by William Cook
With the fast pace of the game created by the shot clock, the league’s games were becoming more mainstream in the sporting world. One single game, in particular, would put the NBA over the top with fan interest. It would be a game played at Boston Garden on February 27, 1959, in which the Boston Celtics defeated the Minneapolis Lakers by a score of 173–139. In the game, Bob Cousy scored 31 points and had 29 assists for the Celtics, and Tom Heinsohn had 43 points. The Lakers leading scorer was Elgin Baylor with 28. In the fourth quarter, the two teams scored a remarkable 96 points (Boston 52, Minneapolis 44).
In the 1954–55 season, a player just coming into the league would immediately take advantage of the shot clock—Bob Pettit. Drafted out of LSU by the Milwaukee Hawks, Pettit would be named Rookie of the Year while finishing fourth in scoring, averaging 20.4 points per game.
The Boston Celtics finished in third place in the Eastern Division in 1954–55 with a record of 36–36 behind the New York Knicks and the division winner, the Syracuse Nationals.
Despite the third-place finish of the Celtics, Bob Cousy had played like a champion. The Cooz finished first in the NBA in assists with 557 and assists per game 7.8. He was second in the league in six categories, including scoring with 21.2 points per game and third in two categories, points (1,504) and free throws (460).
While the Celtics got by the Knicks 2 games to 1 in the Eastern Division Semi-Finals, they just couldn’t get over that final hurdle to the championship finals as they fell again to the Nationals 1 game to 3 in the Eastern Finals.
In the West Semi-Finals Minneapolis got by Rochester 2 games to 1, then, without the retired George Mikan, lost to Ft. Wayne 3 games to 1 in the West Finals.
Syracuse went on to win the championship as they defeated Ft. Wayne 4 games to 3 in the finals.
Following a last-place finish in the Western Division for a fourth straight year, the Milwaukee Hawks moved to St. Louis for the 1955–56 season. With new fans, the Hawks were a reinvigorated franchise and finished second in the Western Division. Bob Pettit was named the NBA’s first MVP and led the charge, finishing first in eleven statistical categories including scoring with 25.7 points per game, 1,846 total points, and 1,164 total rebounds.
The Hawks entered unfamiliar territory in the playoffs and made it to the second round before being defeated by Ft. Wayne. The Pistons would then advance to the championship finals to be defeated by the Philadelphia Warriors.
Meanwhile, Bob Cousy’s star continued to rise in the NBA. In 1956, Cousy would become the first NBA player to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
The Boston Celtics finished in second place in 1955–56, but once again they were knocked out of the playoffs by the Syracuse Nationals. While the Celtics had the best offense in 1955–56, scoring a league-leading 106.0 points per game, they finished last in defense, giving up 105.3 points per game to the opposition. Coach Red Auerbach came to the conclusion that in order to win a championship he had to plug a big hole in his team. Since 1950–51, the Boston Celtics led by their core three, Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, and Ed Macauley, and had been competitive in the Eastern Division, finishing second three times (1951, 1952, 1956) and third three times (1953, 1954, 1955), but they couldn’t make it to the championship finals, either being knocked off by the Syracuse Nationals or the New York Knicks. The reason for the Celtics coming up short each year was that those teams had a fatal flaw. While they were a high scoring and exciting teams, they just couldn’t get the ball enough to finish the job.
Red Auerbach wanted a big center that could rebound, block shots, and start his fast break; the man he wanted was Bill Russell, a 6′10″, 220-pound All-American about to graduate from the University of San Francisco, a small Jesuit school team coached by Phil Woolpert. Bill Russell had led the USF Dons to 60 consecutive victories and back-to-back NCAA Championships in 1955 and 1956.
Red Auerbach had first heard about Bill Russell from Bill Reinhart, his old college coach at George Washington University. In December of 1955, Reinhart had seen Russell play that year in a holiday tournament in Oklahoma City. Everyone associated with Russell, officially or otherwise, that knew of his play at the University of San Francisco, assured Auerbach that while Russell could not shoot well, he was the most brilliant defensive player they had ever seen and was very good at running the fast break. Furthermore, Russell’s ability to block shots and rebound made him an intimidating force for opposing players just by his presence on the court. Red Auerbach began to track Bill Russell’s senior year at USF, and in April, as the 1956 NBA draft drew near, he set his agenda and began to move on a plan to get him.
