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Bill Russell

1934-

American basketball player

Bill Russell, the Boston Celtics' Hall of Fame center who almost single-handedly redefined the game of basketball, was, in the words of Basketball's Big Men by David Klein, "the standard against whom all others will be judged." A big man who specialized in defense rather than scoring, Russell was the ultimate winner. After winning two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) titles at the University of San Francisco, and an Olympic gold medal in 1956, he led the Boston Celtics to eleven league championships in thirteen years, a string that is virtually unparalleled in professional sport, including eight consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) titles between 1959 and 1966, and two in 1968 and 1969 while himself the Celtics coach. On an individual level—a level Russell largely disdained in favor of team performance—he was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player five times. The first African American to coach in the NBA—indeed he was the first to coach a major sport at the professional level in the United States—Bill Russell was also an impassioned and intelligent advocate of civil rights both on and off the basketball court for blacks and America's other minorities.

Growing Up

Bill Russell was born to Charles Russell and Katie King in Monroe, Louisiana in 1934. Racism was pervasive in Louisiana at the time, and a dangerous confrontation with a white man led Russell's father—who was known as Mr. Charlie—to move his family to the North. After a brief stop in Detroit, Michigan, Russell, his parents and his older brother Charlie, settled in Oakland, California's black ghetto. Mr. Charlie set up his own trucking company, and Russell and his brother entered Oakland's public schools. When he was twelve, tragedy struck. Russell's mother passed away after a brief illness. Mr. Charlie gave up his company to be with his children while Russell retreated into the solace of books at the public library. A book about the life of Henri Christophe, a slave who led an insurrection and became emperor of Haiti, made an impression that remained with him throughout his life.

Russell first played basketball on Oakland's playgrounds. As a child and teen, he gave the impression of being a uniquely untalented athlete. His brother was making himself a star player at Oakland Tech, a mostly white high school; in grade school Bill, however, could not make the basketball team, the football team or even the cheerleading squad. When his studies faltered after the death of his mother, Bill was unable to gain admission to Oakland Tech, and had to enroll instead in a neighborhood school, McClymonds High. Although he washed out of the junior varsity basketball team a freshman, attending McClymonds was a stroke of good fortune for Bill Russell. Despite his apparent ineptitude, the junior varsity basketball coach, George Powles, saw something in Russell and kept him as the 16th man of a 15-man-squad. In his book Go Up For Glory Russell described the importance of that gesture. "I believe that man saved me from becoming a juvenile delinquent. If I hadn't had basketball, all my energies and frustrations would surely have been carried in some other direction." Powles also encouraged Russell to work on his game at the local Boys' Club. Even as a senior member of Mc-Clymonds team he wasn't turning heads. However, he turned in a very strong performance at a game being watched by a scout from the University of San Francisco (USF). The scout was so impressed that he offered Russell a scholarship instead of the player he had come to observe. It was the only scholarship offer Russell received and he accepted it gratefully.

After his graduation, Russell was asked to join the California High School All-Stars—he was invited to join only because the team was desperate for graduates and he had finished high school in January. The team played exhibition games throughout the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. While on the tour, Russell became obsessed with basketball, discussing it whenever he could. When he wasn't talking the game, he was analyzing in his head other players' plays as well as his own which he'd made or failed to make. Envisioning each play on the inside of his eyeballs, he imagined what he should have done, or something new he wanted to try out. "If I had a play in my mind but muffed it on the court, I'd go over it repeatedly in my head, searching for details I'd missed," he wrote in Second Wind. "It was like working a phony jigsaw puzzle, one piece in the completed picture was slightly imperfect, and I had to find out which one it was." Without grasping what he was on to, Russell had discovered on his own the visualization techniques that would become standard practice in professional sports in and after the 1980s.

College Champion

Using his newfound technique, Russell's game improved by leaps and bounds. He was well on his way to becoming a dominant player when he entered USF in the fall of 1952. Russell joined the varsity team, the Dons, as a sophomore. He and his roommate, K.C. Jones—who would play with Russell on the great Celtics teams of the 1950s and 1960s—discussed basketball incessantly. In Russell's junior year, the Dons caught fire, running off a string of 55 straight victories that extended well into his senior year, and included two NCAA championships.

Although Russell was a big player—he was nearly seven feet in height—he was not a high scorer. Instead he was developing into a defensive genius. Russell could out-think most of his opponents and he was a spectacular jumper who specialized in blocking opponent's shots and deflecting those of his teammates' into the basket. So dominant did Russell become under the basket that the NCAA doubled the width of the lane to 12 feet, and made it a violation to touch a ball once it had begun its descent toward the basket. Russell was named the Most Valuable Player of the NCAA tournament in 1955, and was named an All-American in both 1955 and 1956. He was also a world-class high-jumper in college who came within a hair of breaking the world record.

Russell had come a long way from the days when he wasn't even wanted as cheerleader. As a graduating senior he was one of the players most coveted by NBA and other teams. The Harlem Globetrotters—who he considered more a degrading vaudeville act than basketball—offered him a $32,000 contract. Although the Boston Celtics had a low pick in the college draft, coach Red Auerbach wanted Russell badly enough to trade two of the Celtics star players to St. Louis for their pick. Russell did not accept the Celtics $19,500 offer right away. He wanted to maintain his amateur status in order to compete in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. With Russell in the line-up, the U.S. team won the gold medal. Days after his return from Australia, in December 1956, Russell married his girlfriend, Rose Swisher. They would have three children together, William Jr., Karen Kenyatta, and Jacob, before divorcing in 1973.

