A

Bob Cousy

1928-

American basketball player

Bob Cousy was one of greatest passers and playmakers in NBA history. A showman with flair and an entertainer as much as he was a basketball player, Cousy was a renegade in an era of rather conventional league play. He helped to build one of the revolutionary teams in the history of professional basketball. His contribution is as great as—if not greater than—any other single player who helped the Boston Celtics dominate the 1950s and 1960s. Cousy cared about basketball. He was the catalyst that turned the game into the popular modern spectacle that fans know it as today.

Growing Up

Bob Cousy was born August 9, 1928, to Joseph and Julliette Cousy, poor French immigrants who lived on Manhattan's East side. Cousy grew up a "ghetto rat," and while young played stickball and boxball and stole hubcaps for some occasional quick change.

Eventually his father was able to save up $500 from his job driving a cab and working for an airline, and the family moved into their own house in the St. Alban's neighborhood of Queens, Long Island. His mother worked days as a secretary and language teacher, and to keep himself occupied after school, Cousy discovered the game of basketball. Though early on he would have some basketball disappointments, getting cut twice from the Andrew Jackson High School junior varsity team.

The Incident

There seems to be one pivotal moment or incident for most professional athletes, that time from which they can pinpoint their rise into greatness. Cousy is no exception. In what seems like the biography of a superhero, one afternoon when Cousy was thirteen, he fell from a tree and broke his right arm. Never dissuaded after being cut from the high school team, he still practiced daily. Since he was right-handed, he learned to dribble and shoot with his left. That season, when coach Lou Grummond saw Cousy played equally as well with either hand, he asked him to come back on the team—the high school team lacked a guard who could make important plays, and Cousy, able now to go either way and confuse opponents, fit the bill.

His rise to prominence happened quickly. In only a year and a half on the varsity squad, Cousy became something of a local celebrity. As a senior, he won the city scoring championship and helped lead his team to one of their best seasons.

The College Years

After seeing his success on the high school court, Holy Cross, a smaller school in Worcester, Massachusetts—less than an hour's drive from Boston—offered him a scholarship. This was in 1946, and in 1946 the style of basketball that was played at both the college and pro levels was not like it is today. The teams were much slower, playing a methodical and deliberate ball, their shots of choice typically were two-handed set shots.

But that was not Cousy's style of play, and Holy Cross was not ready for what Coach Alvin "Doggie" Julian saw as "showboating." Holy Cross was a powerful school, and they won the national championship in the 1946-47 season—without Cousy as a starter. He would win the spot his second year, but the coach, still fearful of his hotdogging, limited his playing time.

Given the circumstances, Cousy considered transferring, but the coach at St. John's actually convinced Cousy to stay at Holy Cross. He would be given his opportunity in a game against Loyola of Chicago played at Boston Garden (Holy Cross had an old, small gym). With less than five minutes left, Holy Cross was trailing. The crowd was aware of Cousy's style, and they enjoyed watching him play. They began chanting "We want Cousy! We want Cousy!" The coach had no choice left. Cousy was put into the game, and in the last few minutes of play, Cousy scored eleven points. He topped it off by putting down a buzzer-beating lefthanded hook, moving past a much larger player with his behind-the-back-dribble.

Cousy would earn All-American status three times while in college. He became the biggest name in college hoops. Under Cousy's floor leadership, Holy Cross won twenty-six straight games.

Cousy graduated in 1950 with a degree in business, but he would be known as one of the standout college players to ever come through the system.

Basketball or The Road?

It wasn't a foregone conclusion that Cousy would play professional basketball. The salary wasn't all that much, and Cousy could have easily made more money putting his business degree to use. In addition to entering the draft, he also contemplated opening up a driving school. Cousy opted to try his luck with the draft, and was picked up by Tri-Cities Blackhawks. He was then traded to the Chicago Stags, but that team folded before the season ever began.

A new team, however, the Boston Celtics, had been playing for three years in the Basketball Association of America, but had recently joined the NBA in the 1949-50 season. Since they had finished last in the eastern division, they were the team with the first pick in draft. They had not, however, chosen Cousy. When the Stags folded, Cousy's name, along with two other players, was thrown into a hat. The Celtics wound up with him anyway, with a contract for $9,000 a year.

In his first year with the Celtics, they had a winning record. Cousy averaged 15.6 points and 4.9 assists per game. People were drawn from all over the New England coast to the Garden to watch Cousy and his style of play. Just as in college, however, Celtics' coach Arnold "Red" Auerbach was not yet sold on the Cousy showman-ship, but it was hard to overlook his excellent timing, outstanding reflexes and deft touch.

By his third season, Cousy would win his first of eight straight assists titles, averaging 7.7 assists per game (remarkable in an era before the shot clock). In Game two of the 1952-53 season's division semifinals against the Syracuse Nationals, Cousy played a game that would become one of the most talked-about of his career. With a bad leg giving him trouble, he scored twenty-five points in regulation, tying the game at seventy-seven with a free throw. In the first overtime, he scored six of the team's nine points, then in the second extra period, scored all four points for the Celtics. In a game that didn't seem to want to end, Cousy found eight points in the third overtime, tying it yet again with a twenty-five-foot jumper in the final seconds.

