentucky standout playing for the Big Blue, fresh off of back-to-back national championships in 1948 and 1949.

“I recruited myself,” Ramsey says with a laugh. “When I was a senior in high school a friend of mine was a freshman on the UK football team, and he invited me to Lexington. I visited the campus and got a taste of Kentucky basketball. I met Cliff Barker and Ralph Beard, who were All-Americans and part of the Fabulous Five that won the national championship in ’49.”
For Ramsey, Rupp is larger than life.

“You meet someone like that and your mouth just falls open. Coach Rupp was a dictator, and I think all of the great coaches have that quality. Red had it, and so did Vince Lombardi. They demand so much out of you. And yet, Coach Rupp’s office was no bigger than an average-sized bathroom. There was space for two desks and that was about it. He took players from all over Kentucky and won with them, mostly small town kids who would do anything for him. Going to UK, I thought I would sit on the bench for three years and then start the last one, but luckily for me I played much sooner.”

As a sophomore, Ramsey helps lead the Wildcats to the 1951 NCAA Championship over Kansas State. He earns multiple All-American honors during his time in Lexington, but his sophomore season is torpedoed when Alex Groza and several other Wildcat players are caught up in a point shaving scandal with tentacles reaching all the way to the New York mafia.

“It was something that you just handled,” Ramsey says of the scandal that becomes the first de facto NCAA death penalty. “We were just normal students like everybody else. We continued to take classes as work towards earning our degrees. Cliff Hagan and Lou Tsioropoulos eventually earned their masters degrees. The three of us were close friends. We practiced together three days a week to get ready for the next season.”

Ramsey is equally nonchalant about that national championship.

“It was no big deal, really, not a lot of fanfare,” he says. “We were excited to win, but it wasn’t something that changed us. I went back home after school let out for the semester and ran the sawmill for my daddy.”

Ramsey, Hagan, and Tsioropoulos all graduate from Kentucky in 1953 and, as a result, become eligible for the NBA draft. All three players are selected by the Celtics—Ramsey in the first round, Hagan in the third, and Tsioropoulos in the seventh. All three also return to Kentucky for one more season despite graduating, and lead the Wildcats to a perfect 25–0 record and a #1 ranking in the Associated Press poll. Ramsey averages 19.6 points and is named a consensus second-team All-American. Because then-existing NCAA rules prohibit graduate students from participating in post-season play, the Wildcats decline a tournament invitation rather than jeopardize their perfect season.

“There was nothing to it,” Ramsey says of UK’s decision to refuse the bid. “Coach Rupp made the decision not to play in the tournament that year, and that was it.”

Red Auerbach famously drafts Ramsey as a junior eligible, a tactic he later employs when he drafts Larry Bird.

“It was a surprise move that caught a lot of people off guard. A lot of other teams weren’t happy about it, but that was classic Red, always one step ahead of everyone else.”

Ramsey quickly learns that Auerbach negotiates contracts in a way that can only be described as Auerbachian.

“I was in Boston with a group of college all-stars, and we were playing the Harlem Globetrotters at Fenway Park. Red stops me in the Red Sox dugout and begins talking contract, and within thirty minutes we’d come to an agreement. Because of my military responsibilities, I remember requesting a six month deferment as part of that original contract.”

At Kentucky, Ramsey joins the ROTC. Early in his NBA career, he serves a year in the military as a First Lieutenant with the US Army Military Police.

“Almost everybody at that time served in the military,” he says. “The one thing it taught me was discipline. I played that first season in Boston and then went into the service. I was still in the Army when we won our first championship in 1957. The Celtics played that seventh game against the St. Louis Hawks on a Sunday, and I was discharged from the Army on the following Tuesday.”

When Ramsey returns, he wastes little time making an impact off the bench.

“The credit goes to Red, because he was the one who set the rotation,” Ramsey says. “When I joined the team we had two all-star guards in Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. They were tremendous players. It was Red who decided on the substitution pattern from game-to-game, so my job was to be ready to play. I watched the flow of the game and tried to keep myself prepared to contribute. A lot of times I would sub in for Tom Heinsohn. Before Bill arrived, we had plenty of scorers but no real defense. Bill Russell gave us the defense that we’d been lacking, so my job was easy—come off the bench and provide a scoring boost.

