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By:  Michael D. McClellan |  KC Jones is chilling with family and friends in the backyard, grilling the best ribs in all of New England and living life the way it’s meant to be lived at this stage, with all the winning in the rear-view mirror and countless stories being told and retold, some of them embellished, others restrained, a select few held in perpetuity for an aging and shrinking inner circle who accomplish something on a basketball court that we may never see again.  Jones is well aware of the accelerating, relentless pace of time, his mother long ago telling him what he later learns for himself, that life happens in the blink of an eye, the years clicking and clacking down the track, moving faster and faster until the memories become a blur of color where once there had been clearly formed shapes.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that Bird and Magic held the world rapt?  Go back another decade and Jones is coaching the Washington Bullets in a pair of plaid polyester pants cut high to the waist and flared at the bottoms, his plaid sport coat emblazoned with clashing geometric prints in a hue of muddy brown.  That stint doesn’t end well, but back it up a few years and he’s an assistant to Bill Sharman, winning 33-consecutive games and helping deliver that first NBA championship to the City of Angels.  Go back farther still, and he’s a muscular, thick-legged, defensive-minded guard who comes off Red Auerbach’s bench until the legend in front of him retires, and then he steps in and forges a legacy of his own.

Push farther, past his two-year military commitment, and you land in Melbourne, where Jones and his 1956 Olympic teammates win the gold medal, scoring over 100 points in five of the eight games and setting a record for margin-of-victory (53.5 points) that still stands today.

Rewind it all the way back to college.  KC Jones and Bill Russell are teammates at the University of San Francisco.  The Dons will ultimately win 55 straight games and a pair of national championships, but the team is dysfunctional when Jones arrives, seventeen players with seventeen agendas going in seventeen different directions.

“We had talent, but we didn’t have a team,” Jones says.  “We lost more games than we should, often to inferior opponents.”

Jones, painfully shy and almost two years older than Russell, struggles with his classes and needs tutors to remain eligible.  Things come much more quickly on the basketball court.  It helps that his coach, Phil Woolpert, is color blind.  Like Auerbach, he doesn’t care if you’re black or white, only that you can play.

Jones’ freshman season is Jekyll-Hyde – his defense consistently excellent, his shooting touch sabotaged by a four-inch growth spurt over the summer.  He’s sitting alone in his dorm room at the start of his sophomore year when a tall, rangy freshman introduces himself as his roommate.  The connection is immediate.  He’s black like Jones, and his family has also moved to the Bay Area from the South.

“Bill came along and changed everything,” says Jones.  “It was like getting a breath of fresh air after a challenging freshman year.”

A ruptured appendix derails Jones’ junior season, ending it almost as quickly as it starts.  The next two seasons are spent in lockstep with Russell, both of which end with USF winning the national championship.  Jones graduates from USF in the spring of 1956 and enlists in the Army later that September.  His superiors cut orders allowing him to join Russell in Melbourne, where he wins a gold medal with Team USA.

Back in the States, Jones works as a post office clerk at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.  He also plays wide receiver on the football team, where he impresses a teammate named John Morrow, who happens to play center for the Los Angeles Rams.  Morrow relays word to a young Rams GM named Pete Rozelle, who invites Jones to the Rams’ training camp.

An injury derails Jones’ football career, prompting him to call Red Auerbach.  He makes the team in the fall of ‘58.  Just like that, Jones finds himself reunited with Russell and coming off the bench for one of the greatest point guards in the game.

“Bob Cousy had tremendous confidence in himself,” says Jones.  “He became famous for those behind-the-back passes and the fancy dribbling.  Red called the fancy stuff ‘French pastries,’ but Cousy was very successful with it.”

Cousy retires following the ‘63 season.  Jones makes the most of his opportunity.  He wins eight championships as a player, five as a reserve and three as a starter alongside the incomparable Sam Jones, before retiring following the 1966-67 season.

After three years at Brandeis and one season as an assistant coach at Harvard, Jones receives a call from Fred Schaus, the Lakers’ GM, who wants him to work as an assistant for former Celtics teammate Bill Sharman.  The Lakers set an NBA record with a 33-game winning streak, and then deliver that long-awaited title to its fans.

