Bill Russell

1934–2022 · 88 years Tier I

He could not shoot, so he made everyone else stop scoring

Portrait of Bill Russell — Unknown author — circa 1960 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Charlie Russell pulled into a Louisiana filling station and was told to wait until the white customers had been served. When he tried to drive off, the attendant put a shotgun on him. The family moved to Oakland when the boy was eight, and four years later his mother Katie died suddenly. He was cut from the team at Herbert Hoover Junior High. At McClymonds High School a coach named George Powles kept him on the roster mostly on faith and told him so. He grew nearly a foot and still could not shoot at the end of it. Exactly one college offered a scholarship — the University of San Francisco — and he took it, carrying height and an idea about defense.

San Francisco won 55 straight games and the national title in 1955 and again in 1956, and college basketball widened the foul lane partly because of what he was doing inside it. He captained the 1956 Olympic team to gold, joined the Celtics that December after St. Louis drafted him second and traded him away, and won the championship in his first season. He won 11 in 13 years, eight consecutively, still the longest title run in American professional sport. He was named most valuable player five times while averaging 15 points a game, so the award was plainly measuring something other than scoring. On April 16, 1966, Red Auerbach handed him the job, making him the first Black head coach in any major American professional league. He won two more titles running the team he played on.

Boston cheered him on Sunday and would not sell his neighbors a house on Monday. He called the city a flea market of racism. In 1961 he and the other Black Celtics walked out of an exhibition game in Lexington, Kentucky, after a coffee shop refused to serve them. Someone later broke into his house in Reading, wrote slurs on the walls, smashed his trophies and defecated in the beds. He stopped signing autographs — not as a snub to any particular fan but as a position, that he owed the public his work and nothing beyond it. When the Celtics retired his number in 1972 he asked them to do it in an empty gym. He skipped his own Hall of Fame induction in 1975.

He softened, slowly, and on his own schedule. The Celtics retired the number again in front of a crowd on May 6, 1999, and he wept. The NBA put his name on the Finals most valuable player award on February 14, 2009 — an award he never won, because it did not exist until the season he retired. Barack Obama gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, and a statue went up on Boston City Hall Plaza in 2013. He accepted his Hall of Fame ring privately in November 2019. When he died on July 31, 2022, the league retired number 6 for every team, the only time it has done that for anyone.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Bill Russell's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

NCAA championships with San Francisco other
Back-to-back titles in 1955 and 1956 inside a 55-game winning streak 1956
Go Up for Glory book
Written while still playing, about the racism he was living inside 1966
Player-coach of the Boston Celtics other
Champions in 1968 and 1969 with Russell running the bench and the floor 1966
Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man book 1979
Russell Rules book
Lessons on leadership, drawn from the 11 rings 2001

Life in brief

with age at each point

1946 aged ~12 His mother Katie dies suddenly when he is 12
1952 aged ~18 Enters the University of San Francisco on the only scholarship offered him
December 1956 aged 22 Debuts for the Boston Celtics after Olympic gold in Melbourne St. Louis drafted him second and traded him for Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan.
October 1961 aged 27 Walks out of an exhibition game in Lexington, Kentucky A coffee shop had refused to serve the Black players.
April 16, 1966 aged 32 Named player-coach of the Celtics The first Black head coach in a major American professional league.
1969 aged ~35 Wins an 11th championship and retires without warning the team
1975 aged ~41 Elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame and refuses to attend
May 6, 1999 aged 65 Lets the Celtics retire his number in public, 27 years late
July 31, 2022 aged 88 Dies at 88 on Mercer Island, Washington The NBA retired number 6 across every team.