“All of the players that Red surrounded himself with had a great deal of class. That was what made the experience so special for me. Everyone wanted to win. It wasn’t about individual accomplishments, and I think a lot of that can be traced to how many of us served in the military. Jack Nichols, Jim Loscutoff, K. C., Sam, myself—all of us served, so we were used to discipline. Red was the general and we followed his orders.”

When Sharman and Cousy retire, Auerbach plugs in future Hall of Fame players Sam Jones and K. C. Jones, and the championships keep coming.

“I first met Sam at a basketball tournament in Columbia, South Carolina, while I was still in the Army,” Ramsey says. “Sam could hit that trademark bank shot from either side of the floor. He was willing to wait his turn to start. He was a tremendous basketball player and an outstanding individual.

“K. C. was a student of the game, which really helped him later when he was coaching Larry Bird and the rest of those Celtics during the ’80s. He had a tremendous amount of integrity. We lived close to each other during those days, and we would carpool to airport and solve all of the world’s problems along the way.”

The list of those coached by both Adolph Rupp and Red Auerbach is short indeed. Ramsey is one of the lucky few.

“Red’s training camps were very demanding,” he says. “Once the season started, the practices were short and intense. We really liked to scrimmage. Russell didn’t scrimmage as much as the rest of us, because he usually played the entire game. That’s forty-eight minutes of basketball, which places quite a demand on the body. Our favorite scrimmages were the big guys against the little guys. We would divide the teams up that way for two reasons: because all of the little guys thought that they could play the pivot, and all of the big guys thought that they could bring the ball up the court [laughs]. We would also scrimmage five-against-five, eliminating a player from each team along the way, until it was down to one-against-one. It was always a big competition to see who was named champion.”

Ramsey also remembers those annual barnstorming tours like they were yesterday.

“We used to tour Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts . . . heck, we even went as far up as Houlton, Maine,” Ramsey says. “A team always traveled with us on those exhibitions, so we’d play the same team at every stop. One year it was the Minneapolis Lakers. We traveled with the Cincinnati Royals the next year, and then Philadelphia the year after that. It’s funny what you remember. On one particular trip I remember listening to the World Series as it was being played. We’d get so tired of being around each other that there would always be a scuffle or two by the end of the trip. You could always count on that.”

There are other differences back then.

“Money, for one,” Ramsey says with a laugh. “We didn’t spend the summer working out, because we all had summer jobs. We had to, because we were paid only a small fraction of what the players make today. When the season was over we all went our separate ways to make a living. Bob Cousy had his summer camp, Jim Loscutoff had a camp, Tommy Heinsohn sold insurance.”

When most outsiders think of Auerbach, they conjure images of an arrogant, cigar-chomping hard-ass who stops at nothing to win. While there might be some truth to the latter, those who play for Auerbach get to see another side of the man. Just ask Frank Ramsey.

“Red came across as a boisterous, but deep down he was a pussycat,” Ramsey says. “Every year we would play one of our games in College Park, Maryland. Red, of course, lived in Washington, DC, and after the game he would take the whole team over to his house, and he and his wife Dottie would serve us Coke and cold cuts. The gruff person that everyone knows, that’s the coaching side of Red Auerbach. That’s the one always arguing the calls, always doing anything to win. But that was just one side of him. I remember one time when we were in Chicago to play a game, and (NFL quarterback) Sid Luckman came into the locker room. He was Red’s friend, and they had a mutual business interest. Sid asked Red if he could borrow 20 bucks. Red pulled out $100 instead. I asked him why he gave Sid the hundred dollar bill when he could have given him a twenty instead. I’ll never forget his reply. Red said, ‘Sid will forget the 20 as soon as I give it to him, but he’ll always remember the 100.’ That was classic Red.”

