The Red Auerbach Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Wednesday, August 28th, 2002
I spend the next three nights like a college student prepping for finals. There is a great deal that I know about Auerbach, but there is also much more to be learned. Auerbach doesn’t suffer fools. He is a direct man with a keen memory, and he still has the street smarts honed during those early years on the streets of Brooklyn. Many journalists have fallen on their swords in front of Auerbach, either by asking questions that he views as asinine or by getting their facts wrong.
Born on September 20th, 1917, Auerbach learned the value of money at a very early age. As a young child he collected tips by washing the windows of New York City taxicabs lined up at the neighborhood gas station. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who ran a clothes-cleaning business in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, and a teenaged Auerbach often pressed suits from early morning until late at night. He was always hustling, always putting things into business terms. These skills would later serve him well with the Celtics, where for many years – until the Age of the Sports Agent turned basketball into big business – Auerbach negotiated contracts directly with his players. A famous example of this is the first contract signed by Frank Ramsey, the Kentucky Wildcat legend who would later have his number retired by the Celtics.
Recalls Ramsey: “I remember it well. I was in Boston with a group of college all-stars. We were playing the Harlem Globetrotters at Fenway Park. Red stops me in the Red Sox dugout and begins talking contract, and thirty minutes later we’d come to an agreement.”
Of the four Auerbach siblings, Red was the athlete in the family. With no football or baseball fields in his neighborhood, young Arnold quickly gravitated to sports such as basketball and handball. At Eastern District High School, he honed his game and eventually earned second team All-Brooklyn as a senior.
Auerbach’s past is a collage of famous and influential people. Even back then, at seventeen, a dispute with a local band led to a lifelong friendship with comedian Alan King. The band was Auerbach’s idea, part of a ball game and dance day organized to raise money for basketball uniforms. King was a band member at the time, and was due his share of the money – TWO DOLLARS – after the band’s performance. A dispute ensued and, after a vote, Auerbach informed the band that they would not be paid. The matter was finally resolved, and King and his band mates received payment in full – all fourteen dollars worth. King and Auerbach have laughed about this story many times through the years.
Auerbach’s father wanted him to run the dry cleaning business, but Red wanted college. He graduated from high school in 1935 and enrolled in Seth Low Junior College, which was a feeder school for Columbia University. It was here that Auerbach crossed paths with Isaac Asimov, who would later find fame as a sci-fi writer.
Seth Low closed its doors after Auerbach’s freshmen year, but not before George Washington University basketball coach Bill Reinhart had seen Seth Low’s combustible point guard in action. Impressed, Reinhart offered Auerbach a scholarship to play basketball at GW. Reinhart was key to shaping the young Auerbach’s approach to coaching. He was an innovator, a man clearly ahead of his time. In 1936, the game revolved around the two-handed set shot. There was no shot clock. It was a plodding game of chess in which teams might hold the ball for minutes at a time as they probed for an opportunity to score. Reinhart’s approach flew in the face of this philosophy. He preached an up-tempo brand of basketball, employing a running game that was truly unique for its time.
An aggressive player of average height, Auerbach worked hard to improve his game in all areas. He was the team’s leading scorer his senior year. He also paid close attention to his coach and mentor, and would later use Reinhart’s fast break to great advantage with the Boston Celtics.
Following graduation, Auerbach set out to earn his master’s degree in education. Above all else he wanted to teach – and to coach. Those were his passions. He accepted a coaching position at St. Albans School while completing work on his masters degree in education. From there it was on to Theodore Roosevelt High School and yet another encounter with a future person of influence. This time it was future Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Auerbach was impressed with Kuhn’s size and coaxed the student into trying out for the basketball team. Kuhn was so terrible that Auerbach cut him a few weeks later.
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