Jones parlays that magical season into a head coaching job with the ABA’s San Diego Conquistadors, before Abe Pollin offers Jones a chance to coach his Capital Bullets.  Jones jumps at a chance to return to the NBA.  The Capitals finish first in its division during the 1973-74 regular season, but lose in the conference semifinals.  The team changes its name to the Washington Bullets a year later, finishes in first place tie with the Celtics with a 60-22 record, before being swept by the Golden State Warriors in the 1975 NBA Finals.  A season later, the Bullets go 48-34 and lose in the conference semifinals.  Jones is fired despite a successful three-year run.

Following a year as an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks, Jones returns home as an assistant with the Celtics.  He works the sidelines with Bill Fitch when the Celtics win the  championship in 1981.  The next two years end without a trip to the NBA Finals.  Fitch is fired following the ‘83 playoffs, and Jones is promoted to head coach.

Flash-forward to the 1984 NBA Finals.  Lakers vs. Celtics.  Magic vs. Bird.  The most anticipated NBA Finals in league history.  The seven game series remains one of the most thrilling NBA Finals ever.

The Celtics go to the NBA Finals four consecutive years under Jones, winning two.  The 1985-86 title team, which adds Bill Walton, is still considered one of the greatest ever assembled.  He’s replaced by Chris Ford following the 1987-88 season, but there are other coaching stops along the way, including a head coaching gig with the Seattle Supersonics.  When he finally retires in 1998, he does so with his trademark grace and humility and simply walks away.

“It was a good run,” Jones says, serving those famous ribs to his guests.  “I’m fortunate to have been part of some very special teams and a lot of great moments.  It’s been a good ride.”

Like many of your former Celtics teammates, you were born during the decade of The Great Depression.

Times were tough in the ‘30s, and we moved around a lot. My father moved from job-to-job when I was growing up, so we were never in one place for very long. I was born in Taylor, Texas, and then from there we moved to Austin. We moved to Corpus Christi when I was three, Dallas when I was five, McGregor when I was eight, and San Francisco when I was nine.

My father served three years in the U.S. Navy, and that’s how we ended up in San Francisco.  That’s when I started playing basketball, at the recreation center in San Francisco.  Everything was segregated back then. I remember having to read the signs that would tell you where to sit. On buses it was always in the back. In the movie houses it was the so-called crow’s nest, which was the balcony area of the theater. Those are some of the things that I remember.

 

Who had the most influence on you during those early years?

Jackie Robinson had a tremendous influence on me. Joe Louis also left a lasting impression. There were no TVs, but we had a radio. I remember listening to his bouts, the big ones against Max Schmeling and Billy Conn. Those things really stood out in my mind and left a big impression on me.

 

You graduated from Commerce High School of San Francisco. At what point did you realize that you could play collegiate basketball?

I liked playing basketball, but I wasn’t recruited. Mildred Smith, my history teacher at Commerce, was lobbying for me at the local college – the University of San Francisco. I didn’t know this at the time, and only found out five years later. She was calling Phil Woolpert, the head coach, and meeting with him on a consistent basis. With her support, and that of a local sportswriter who was always in my court, USF offered me a scholarship – the only school to do so.

 

Do you know who Bill Russell was at that point in time?

No, I didn’t know anything about Bill.

 

Let’s talk about the 1953-54 season at USF.

Our team was very close. We played together as a unit, and we got along very well, both on and off the court. We were convinced that we could beat Cal, and we grew more confident as the game went on. Bill blocked a lot of shots that game, and Bill never blocked them out-of-bounds. He always blocked the shots in the direction of a teammate, and this made it easier to start the transition to offense. We did a good job of shutting down McKeen and Matheny, and these two guys were Cal’s primary threats.

 

Your season started off great.  What happened the second game of the season at Fresno State?

I started to experience stomach pain after the season opener against Cal. It got progressively worse as we approached the game against Fresno, which was scheduled around the Thanksgiving holiday. At first I thought that maybe I’d celebrated Thanksgiving a little too much, that I’d eaten too much. [Laughs.] It got worse, and the doctor diagnosed it as a mild form of appendicitis. Well, on the bus ride to Fresno the pain became unbearable. I was turning flips it hurt so bad. We were in the locker room before the game, I was doubled over in pain, and the coaches were going over the scouting report with me. [Laughs.] I remember that the pain was just tremendous. My appendix burst, and that was the end of my season.