Down 104-99 in the fourth overtime, The Cooz put in five straight points, and the Celtics would finally defeat the Nationals 111-105 in a game that went three hours and eleven minutes. Cousy finished with fifty points, including a record setting thirty free throws in thirty-two attempts.

The Dominant Era

As the fifties progressed, the Celtics acquired a supporting cast that would become one of the most fabled in NBA history, adding the likes of Bill Russell, Tommy Heinsohn, K.C. Jones, Frank Ramsey, and Jim Loscutoff to a team that was already dominant. Although the Celtics won the 1956-57 NBA Championship, their first ever, they would lose the next year to the St. Louis Hawks. However, it would be the last time any team but the Celtics would touch the title for the next eight years, all helped in part by Cousy's masterful performances.

"Cooz was the absolute offensive master," Heinsohn told the Boston Herald in 1983. He was known as the "Houdini of the Hardwood. What Russell was on defense, that's what Cousy was on offense—a magician. Once that ball reached his hands, the rest of us just took off, never bothering to look back. We didn't have to. He'd find us. When you got into a position to score, the ball would be there."

After his retirement, Cousy coached for Boston College, leading them to a 117-38 record over six years, but he grew to hate the recruiting game, and feeling that he could do more elsewhere, left after the 1968-69 season to join the pro ranks as coach of the Cincinnati Royals. He remained with the team until 1974, and even returned to the court as a player for seven games in his first year as coach.

The Cousy Legacy

Cousy retired at age thirty-five. The last game ceremony has since become known as "the Boston Tear Party," with a sold out Garden sitting in rapt silence as Cousy spoke his final farewell. In 1960, as Cousy was winding down his career, former Knicks coach Joe Lapchick said Cousy was the best player he'd ever seen. Celtics owner Walter Brown told a Boston Newspaper that "the Celtics wouldn't be here without him. If he had played in New York, he would have been as big as Babe Ruth. I think he is anyway."

He left the team having scored 16,955 points (18.5 points per game), 6,945 assists (7.6 assists per game), and an .803 free-throw percentage in 917 games. In 109 playoff games he averaged 18.5 points and 8.6 assists. In thirteen All-Star Games the two-time game MVP averaged 11.3 points and 6.6 assists. He has since been named to the NBA's 25th, 35th, and 50th Anniversary teams. In 1970 he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Bob Cousy would be the first NBA player to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In 1999, ESPN selected Cousy as #94 on the Sports Century top 100 athletes list.

When he retired from the Celtics in 1963, he was making $30,000 a year. He went out at what appeared to be the top of his game. Fans thought he had many more years left in him, and he probably did. But he told Tom Callahan of Time magazine, "I was very conscious of my skills eroding … The minute there is even a subtle diminishment of legs, you're the first to know. I became aware of when I should stop wanting the ball in key situations. For a couple of years, I decoyed myself at those moments, making

sure Sam Jones, Tommy Heinsohn—or whoever—ended up with the shot." Cousy opted to retire when he did because, as a man with a degree in business hanging on his wall, he knew something about marketing himself after basketball, something that agents do for players these days but which Cousy would have to do by himself to earn a living. "I knew I'd be exploiting this notoriety for 20 years," he said. "If it had been $300,000, chances are I would have played until 1969."

Bob Cousy was one of the greatest passers and play-makers in NBA history. A showman with flair and an entertainer as much as a basketball player, Cousy was a renegade in an era of rather conventional league play. He helped to build one of the most revolutionary teams in the history of professional basketball. His contribution is as great as—if not greater than—any other single player who helped the Boston Celtics dominate the 1950s and 1960s. Cousy drew audiences to the arenas where a new and struggling NBA was trying to get off the ground. Watching Cousy was fun, and the fans wanted fun, not fundamentals. He was the catalyst that turned the game into the popular modern spectacle that fans know it as today.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: Bob Cousy, c/o CMG Worldwide, 8560 Sunset Boulevard 10th Floor Penthouse, West Hollywood, CA 90069.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

"Bob Cousy." Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement, Volume 21. Detroit: Gale, 2001.

Hickock, Ralph. The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History. New York: Facts on File, 1992.

Ryan, Bob. The Boston Celtics: The History, Legends, and Images of America's Most Celebrated Team. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co, 1989.

Periodicals

"Bob Cousy spans the ages." Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service (February 8, 1997).

Boston Globe (May 26, 1999).

Boston Globe (August 27, 1999).

Entertainment Weekly (March 4, 1984).

"Just one more season: if legs go first, how soon will pride follow?" Time (December 24, 1984).

MacMullan, Jackie. "Catching up with … Boston Celtics guard Bob Cousy." Sports Illustrated, (November 11, 1996): 4.

Other

"NBA Legends: Bob Cousy." http://www.nba.com/history/cousybio_html/ (November 6, 2002).

"The Official Bob Cousy Webpage." http://www.cmgww.com/sports/cousy/ (November 6, 2002).

Schwartz, Larry, "Celtics tried to pass on ultimate passer." ESPN.com. http:/espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00014144.html/ (November 6, 2002).

Sketch by Eric Lagergren