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The Jo Jo White Interview

By: Michael D. McClellan | Red Auerbach has a decision to make. It’s the spring of ’69, and the architect of the Celtics’ championship run faces a post-Russell rebuild, a dreaded day thirteen years in the making. The heavy lifting starts with the first selection in the 1969 NBA Draft. Get it right, and the rebuild moves along ahead of schedule. Botch it, and who knows how long it takes to recover. The Milwaukee Bucks win a coin toss, land the top pick, and draft Lew Alcindor—later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—the only surefire, can’t-miss prospect in an otherwise underwhelming draft. Auerbach and the Celtics, by virtue of winning the ’69 NBA Championship, draft ninth. They watch as guys like Terry Driscoll and Bob Portman and Larry Cannon Smith are selected, players who will barely make a mark in a league suddenly competing with the upstart ABA for talent. Auerbach doesn’t want any of them. He has his eye on a sweet-shooting point guard from Kansas, a player perfectly suited to the Celtics’ up-tempo attack. What he needs is a little luck. He needs the teams picking in front of him to whiff, to chase big men like Neal Walk, who goes on to have a solid NBA career but who can’t possibly serve as the cornerstone of an NBA champion.

And whiff they do.

One after another, teams picking in front of Boston ignore the Jayhawk All-American. The Phoenix Suns select Florida’s Walk with the second pick, point guard Lucius Allen goes next to the Seattle SuperSonics, and then a run on shooting guards and big men begins. When it’s the Celtics’ turn, Kansas guard Jo Jo White is still on the board.

In fairness, the teams drafting ahead of the Celtics know that White has the talent to be a game changer. It’s his two-year military obligation that causes trepidation. Auerbach has no such qualms. He’s prepared to wait for a player of White’s caliber. When White ends up in the Marine Reserve program a few months later instead, the draft day gamble looks like another Auerbach masterstroke.

“Red wasn’t afraid to take risks,” White says with a smile. “If he were, then the Celtics wouldn’t have ended up with Bill Russell or Larry Bird.”

White, who grows up playing multiple sports in St. Louis, is a gifted all-around athlete. Both the Dallas Cowboys and the Cincinnati Reds burn draft picks on him.

“Sports taught me teamwork, discipline, and commitment. They also brought our community closer together. Everyone in the neighborhood played whatever sport was in season.”

White plays high school ball first at Vashon and then at McKinley, and by graduation he receives more than 250 scholarship offers. Oddly, the University of Missouri is not among them. He instead chooses Kansas University, where he becomes a three-time All-Big Eight Conference selection and is twice voted All-American.

“I visited Lawrence on a recruiting trip and got to see Gale Sayers play,” White says. “I was in awe of him, and watching him perform was something I’ll never forget. Kansas was the right fit for me. I wanted to go to a school where my parents could see me play, and where I could get back home when I needed. Kansas was within that radius. The basketball tradition was rich, and yet the school had never had an All-American guard to graduate from KU. That became a big goal for me.”

Because freshman aren’t allowed to play varsity, White has to wait until the second semester of his sophomore year to become eligible. The coach is Ted Owens, who helms the Jayhawks for 19 seasons, is named National Coach of the Year, and leads two teams to the Final Four. Owens’s program is struggling when White arrives, but his presence on the court helps jumpstart the rebirth of Jayhawk basketball.

“I was very excited because I wanted to play as soon as I became eligible, but nervous because the decision was in the hands of the coaching staff. They could have opted to sit me out until the following year. Coach Owens thought we had a legitimate shot at winning the NCAA championship, and he also felt that those chances improved with me on the floor. We went on a seven-game winning streak and won the conference title outright, the first time that had happened in nine years.”

White helps Kansas reach the 1966 NCAA regional finals against eventual champion Texas Western. He hits a dramatic jumper at the end of overtime that would have given Kansas the victory, but the shot is disallowed because the referee rules that his foot is out of bounds.

“I remember having the ball in my hands and taking that final shot,” White says. “I literally fell back into a woman’s lap after the release, and I remember everyone celebrating after the shot went in. Then the official ruled that my foot was out of bounds. The call gave the game to Texas Western, who went on to defeat Kentucky for the championship. To this day my teammates kid me about my feet being too big and costing us the game.”

White laughs, but the loss still stings.

“The official made the call, but game film shows that I was inbounds when I released that last shot. I have the sequence framed on my wall at home, three photographs that show the position of my feet.”

White is selected to play for Team USA in the 1968 Olympics. It’s the ultimate honor. Harry Edwards, a native of East. St. Louis, is calling on black athletes to boycott the Olympic Games in Mexico City. Lew Alcindor, Elvin Hayes, and several other great black college players boycott.