 

You were able to return a year later.  Tell me about the All-College Tournament in Oklahoma City.

We camped out in a college dorm closed for the holidays, and we practiced wherever we could. I remember practicing on a stage, and people coming to watch. They called us the Harlem Globetrotters, and they threw pennies and quarters on the stage. A few of us got really angry at this, but not Bill (Russell). Bill just smiled and laughed at them and picked up the money, and turned the situation around on them. He wanted to prove that he was bigger than the taunting, and he was basically mocking their actions. He wasn’t going to let them get the best of him.

 

The NCAA Final against La Salle was billed as “Gola the Great” against “Russell the Remarkable.” Turns out Woolpert had other plans.

I had a touch of panic before that game, but once the game started I didn’t hear much of anything. Everything just seemed to go away. Phil didn’t want Russell guarding Tom Gola, because he was a smaller man than Bill, and also more of a perimeter player. It wouldn’t have been a smart move, and Phil recognized that it was better to have Russell blocking shots under the basket.  In our pre-game meeting Phil told me that I was getting the Gola assignment, even though Gola was a much taller player. I was focused on playing solid defense, and was able to slow Gola down. It was also one of those games where I clicked offensively.

 

USF repeated as national champions the following year, but you knew going into the season that you weren’t eligible for the tournament.  How hard was it to watch your teammates win a second title without you?

It goes back to what happened with my appendix. The NCAA ruled that I could play the regular season in ’55-’56, but that I wouldn’t be eligible for the tournament. Still, it wasn’t hard at all. I was able to contribute throughout the season, and I had a great deal of confidence that the team could repeat. I was able to go to the tournament games even though I was ineligible to play, so I still felt like a part of the team.

 

What did it feel like to be selected to represent the US in the Olympics?

I learned that I’d been selected after the college all-star game. It was a great honor to be selected. Playing for your country is bigger than playing for your college or for your pro team in the NBA. It was the most important title that I’ve ever won.

 

You served two years in the military following graduation.

I graduated from USF in 1956. I wasn’t real sure about the war, but I was pretty sure I was going to get drafted – I just didn’t know when they would call. So rather than wait, I decided to be proactive and take control of the situation. I volunteered in September of 1956, and then went to the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, with Bill [Russell], where we won the gold medal. Because the seasons are reversed in Australia, the 1956 summer Olympics were actually held during the USA’s winter time. I served two years in the U.S. Army.

 

Did you keep in contact with Bill Russell during your stay in the military?

No, not really. I was aware of what he was accomplishing in Boston, and I knew that the Celtics won the championship with him after the 1956-57 season, but we really didn’t keep in close contact at this time.

 

You had a brief tryout with the Los Angeles Rams. Were you serious about playing football for the Rams?

Pete Rozelle drafted me while I was still at USF. He had been named general manager in 1957 and projected me as either a receiver or a cornerback. Red Auerbach had drafted me to play basketball for the Celtics, but all of the scouts were saying that I was too short to be successful in the NBA. They were also saying that I couldn’t shoot the ball well enough to play in the pros, so I thought my best chance for success rested with the Rams.  I was a starting cornerback for four exhibition games. I played against players like Frank Gifford. It was going well until I suffered an injury, and that was the end of my football career. I was really upset about the injury, very angry. That’s when I decided to call Red and ask about playing for the Celtics.

 

Tell me about Walter Brown, who founded the Boston Celtics.

Walter Brown was a great person. He was a well-respected man who always made it a point to speak. We weren’t close – our relationship mostly consisted of small talk, but he was always very cordial to all of the players.

 

You played for two Hall of Fame coaches in Phil Woolpert and Red Auerbach. How were they alike, and how were they different?

Phil was highly intellectual. Very bright. Very well read. He was also very communicative with his players.  Red was highly intelligent as well, and arrogant. I mean this in a positive way, because with Red it was a good combination of intelligence and arrogance. His record and his accomplishments stand as a testament to that fact. Red Auerbach was a genius.

 

Tell me about Bob Cousy.