Celtics Star

In early 1957, Russell joined the Celtics. Despite its potential—besides being coached by Auerbach, it included Bob Cousy and Tommy Heinsohn—the Celtics team Russell joined had never won an NBA championship. Few in Boston thought they would do so with Russell. Writers complained that the team had given up two proven players for a player who would never make it as a pro. But Russell's defensive play was the piece the Celtics needed to win the NBA title in his first full year with the team. As if to emphasize his importance, when a fractured ankle forced him out of the championship series the following year, the Celtics lost. Beginning in 1959, Boston reeled off eight straight NBA championships, a feat unmatched before or since. So crucial was Russell's role in these victories, his time with Boston has come to be known as the "Bill Russell Era."

What Russell brought to the Celtics, and to pro basketball in general, was a new emphasis on defense and teamwork. He showed that a player did not have to be a high scorer to dominate the game. In fact, Russell scoffed at individual statistics, such as the scoring title. The only important stat, he said, was winning. By that measure alone Bill Russell was the greatest. When he retired, he had not only his two NCAA titles and the Olympic gold, but eleven NBA championship rings, an unparalleled achievement.

When Red Auerbach decided to retire at the end of the 1965-66, he selected Russell as his replacement. It was a natural choice—he had been a thoughtful, analytical student of the game since his tour with the California All-Stars, and after years in the NBA he knew the other teams inside out. Russell's appointment also marked a landmark in American sports history. It was the first time a black had ever been named to lead a professional team in any major sport. In his three years as playercoach, the Celtics won two more championships.

Russell retired at the end of the 1969 season. To all appearances he was done with pro basketball, which he described as men playing a child's game. Before three years had passed, though, he returned as coach and general manager of the Seattle SuperSonics from 1973 until 1977. He took the Sonics to the playoffs in his second year at the helm, but the team was wracked by dissension that Russell was unable to quell and he resigned. He joined the Sacramento Kings organization, serving first as coach in the 1987-88 season, and then as president of basketball operations through 1989. He was a regular color commentator on basketball broadcasts on NBC and CBS in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Civil Rights Advocate

Despite his fierce dedication to basketball during his career as a player and coach, Bill Russell was keenly aware that there was a world beyond the court. Beginning in the late 1950s, he was an active participant in the struggle by American blacks for full civil rights. Early in his career Russell charged the NBA with maintaining a de facto quota system which limited the number of blacks on each team. In 1963, at the height of the civil rights struggle in the American South, he accepted, uneasily and at great personal risk to himself, a request to travel to Jackson, Mississippi, to organize and lead integrated basketball clinics. Russell was one of the few professional athletes in the United States, black or white, to speak out on civil rights in such a dramatic way in the 1960s. Around the same time, he was the target of racist attacks when he bought a home in white suburban Boston.

Bill Russell has taken stands that have been controversial among fans. For example, he refuses to sign autographs, preferring to shake hands and speak directly to fans and well-wishers. Russell resisted having his number retired by the Celtics in 1972, until Red Auerbach agreed to hold the ceremony without any fans present. In 1974 when he became the first black to be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, Russell at first refused to accept the honor. "Aside from racism or my own feelings about the cheers and boos in sports, I don't respect it [the Basketball Hall of Fame] as an institution," he wrote in Second Wind. "Its standards are not high enough. It's too political, too self-serving." He was inducted despite his objections.

Despite the passing of years and the increasing number of fans who never saw him play, Bill Russell remains a basketball icon. In 1980 the Professional Basketball Writers Association named Bill Russell the "Greatest Player in the History of the NBA." In 1996 the NBA voted him one of the top 50 players of all-time. In 1999 cable broadcaster ESPN named him one of the fifty top athletes of the 20th century. Bill Russell was more than simply the greatest defensive player in the history of the basketball, he was an intelligent, thoughtful, deeply honest man, who spoke out when he saw injustice. His courage and dedication provide an example for young athletes everywhere.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY RUSSELL:

(With Bob Ottum) "The Psych … and My Other Tricks." Sports Illustrated, October 25, 1965: 32—34.

(With William McSweeny) Go Up for Glory. New York: Berkely, 1966.

(With Tex Maule) "I Am Not Worried about Ali." Sports Illustrated, June 19, 1967: 18—21.

(With Taylor Branch) Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man. New York: Ballantine Books, 1979.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Klein, Dave. Pro Basketball's Big Men.. New York: Random House, 1973.

Shapiro, Miles. Bill Russell. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.

Periodicals

MacQuarrie, Brian. "Russell Makes Peace With City That Brought Glory And Pain." Boston Globe, November 12, 2000.

Moss, Irv. "Russell Remembers Very Good Old Days." Denver Post, March 18, 2001.

Ryan, Bob. "Pride Of The Celtics."Boston Globe, May 26, 1999.

Sandomir, Richard. "Russell Redux: A Private Man Bursts Back Into the Public Eye." New York Times, June 16, 2000.

Tuttle, Dennis. "Solving An Enigma." Washington Post, April 16, 2000.

Sketch by Gerald E. Brennan