“It wasn’t a tough decision,” he says. “Being a member of Team USA and representing my country were great honors. Nothing compares. We weren’t even considered the favorites to win the gold medal. The Russians were, but they lost to the Yugoslavians in the semifinals. Winning the gold was my greatest athletic accomplishment.”

Auerbach’s draft day gamble pays off when White is moved to the Marine Reserve program. The rookie reports to Celtics training camp in the fall of ’69.

“Was it as hard or as difficult as I thought it would be? It was a very demanding camp, but I was a Marine and I was in excellent condition. I’d been through all the physical and mental challenges that comes with military training, so I felt like I had an advantage.”

Auerbach is no longer coaching the team, but, to a young Jo Jo White, he seems omnipotent.

“Red’s fingerprints were everywhere when I got to Boston,” says White. “From the banners overhead to the shrewd roster moves, to him being there during training camp and at practices. And the cigar smoke—if you were ever around Red you know what I’m talking about. Until you actually meet a legend like Red you can only go on what you hear. Then you spend time with him and realize that he’s one of the most knowledgeable basketball minds in the game. Red Auerbach was a true genius. He outlasted players, coaches, general managers, and just about everyone else in the league.”

The Celtics struggle in White’s first season with the team. A year later, Auerbach strikes gold, drafting Florida State center Dave Cowens.

“There was so much to like about Dave’s game. He played with a tremendous amount of tenacity, which was a huge key to our success. He was versatile, and was able to utilize his quickness against the other centers in the league. He could guard the little guys when the situation called for it. He had an excellent outside shot. His desire was what made him so special.”

The Celtics win a franchise record 68 games during the 1972–73 season, but suffer a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals.

“Havlicek hurt his shoulder and we fell behind 3–1 in that series,” White says. “Heinsohn adjusted the rotation by giving Don Nelson and Paul Silas more minutes, a move that reduced Bill Bradley’s effectiveness. The strategy worked, and we tied the series. Game 7 was back in the Boston Garden, and Tommy decided to start John instead of staying with the hot lineup. I can certainly understand the logic because John was our go-to guy. John gave it everything he had, but he just wasn’t the same player. It was a tough loss, especially after having such a successful season.”

A year later the Celtics beat the Knicks and face Milwaukee Bucks in the Finals.

“People still talk about Kareem’s skyhook at the buzzer of Game 6 to even the series,” White says. “There were eight seconds left in overtime and we were ahead by one point. We knew we were one big stop away from the title. Kareem’s skyhook was almost automatic, especially from the baseline, so during the timeout we talked about putting pressure on the ball and denying the entry pass where he liked to get it. Hank Finkel and Don Chaney did a great job of pushing Kareem away from the basket. He still got that shot up. Somehow it went in.”

The loss sends White and company back to Milwaukee for Game 7. If the Celtics are going to win its first title without Bill Russell, it’s going to come in hostile territory.

“We knew that conditioning was going to be the primary factor. Our goal during the series was to wear them down. We knew that their legs were gone, and that we would have the advantage in the later stages of the game. This isn’t to say that we took the Bucks lightly. Kareem was a player that we truly feared. We wanted to soften him up, make him work for his shots, slow him down.

“We applied constant pressure and tried to contest every shot. Oscar Robertson was Milwaukee’s only true ball handler, so we hounded Oscar and made it as difficult as possible for him to bring the ball up the court. The shot clock became a factor, and the pressure led to a lot of bad shots. We ran at every opportunity. The strategy took its toll. We won Game 7 easily.”

Two years later the Celtics return to the NBA Finals, this time against the Phoenix Suns. In Game 5, White plays 60 minutes in the sweatbox of Boston Garden, dropping 33 points while playing hellish defense and helping the Celtics escape with a win and a 3–2 series lead. White’s performance lifts Boston to its 13th NBA title. He’s named the Finals MVP.

“It was a very fast-paced game, so early on I realized that conditioning was going to be key,” White says. “This played into my strengths because I considered myself the best-conditioned athlete on the floor. My mental approach was, ‘If I’m tired then everyone else on the court must be dead tired.’