Cousy had a tremendous amount of confidence in himself. Red didn’t want Cousy, and many people tend to forget that. Didn’t want him at all. Bypassed him in the 1950 draft, then got him when Cousy’s NBA team (Chicago Stags) folded. They (Stags) had three players everybody wanted, and the three names were put into a hat. The Celtics drew last, and Cousy’s name was the last name to come out of the hat.  Bob Cousy had a great intellect. He was a voracious reader. On the court he quickly became famous for those behind-the-back passes and the fancy dribbling. Red called the fancy stuff ‘French pastries’, but Cousy was very successful with it. He always had a high number of assists, and he had that on-the-run, one-foot shot. That was one of his trademarks.

 

Following Cousy’s retirement, you were named the starting point guard.  How did the fans respond?

The fans responded by not coming to the games in the same numbers [laughs]. Attendance went down after Cousy retired. Cousy was legend, a great player, so I can understand the reason for the drop.  But these things didn’t bother me at all. There was no nervousness when I stepped in and became a starter. I’d been a part of two NCAA championships with USF, a part of those 55 consecutive victories. I’d won an Olympic gold medal. I knew what it was like to be down by 16 to Holy Cross and come back, and I knew what it took to become a successful starter.  I was very confident in my abilities as a defender. If you were a master of defense, then I was convinced that you could match the offensive player at any level. And the fear factor disappeared because of this confidence.

 

If Cousy was the offensive genius in the Celtics’ backcourt, then your were his answer on the defensive end. Did Red make adjustments to take advantage of your strengths?

Red was a genius. He knew his personnel, and he knew what it took to win. I’d played 5 minutes a game for five years as a reserve, but he knew how to handle the situation when Cousy retired. In Red’s mind it was either myself or John Havlicek, and it could have gone either way. He selected me as the starting point guard. I knew that I’d have to go out and play good, solid basketball. I had to go out there and prove myself worthy of the job. I had to work for it.

 

You were there for the two greatest steals in team history; Havlicek’s famous steal against Philadelphia, and Bird’s unbelievable theft against Detroit.

I was on the floor for the first Havlicek’s steal. There were five seconds left, and Russell lost the ball off of the guide wire support. Hal Greer was the in-bounder, and he was going to pass the ball to either Johnny Kerr or Chet Walker. Kerr made his move and then I suddenly realized where the ball was going – deep to Walker. I was scared to death because of the positioning on the floor. I thought my mistake might end up putting the ball in Wilt’s hands down low. Fortunately, Havlicek smelled a rat. He read it perfectly and intercepted the ball, preserving the victory.

Larry’s steal was one of the greatest plays of all time. He was a snake in the grass on that play. We needed that steal or we would have been in very serious trouble – we would have been going back to Detroit down 3-2. It was an incredible play.

 

In 1972, you won an NBA championship as an assistant coach to Bill Sharman with the Los Angeles Lakers.

It was a happy time for me, and a very good experience.  Jerry West is one of my favorite people. I’ve always admired both his playing ability and his front-office savvy. I have a lot of respect for Jerry.  We were able to win 33 consecutive games and capture the first Laker championship in L.A.

 

You won another ring as a Celtics assistant coach in ’81

The big thing that I remember is the togetherness of that team. We were down 3-1 against Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference Finals, and nobody gave us a chance.  But nobody was giving up, and nobody was pointing fingers. Because of that, we were able to weather the storm and win the series and reach the Finals.  Houston was a good team, but we knew that they weren’t as talented as Philly.  If we stayed focused we knew that we’d win the championship.

 

You were named head coach prior to the 1983-84 regular season, inheriting a team with Hall of Fame players like Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale and Dennis Johnson.  Take me back to that classic series against the Lakers.

It was the best. It was my first year as head coach and we weren’t supposed to win.  It was big in all aspects, big in every sense of the word. The media coverage was incredible, and it seemed as if everyone in the world was watching the series. You turned on the TV and it was there. You turned on the radio and everyone was talking about it. That series had everything. Larry and Magic made it that much more special – what more can you say than that?

