I grew up in a Celtics family. My grandparents were huge fans, and I still remember running up the stairs to their apartment after dinner to sit and watch the game with them. Two of my uncles split season tickets for years, up until the prices went through the roof when they moved to the new Garden. Going to a game with them involved parking at an MBTA building near the Museum of Science and walking along the train tracks, even along a bridge over a part of the Charles at one point, to get there.
I grew up knowing Red Auerbach’s name almost before I knew Larry Bird’s. He was the Celtics, plain and simple. Hell, his brother is the one who designed the classic Celts logo. You cannot overstate his importance to the team, to the league, or to the sport. When I heard over the weekend that he’d died, it was one of those “a little bit of your childhood just died” moments for me. And I never even met the guy. I just grew up playing and watching a game that he’d worked tirelessly to turn into an international sport, one that his team always won at.
16 championships, including 8 in a row, and 9 in 10 years. The NBA’s coach of the year award is named after him. First coach to draft a black player, first coach to field an all-black starting five, first GM to hire a black coach (his successor, player-coach Bill Russell). Orchestrator of the most lopsided trade in sports history. I could go on and on, but I have to get back to work. You can find a number of tributes at the Globe and Herald, at ESPN, from the Celtics and the NBA, and I’m sure in sports blogs all over the web. For some offline reading, I can’t recommend “Let Me Tell You A Story” enough. It’s part biography, and part a simple account of dozens of stories Red told the author, John Feinstein, at his famous Tuesday lunches in DC’s Chinatown.
Red, you’ll be sorely missed.
I am not an NBA fan, nor Celtics fan, yet can appreciate all he seemed to do for the team and for the City of Boston.
That is a FANTASTIC book. I read it just a couple of months ago.
Ditto the recommendation on “Let Me Tell You A Story”. I devoured it in one night, and I haven’t been a Celtics fan/NBA fan since the late 80’s.
They really made it hard to watch them once Reggie died. (actually, according to Simmons, we have Stern to blame for that)
But I have to say, that Eastern Conference championship game run they had in…what, ‘01?…was a lot of fun to watch. Hoping for good things this year.
From my formative years, I remember watching the 1981 season and the thrilling playoffs… especially the Game 7 win against the 76′ers. Later, my father bought a vinyl record of the 1981 season/playoffs highlights, featuring the gravel-voiced narration of an extremely passionate Johnny Most, and I probably wore it threadbare… umm.. groovebare. We wouldn’t have had the dynasty of the 50’s and 60’s without Red’s coaching, and we wouldn’t have had the Big Three years without his personnel moves. Not to begrudge the current Patriots and Red Sox for their recent string of success, but it would be nice if there was a 3rd Championship caliber professional sports team around, for nostalgia’s sake.