“Havlicek hit that running jumper at the end of the second overtime, and we all thought the game was over. We immediately started towards the tunnel because the crowd was pouring onto the court to celebrate. Then we find out that the clock stopped following Havlicek’s basket, and that the refs had put two seconds back on the clock. I had already cut the tape off my foot. My thought was, ‘What can happen in two seconds?’ Then Gar Heard hits his shot and we go to another overtime. Thankfully there wasn’t a three-point line at the time.”

White ends up playing a record 488 consecutive games in a Celtics uniform, an ironman streak of which he’s rightfully proud.

“It all comes back to conditioning,” he says. “John Havlicek is a prime example of that. He was always in phenomenal shape. You watched the way he took care of himself and you understood why he was such a great athlete.”

White doesn’t finish his career in Boston, but he later returns to work in the front office. His number is retired by both Kansas University and the Celtics. He’s also a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

“Anytime you are recognized for your accomplishments it’s truly an honor,” he says. “To have my jersey retired to the Boston Garden rafters was a very special moment for me. Being honored at Kansas was also a thrill, and something that will always be very special. My mother was able to attend both ceremonies. I’m very thankful for that. And there’s no greater honor than to be voted into the Hall of Fame. I’ve been very blessed. I wouldn’t trade my journey for anything.”

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The Wayne Embry Interview

By: Michael D. McClellan |  Spend a few minutes talking to Wayne Embry, and it isn’t long before you realize that this former NBA All-Star is far more than a link to the days when legends such as Russell and Chamberlain ruled the basketball universe.  Embry is as relevant now as he was then, only in areas that extend far beyond the hardwood. Backboards have morphed into boardrooms.  Bone-rattling picks have given way to civic stewardship.  From trading elbows with Willis Reed to rubbing elbows with Alan Greenspan, Embry is that rare athlete who has eclipsed his own star power in terms of off-the-court accomplishments.

Born and raised in Ohio, Embry began his basketball career at Tecumseh High School before starring at Miami of Ohio, where his number has long since been retired.  As a pro, Embry was a five-time All-Star for the Cincinnati Royals, playing alongside such legendary stars as Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas.  An NBA championship proved elusive, however, as the Royals routinely failed to supplant the Boston Celtics as kings of the East.  In a classic case of ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’, Red Auerbach acquired Embry in 1966 as a backup to the incomparable Bill Russell.  After being dethroned by Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967, the Celtics – with Embry – were back on top, winning a league-best 10th NBA championship.

In 1972, Embry became the first African-American general manager in professional sports when he was named vice president and general manager of the Milwaukee Bucks.  To even mention this fact is something of a disservice to Embry, because his accomplishments as an NBA executive transcend race.  Two major transactions stand out during Embry’s association with the Bucks:  Oscar Robertson’s decision to join the franchise, this based largely on his close relationship with Embry (and a decision that helped the Bucks win the NBA championship in 1971), and the trade of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Bucks to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Embry was named general manager and vice president of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1985.  In 1994 he became the NBA’s first African American team president, also with the Cavaliers.  Embry’s was honored as the Sporting News NBA Executive of the Year in both 1992 and 1998.  On October 1st, 1999, Embry was both recognized and immortalized for his accomplishments by being inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Embry later served as a board member for the Bank of Cleveland, a prestigious position that reported directly to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.  I was fortunate to spend time with Embry in September, 2003, and I’m pleased to share Embry’s story with Celtic Nation.

You were born on March 26th, 1937.  Please tell a little about your childhood, and what it was like to grow up in Springfield during ’40s.

I grew up in a rural area, basically poor, but we were a proud family with strong values and a strong work ethic.  My parents instilled these things in me at a very early age.  They were also very good at setting goals, which is something else that has helped me tremendously, both in my life and career.

You were eight when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.  Do you have any recollection of that event, and did World War II touch your family in any way?

I really don’t have much recollection of that specific event, but several of my relatives were in the service during the war.  I gained a sense of sacrifice from them, and respected them greatly.

Your grandfather, William, played an important part of your life.  Please tell me about him.

William was a very demanding person who stressed the value of education, and someone who also imparted a real desire for learning.  It really helped to have him take an interest in my life.  He constantly reinforced the importance of going to school and getting a college degree.  He was always there to keep me from getting discouraged, especially whenever things got tough.