There were so many great moments.  You had Gerald [Henderson] stealing the James Worthy inbound pass in Game 2, which we won in overtime. That was huge for us. If he doesn’t make that steal then we’ve lost two in the Boston Garden and head to L.A. in serious trouble.  When you look at the magnitude of the situation, Gerald’s steal was very important. It was a big turning point, and it allowed us to get back in the series against the Lakers. Like I said, if we had lost that game we were down 0-2 going to Los Angeles. Before the series that scenario was something I didn’t think possible, but for a while there it looked to be the case. As it was, we were able salvage a split at home and then go on to win the series.

Larry, Robert and Kevin were outstanding throughout that series.  Dennis Johnson helped us slow down Magic, which was a key adjustment that helped us regain control of the series.  Cedric Maxwell also played a great series, especially in Game 7.  I am very proud of our accomplishment. The 1984 championship ranks up there as the biggest title ever.

 

What was it like to coach Larry Bird?

The word that comes to my mind is ‘appreciation.’ I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for Larry Bird. He was such a hard worker, and was always trying to improve his game. Everyone knew that he was a great offensive player, everyone knew that he was going to get his points. But when he came into the league everyone said that he was too slow to play in the NBA, that he couldn’t jump, that he couldn’t defend. Then you’d look at the box score and he had twelve, fourteen rebounds.

Larry was more than a great player – he was a joy to coach. So motivated. He led by example. And not only that, having Larry on the floor was like having another coach out there. He saw so much before it happened. He understood the game better than anyone else on the floor. That’s why he had so much success with Indiana. There will never be another player like Larry. He’s one of the greatest of all time.

 

Tell me about Kevin McHale.

Kevin was such a happy person. He was always smiling, always having fun. A joy to be around. Like Cousy, he was one of the high intellects. And like Cousy, he read a lot. He had a great mind.  Kevin was also a giving person. He had those revolutionary low-post moves, things no one else had ever done, and he’d work with the other guys in practice to help them improve their game.

 

Robert Parish.

I could talk about Robert all day long. Robert’s nickname was “Chief.” Cedric Maxwell put that tag on him. He called him “Chief” after a character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Robert was special because he knew his place on the team. He knew that there were only so many basketballs to go around, and that Larry and Kevin were going to get the majority of the shots. He also knew that Danny (Ainge) and Dennis were going to take their shots as well. So Robert fell into his space on the team, which was to rebound, play tough defense, and to be a force in the middle. This isn’t to say that Robert wasn’t a great offensive player; he could have put up big numbers on other teams, so he wasn’t just a big body to clog the middle and stop the other team’s big man. Robert had a very good offensive game. He just understood what was expected from him and he went out and did his job. Robert was awesome.

 

In your mind, where does that ’86 team rank in NBA history?

That team was right up there with the best in history. All those great players – Larry, Kevin, Robert, DJ, Danny. We got Bill Walton that year, and he made us the complete package. Walton was such a legend, both in college and with what he did in Portland before he started having trouble with his ankles. When he played at Portland he was out of this world. He could pass brilliantly, and he had the same tenacity as Bill Russell.

 

Where where you when you learned that Len Bias had died from a cocaine overdose?

I was driving home from work in my car. I found out about it on the radio, and it broke my heart. I’d just spent time with him the day before. He had gone to Boston following the draft to meet his new team, and then he returned to Maryland. He went back to the Maryland campus to celebrate with his friends – I use the term loosely, because these people weren’t his friends. Not when they’re doing drugs. It was a tragedy.

 

We’ll never know, but on paper Bias had the tools to be the next great Celtic.

It hurt, no question. Larry lobbied Red to draft Bias. He grew more excited as the draft got closer and it looked like we were going to land Len. Larry was making plans to attend the rookie camp so that he could start working with Len and preparing him for his first year in the league. The two of them had met, and they were fast friends. So it really hurt Larry to find out that Len had died from drugs.

 

Like you, Larry Bird went on to become a head coach. Evaluate his three year career as the coach of the Indiana Pacers.

It was a fabulous coaching job. Larry took over an Indiana team that had been coached by the great Larry Brown and took them to the NBA Finals. And he did it with basically the same team that Brown had the previous year. That’s not a knock on Brown, because I respect him a great deal. He’s one of the best coaches in the game. But for Larry (Bird) to come into that situation and excel, that was truly a special job.

 

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

Honesty and effort. In my mind, those are the two most important ingredients to achieving success.