Since the earliest days of the NBA through 1965, the very first order of business in the draft each year was for any team with standing to exercise its territorial draft rights on a player. The rules were that a team could opt to relinquish its first-round choice to claim a player who had played within a 50-mile radius of its home arena. There were instances of this rule being bent, and the most classic is the case of Wilt Chamberlain who played his college ball at Kansas but was taken as a territorial draft pick by the Philadelphia Warriors because he had played high school basketball in Philadelphia.
So, the Boston Celtics quickly exercised their territorial right to Tom Heinsohn of Holy Cross. Heinsohn had been a member of the Holy Cross NIT championship team of 1954. A power forward, standing at 6′7″, he had broken Bob Cousy’s career points record at Holy Cross scoring 1,789 points while averaging 27.4 points per game in the 1955–56 season.
It was expected that Bill Russell would be the number one pick in the 1956 draft. That pick belonged to the Rochester Royals. However, Russell informed Royals owner Les Harrison that he wanted $25,000 ($232,431 in 2018 money) to sign, which included a signing bonus.
At the time, the Royals were a cash-strapped franchise and besides, they already had 6′7″, 250-pound Maurice Stokes, the 1956 NBA Rookie of the Year. In his rookie season, Stokes had averaged 16 points and 16 rebounds per game. He was so agile that he could rebound the ball and then, instead of passing it out, could bring the ball down court himself. A lot of pro-basketball experts and analysts at the time believed Maurice Stokes to be the best rebounder in the game and destined to be the NBA’s first black superstar.
At the same time, Abe Saperstein was offering Bill Russell a considerable sum to sign with the Harlem Globetrotters. The estimated offer was as high as $50,000 ($464,862 in 2018 money). But there was a problem—Bill Russell did not personally care for Abe Saperstein and had very little interest in playing theatrical basketball for him.
Also, there was tension still existing between Russell and Coach Phil Woolpert held over from his playing days at the University of San Francisco. It wasn’t anything personal between the two; Russell just never liked the way he was coached by Woolpert who wanted him to play a flatfooted stationary game under the basket like George Mikan had as opposed to Russell’s preference of playing above the rim and leading a fast break.
In addition, Russell had been offended when he, along with Coach Woolpert and USF Assistant Coach Ross Giudice, met with Saperstein in Chicago and negotiations for his services became a one-on-one dialogue between Woolpert and Saperstein. It was as if Russell wasn’t even in the room.
Nonetheless, with Saperstein entering the process, the ante for signing Russell had been raised, and Les Harrison, who had a team experiencing financial problems and playing in a small market in Rochester, just could not meet the price. Also, Harrison had seen Russell play in the College All-Star Game and was less than impressed.
So, Boston Celtics owner Walter Brown made Harrison an offer too good to ignore. Brown told Harrison that if he passed on selecting Bill Russell in the first round of the draft, he, being president of the Ice Capades, would guarantee a two-week run of the show in his building in Rochester. The deal may have smacked of collusion, but with an assurance of a sell-out crowd every evening in a building that sat mostly empty, Harrison grabbed it.
So, Les Harr
ison came to the conclusion that the Royals needed a player who could score points and compliment the rebounding of Maurice Stokes. He passed on Russell and took Sihugo “Si” Green of Duquesne instead as the first draft choice. That left the door wide open for the St. Louis Hawks, who had the number two draft pick, to select Bill Russell.
At that time, the Boston Celtics were having financial problems as well. In fact, Walter Brown had withheld the player’s playoff money. He would not make good for another year before he paid them back with interest. While Bob Cousy, the team’s star, remained silent, Red Auerbach was so unsure of his future that he began working an off-season job as a sales representative for a plastics manufacturer.