Tell me about “Goose,” and “The Wall.”

These are two nicknames that I was given at different points in my basketball career.  “Goose” came from a high school teammate of mine.  We saw the Harlem Globetrotters play a game in New York, and Reese “Goose” Tatum palmed the basketball with those huge hands of his.  We’d never seen anything like that before.  Then it wasn’t long before I was able to do it.  My teammate started calling me “Goose,” and the nickname stuck. “The Wall” came later, when I was in the NBA.

Why “The Wall?”

Celtics’ radio broadcaster Johnny Most was the one who gave me that nickname.  He liked the way I set picks [laughs].

You were an honorable mention All-State performer at Tecumseh High School, where your team won 48 of 51 games during your junior and senior seasons.  What was high school like for you, and how did you first become interested in basketball?

I was like any other youngster at that age.  I liked to play sports, and not just basketball.  It just turned out that basketball was my best sport.  I liked football a lot as well, but Tecumseh didn’t field a football team until I was a junior.  I went out for the team and played one season.  Basketball, because of my height, was where I really excelled.  Our teams won all those games and I was able to go on and play at the college level.

You were a two-time honorable mention All-America selection at Miami of Ohio, scoring 1,401 points and grabbing 1,117 rebounds in three seasons, as well as being named team captain and MVP in 1957 and 1958.  Please tell me about your career at Miami.

Well, today you see guys go from high school directly to the pros, which is something that just didn’t happen when I played.  Even if that had been the trend during my era, I simply wasn’t prepared to play professional basketball.  College was the best route for me.  I was a somewhat of a slow developer – as a freshman I wasn’t even the best player on the team – but by my sophomore season I’d improved in every aspect of my game and had much greater confidence in my ability.  I blossomed during my junior year, and things really took off from that point on.

In 1958, your Miami squad played the Indiana Hoosiers.  You connected on 15 field goals in that game, the most an opponent had ever scored against IU.  Forty-five years later that record still stands.  Were you aware that your name is still in the IU record books?

I remember playing against Indiana – it was an away game, I believe – but I wasn’t aware that I held that distinction.  That’s a very interesting piece of trivia.  You certainly do your homework!

You were drafted in the third round by the St. Louis Hawks, who immediately traded you to the Cincinnati Royals.  Please tell me about the great Oscar Robertson, and what it was like playing alongside him for five seasons.

Oscar Robertson, in my opinion, is the best player ever to play the game of basketball.  We were roommates when I was with the Royals, and it was an honor to be on the same team with him.  He certainly enhanced my career.  He had a great impact on me, but his influence extended beyond basketball and into the bigger picture of life.  As you can tell, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Oscar Robertson.

You were a five-time NBA All-Star, from 1960-61 to 1964-65.  In terms of personal success, do you have one All-Star season that stands out from the rest?

It’s hard to say which year was the best.  We had some very good teams, but we just couldn’t seem to get past the Celtics.  We had talent – Oscar, Jerry Lucas and Jack Twyman jump to mind – but Boston was always a little bit better.  So if I had to pick one season, it would have to be 1963-64.  We won 55 games that season and really played the Celtics tough.

In 1966 Red Auerbach acquired you to provide backup support to the great Bill Russell.  The Celtics had just won their eighth consecutive NBA championship and Auerbach had retired as coach.  What was it like coming to Boston, and how did you feel when the Celtics failed to win a ninth consecutive title?

The first word that comes to mind is ‘joy.’  It was difficult to leave my friends behind in Cincinnati, but it was a pure joy to join the Celtics – especially after being beaten by them for so many years.  Just being there gave me an opportunity to win a championship, so I was very excited to be a part of that great tradition.  Of course we didn’t win it all that first year.  Still, I was struck by the way the team carried itself afterwards.  Everyone from Bill Russell to Sam Jones had the same mindset.  In their eyes they still considered themselves champions, and that had a tremendous effect on me.  Because of that confidence, we were able to go out the next season and reclaim the title.

Did you learn anything from Red in terms of running an NBA franchise?

Yes.  Red had a tremendous management style – it was at the foundation of his success as a coach and general manager.  I emulated that style in both the sports and business worlds.

