More than a year ago, I wrote a column hailing
Red Auerbach when reports surfaced that the Celtic legend – a word used way too lightly these days, but oh-so-appropriate here - was in a bad way. Maybe the cigars had finally won. Maybe life had finally wound its way. Well, the old man was as stubborn as ever. He had some more living to do. Auerbach died Saturday night at the age of 89. Here's an update of that original tribute:
What is the old man thinking? How is his mind sifting through all his eyes had seen and processing what had transpired? He is sitting across the way in the old
The Boston Garden, arms folded across his chest, rarely smiling, always watching. What is the old man thinking?
Red Auerbach is black-and-white. He is of that era. The grainy images from those days show no colors -- only light and dark and the grays in between.
He helped define championship achievement for all of sports. Think New York Yankees (the original Yankees). Think
Green Bay Packers. Think
Boston Celtics. The
Alabama and Oklahoma football. Every other championship team since these few is merely a descendent, especially those dynasty pretenders of this High-Def age.
Even generations later, even after you met him, absorbed basketball insights from him or, if you were lucky, shared a cigar with him…even in death, Red Auerbach is still black-and-white.
Things were always very clear to him. How to play the game. How to win. How to treat your players. How to treat people. How? Like you care.
So what is he thinking as the Celtics, great in his day, seek to grow from unbearable to wherever they are now? What is he thinking as we still struggle with the angst of race, even amid some progress?
Probably the same thing he thought eras ago when you could still light up a cigar in a sports arena. To hell with all this.
If the basketball Hall of Fame wasn't already named for the game's founder, the building in Springfield would be called The
Red. James A. Naismith handed the baton to Red Auerbach, who, even today, is still holding onto it.
As we say goodbye, praise Red not merely for his Ws, but also for his bravery. Though he hardly saw it as such. Listen to me: Right alongside
Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown,
Arthur Ashe,
Muhammad Ali and a very few others credited with being the most influential civil rights figures in sports history, Arnold (Red) Auerbach's name should be etched.
Not because he led any protests, or raised his fists or even talked much about it.
The issue was just too black and white for Red to do anything but what was right. What he needed to do to win.
You got the best players you could and put them on the floor, right? Not in an era when NBA teams quietly agreed to sign no more than three black players. And yet
K.C. Jones doesn't recall it being a big thing when on December 26, 1964, he stepped onto the floor before tip-off with four other Celtics who, like him, were African American. (Negroes, really, back in that day.) That night, veteran forward
Willie Naulls replaced injured
Tom Heinsohn
in the starting lineup, joining Jones, Tom (Satch) Sanders,
Sam Jones, and a fellow in the middle named Russell.
The group became the first all-black starting five in NBA history. But to Red it wasn't even worth a mention. He hardly recognized it was an issue or that it should be an issue, K.C. Jones recalls. "He put his best five on the court. Chinese, blacks, whites, you name it," says Jones.
The hell with all this.
That phrase came up more than once as I spoke with Jones and other African-American former Celtics awhile back. It was one of Red's favorite sayings, a recognition that something as stupid as racism wasn't worth tolerating or dignifying.
Jones recalled a night in Indiana (he couldn't remember the city) when he, Russ and a couple of white players, after being given the keys to the city by the mayor, happened into a local restaurant where all but a few of the tables where empty. "There were 12 or 13 tables open," Jones remembered, "but the waiter said they were filled with reservations. We asked if the bar was reserved, then went in and sat with the rest of the guys there. Russ didn't go in. Instead, he went to the police station and asked for the mayor. The next day we all went with Red to the office of the attorney general and explained the whole thing. He called the owner, who said there was a sign at the entrance saying, 'We retain the right to refuse service to anyone.' The attorney general told him the sign wasn't worth the paper it was written on, but Red was like, 'To hell with this place,' and took us to the airport."
"Red towed the line on race," Jones finished.
Another note: When Red decided to retire -- two decades ago, to the year -- he named a black
man as his successor. A guy who'd never coached before. A guy named
Bill Russell, who became the first Negro coach in NBA history.
Wayne Embry, affectionately known as The Wall, was Russell's backup when the starting center also took on the title of head coach for the 1966-67 season. Let's not kid ourselves. There was some trepidation in Celtic circles, Embry recalled. "But Red didn't care," Jones
remembered. "He said he wanted to name Russell." To hell with anything else.
Now senior advisor to the president of the Toronto Raptors, Embry most recalled how Red made himself scarce once Russell became player-coach. "He was there when Russ needed assistance, but he didn't meddle. Russ was the coach."
The Celtics didn't win the title for their rookie coach, a rarity in those seasons. But in 1967-68, the Celtics, led by Russell on the court and on the bench, won their 10th championship in 12 years.
Embry remembered hugging Red when he saw him in the lobby of a hotel a few years ago. "He was glad I was still in the league. He liked my wife, and tripped over me to hug her."
What might the old man be thinking now? How is his mind was sifting through all he had seen? What would he say about where we are and where we should be?
The hell with all this. And of course, he'd be right.