Regardless of the fact that the Celtics were in a financial crisis, the thought of the St. Louis Hawks having Bill Russell in the frontcourt along with Bob Pettit, who had burst into the league and began to dominate everything, made Red Auerbach sweat bullets! So after Auerbach consulted with Walter Brown, the Celtics made an offer to St. Louis.
The Hawks had the number two pick in the draft and in exchange for it, the Celtics offered to trade All-Star center Ed Macauley, the Celtics leading scorer. It seemed like a win-win situation; Ed Macauley had been a star at St. Louis University, was bound to draw a lot of fans, and could still play a lot of basketball in the frontcourt. Also, Macauley lived in St. Louis and had an ill son. He wanted to be closer to his child while continuing to play professional basketball.
Hawks owner Ben Kerner didn’t have any serious intention of drafting Bill Russell for one reason in particular—he was black. St. Louis was a very racially insensitive city and he believed it was in his best interest at that time to keep his team all-white. Nonetheless, Kerner knew they had Walter Brown and Red Auerbach over a barrel and wasn’t satisfied with Macauley alone for their second draft pick. So, Auerbach agreed to include Cliff Hagan in the deal. As a sophomore, Cliff Hagan had helped the University of Kentucky to win a national championship in 1951. He had been picked as the number three player in the 1953 draft by the Celtics. But Hagan decided to play one more year at Kentucky as a graduate student and helped the Wildcats to a 25–0 record. Then, he entered the military service for two years.
With the inclusion of Cliff Hagan in the deal, Ben Kerner agreed to give up the Hawks number two pick in the draft. Going forward, the Hawks would become a dominating force in the Western Division for several years. Cliff Hagan would become a five-time All-Star and in 1978, be selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Now, Boston had the number two draft choice and could select Bill Russell. However, Russell wanted to play in the 1956 Olympics Games being held in Australia before entering professional basketball. The draft was in April and the Olympics were in November so Russell could not sign a contract at that time and jeopardize his amateur status. The Celtics agreed to give Russell $22,500 which was an astonishing sum for a rookie, but $6,000 would be deducted because he would miss the first two months of the 1956–57 season. However, Walter Brown thought it was unfair and split the $6,000 deduction with Russell. Nonetheless, Russell’s contract before the deduction made him the second highest paid player in the NBA behind Bob Cousy who was making $25,000.
By 1965, Bill Russell’s contract with the Boston Celtics would call for $100,001 a year ($802,817 in 2018 money). The extra dollar was included to make his contract higher than that of Wilt Chamberlain. In the end, it would be a bargain as having Bill Russell as their center the Boston Celtics would proceed to win 11 NBA championships in 13 years.
Following the 1955 college season, in which Russell’s University of San Francisco Dons had won the NCAA title, he was invited by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the White House for a conference on physical fitness along with several other former and active athletes that included Bob Cousy, Major League Baseball Greats Hank Greenberg and Willie Mays, former heavyweight champion Gene Tunney, and others. President Eisenhower, a former collegiate football player at Army, addressed him as Mr. Russell and prodded him with questions about whether or not he intended to turn pro before his college eligibility was exhausted thereby making him ineligible to play in the 1956 Olympics in Australia. Russell was in awe of the White House and the respect displayed toward him by the president.
However, at the time Bill Russell joined the Celtics, he was in cultural shock having recently been exposed to some extreme racism.
Russell, along with his father, stepmother, and fiancée had all driven from California to Washington. They decided to make the return trip by driving to the old family home in Louisiana. The motor trip through the “Jim Crow” deep-south deeply affected Russell emotionally with the indignities that he experienced during the journey.
Actually, it wasn’t Russell’s first experience with the segregated south. During his college career, the University of San Francisco booked a game with Loyola University New Orleans, another Jesuit college. There were two other black players on the Dons and the only time they and Russell saw the rest of the team was at the arena. While all the white players stayed in a hotel, the black players were quartered in dorm rooms at Xavier University of Louisiana.