Bill Russell and Sam Jones – what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of each of these individuals?

Russell was the greatest competitor and the greatest winner in the history of professional sports.  The Celtics won eleven championships during his thirteen years with the team, which, in my mind, ranks as the greatest dynasty ever.  The New York Yankees may have won more championships, but those are spread out over decades.  To win 11 in 13 is an incredible accomplishment.

Sam Jones’ greatness continues to be one of the most underrated aspects of that dynasty.  He was superior to the vast majority of his contemporaries, but his greatness tended to get lost in the shadow of Russell and some of the other players on the team.

How did Russell the player differ from Russell the coach?

He was still Russell.  After Red retired in 1966, Russell convinced Red that he could handle being both a player and coach.  Red was smart enough to know that not just anyone could come into that situation and coach the Celtics in general, and Russell in particular.  Russell understood that, too, which is why he lobbied for the job.

The Celtics were back on top a year later, winning a tenth NBA championship.  What was it like for you to finally reach that pinnacle?

There was a great sense of relief.  After playing the game for so long, and after being frustrated by Russell and the Celtics all of those years, it was just a great relief to finally be able to win a championship.

You finished your playing career with the Bucks, and then moved into the front office, where you helped land Oscar Robertson.  The move helped propel the Bucks to the 1971 NBA championship.

The owners knew that I had a close relationship with Oscar, and they asked me to make a call on their behalf.  So I made the key inquiry for them.  Having Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] and Oscar on the same team was an unbelievable combination for us.

As the Bucks vice-president and general manager of the Bucks, you handled one of the biggest trades in league history.  The deal sent Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the Los Angeles Lakers for Junior Bridgeman, Brian Winters, Elmore Smith and Dave Meyers.  Please explain the mechanics behind that trade, and what it meant to both teams. 

Kareem requested to be traded.  He had one year remaining on his contract, and it was my intention to honor his request.  The ownership felt the same way.  We knew that Kareem was going to leave as soon as his contract expired, so it was my job to create the best trade on behalf of the Milwaukee Bucks.  The Lakers simply had the best deal on the table.

As vice-president and general manager of the Bucks, you squared off against the Celtics in the 1974 NBA Finals.  How did it feel going up against some of your old friends, and what stands out most in your mind about that series?

It was a great series, and would have been even greater had we beaten them.  I don’t remember many details, but Kareem’s skyhook to win Game 6 stands out in my mind.  That, and neither team could seem to maintain home court advantage.

In 1985 you were named vice-president & general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and it wasn’t long before you once again crossed paths with Red Auerbach.  The issue this time wasn’t a championship, but instead the Number 1 pick in the 1986 NBA Draft.  Please take me back to that draft – were the Cavaliers ever interested in drafting Len Bias?

Yes, the Cavaliers seriously considered drafting Bias.  When I arrived there was an ongoing debate about whether to take Bias or Brad Daugherty.  Fortunately, I had enough influence to swing the choice to Daugherty.

Your tenure at Cleveland was highly successful.  In addition building the Cavaliers into a consistent playoff contender, you were named The Sporting News NBA Executive of the Year in 1992 and 1998.  Where do these honors rank in terms of your overall accomplishments?

It’s nice to be recognized.  It’s also very rewarding to see all of your hard work pay off.  As far as ranking them, it’s really hard to say.

On October 1st, 1999 you received basketball’s highest honor.  Please take me back to your induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

It was something I never dreamed of, and on that day it makes you realize that not many people get that kind of recognition.  My goal was simply to do a good job.  I ended up being nominated – and later inducted – as a contributor, in which the Hall of Fame recognized my achievements both as a player and as a front office executive.  Obviously, I’m very honored to be included in such an elite group who have already been enshrined into the Hall of Fame.  I’m pleased and I feel privileged to be part of that group.  It was definite the highlight of my career.

Tell me about your time spent on Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Board of Directors.

The Bank of Cleveland reports to the Central Bank, and we play a large role in shaping monetary and economic policy.  It’s quite interesting work, and a great honor to serve.  My term lasts for five years, and I currently have one year remaining.

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?

I’m a big believer in words that begin with the letter P:  Persistence, preparation, perseverance, and pride.  Stay true to those words and you can’t go wrong.