The blatant segregation in public accommodations Russell experienced in the deep-south, such as separate drinking fountains, restaurants, and bathrooms for blacks and whites, severely depressed him. Russell, in regard to his experience in the deep-south, stated that he was treated as “just another black boy, just so much dirt, with no rights, with no element of human courtesy or decency shown to me or mine.”1
While determined to be respected as a man just as much as a player, the experience of his deep-south sojourn would haunt Bill Russell and follow him into the NBA during his rookie season. When the Celtics played against the Hawks in St. Louis, which in the mid-1950s was still a city deeply influenced by southern customs, Russell would have to endure vile racial epithets of the cruelest kind, and he was refused service in the hotel coffee shop. While Russell played well in St. Louis, there were times when the taunts hurt him so bad that he felt like quitting the professional game.
The racial abuse that Russell endured wasn’t just in St. Louis, he was subjected to racial insults on his own home court by the fans in Boston Garden where often the words “Nigger” and “Coon” came roaring down upon him on the court from the stands. Bob Cousy told Russell, “If you let the names people call you bother you, you don’t belong in this business.”2
Bob Cousy was personally offended by racial segregation and had a progressive attitude about equal rights that he had gone on record with. In 1950, Red Auerbach booked a Celtics game in the segregated city of Charlotte, North Carolina. When Chuck Cooper found out that he was going to be confined to a segregated hotel, he took a midnight train out of town. Bob Cousy went with him.
Cousy was keenly aware of the fact that at the Worcester Country Club, where he played golf, Bill Russell would not be welcome—so he never invited him. Race relations in the United States were changing by the late 1950s but ever so slowly. While Cousy had empathy for Bill Russell’s circumstances he was also keenly aware that he had a limited platform in the Boston area to bring about social change.
Boston, supposedly the epicenter of progressive thought in the nation’s northeast corridor, had a flaw in its philosophical reputation. Bostonians were more in favor of racial integration in theory rather than practice. Boston talked a good game in racial tolerance but came up short on the practice side. If you were black in Boston in the 1950s you lived in segregated areas of the city such as Roxbury and, for the most part, were rejected from employment in the mainstream economy. Even the Boston Red Sox were the last Major League team to field a black player in 1959. When Bill Russell and his wife bought a modest suburban home in Boston, vandals would knock over his trash cans when he was on road trips.
Bill Russell took Cousy’s counseling to heart and began to focus on his game—blocking shots, getting rebounds, asserting himself for position under the boards, and starting the fast break. Al
though Russell wasn’t scoring many points, Red Auerbach had told him to not worry about scoring points, play his game, get a lot of rebounds, and he would consider the rebounds as points. “When we talk contract down the line,” said Auerbach, “I will never discuss statistics. All I’ll discuss is if we won and how you played.”3 In fact, Russell never knew what his statistics were, and furthermore, as a team player, he didn’t care. The modus operandi of Red Auerbach was simply about results that led to winning.
According to Russell, at least a third of the shots he blocked were off the men that Bob Cousy was guarding. But he never criticized Cousy behind his back or to his face. “The way I looked at it,” said Russell, “was that [Cousy’s] flaws on defense triggered our offense. I’d block a shot and outlet it and get it going the other way, turning it into a strength.”4
Red Auerbach’s straightforward, unconventional approach to coaching stunned Russell. He quickly came to the conclusion that he had never encountered a coach with such wisdom and consideration. It would be the beginning of a friendship between the two that would be everlasting.
While Bill Russell demonstrated that he had some incredible, if not magical moves, like any other rookie coming into the league, he was soon being tested by the other teams. They needed to see if he could be intimidated or if he would fight back after being roughed up under the basket. Did he really have the guts for the pro game?
The answer came sooner rather than later in a game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks center was brawny 6′11″ Ray Felix who made it his personal business to put Russell to the test, elbowing him, jabbing him, and pushing him for position under the basket. Red Auerbach called a timeout and reprimanded Russell for being bullied by Felix and telling him that he didn’t have to take any of that.
When play resumed and Felix continued elbowing Russell, he elbowed him back. After a couple of minutes of experiencing “what goes around comes around” from Russell, Felix decided to escalate the intimidation by making a fist and acting as if he was about to lay a haymaker on Russell. But it was Russell who proved to be quicker on the draw, landing a solid punch to Felix’s jaw, dropping him on the floor where he laid knocked-out cold.
