Collision Course

by William Cook

  While the Celtics game-scoring record still remained with Bob Cousy, who had 50 points in a four-overtime effort in 1953, Sam Jones’ 47 points were the most ever scored by a Celtics player in a non-overtime, 48-minute game.

  On various occasions during the series, Jones had looked bad playing against Oscar Robertson, but in game seven he took the spotlight away from him. After the game, Sam Jones told the press in regard to The Big O, “Man I’m glad I’m through with him.”29

  Jones had been so worried about having to play against Robertson that on game day, he left his home at 11:30 a.m. People started calling his home at 9:00 a.m. asking for tickets. After a couple of hours, he told his wife Gladys, “‘When those folks call, tell them I’m gone please.’ ‘Gone where Sam,’ asked Gladys? ‘Just gone,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at the Garden. Gotta see a movie, and stop thinking about Oscar.’”30 Two hours before the game, Jones arrived at Boston Garden and had a private shooting practice.

  Bob Cousy had gone into the showdown game with the Royals facing the possibility that it was his last game. But the Cooz played brilliantly, finishing with 21 points and 16 assists. The Boston Herald claimed that Cousy “delivered the coup de resistance at 3:45 of the [fourth] quarter when he fed a blind backward pass to Frank Ramsey for a layup that made it 123–98 and went out amid an ovation at the four-minute mark.”31

  Following the game, Walter Brown, owner of the Celtics, walked up to Charley Wolf and told him he would see him next year. Wolf replied, “I don’t think so. I won’t be back.”32 Brown believed that the showing of the Royals in the playoffs would give professional basketball in Cincinnati a big boost. He told Charley Wolf, “And we owe it all to you. You have done a tremendous job.”33

  When asked if he would vote to approve the sale of the Royals to Warren Hensel, Brown replied, “Actually I have an open mind about it. I’ve heard nothing adverse.”34

  If Warren Hensel was paying attention to the Royals gate receipts for the series, he would have noticed that a little over 7,000 fans were in the stands for the critical game six at Cincinnati Gardens in which the Royals grossed about $16,500 for the home game. The Celtics were averaging over 13,000 fans per home game for the Cincinnati series. In the Western Division series, the Los Angeles Lakers playing the St. Louis Hawks were attracting crowds of 15,000 at their arena, while St. Louis was averaging about 8,000 fans per home game. If Hensel was thinking the addition of Jerry Lucas would bolster the Royals’ gate, he was dreaming.

  Cincinnati’s interest in professional basketball would peak in 1963–64. That’s four years before the Cincinnati Bengals began playing in the Queen City. While it is a fact that the arrival of professional football in Cincinnati was a factor in Xavier University dropping its football program in the early 1970s and nearly causing the University of Cincinnati to do the same, professional basketball was in trouble in Cincinnati long before professional football came to town.

  Nonetheless, at that moment, a lot of sportswriters were starting to speculate about what the Royals might do next season with Jerry Lucas and Tom Thacker, if they got both, playing with The Big O, Jack Twyman, Arlen Bockhorn, Bob Boozer, Adrian Smith, Wayne Embry, and Tom Hawkins. Some sportswriters were so bold as to suggest that the Celtics might be trying to upset the Royals next year. The current Royals management, with Tom Grace, Pepper Wilson, and Charley Wolf, would be responsible for the 1963 NBA draft as it occurred before the NBA Board of Governors met on April 30 to approve any change in ownership for the team.

  A day after the Eastern Division playoffs ended, the first hurdle for Warren Hensel gaining control of the Cincinnati Royals was crossed. Louis Jacobs and Emprise Corporation of Buffalo, New York gained formal control of the Royals and Cincinnati Gardens from the Thomas E. Wood Estate. Jacobs’ lawyer, Ambrose Lindhorst, met with Alfred M. Cohen, the attorney representing the Wood Estate, and reached an agreement that was believed to be worth $500,000.

  Led by Elgin Baylor, 31.6 points per game, and Jerry West, 26.4 points per game, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the defiant St. Louis Hawks in the Western Division playoffs, 4 games to 3.

  But the Lakers were exhausted after having been dragged through the mill by a couple of the St. Louis veteran players, 30-year-old Bob Pettit, who averaged 29.4 points per game, and 31-year-old Cliff Hagan, who averaged 20 points per game, kept the pressure on Los Angeles in every game of the series.

  The Boston Celtics had won four consecutive NBA titles and five titles in six years. While Boston was favored to whip the Los Angeles Lakers again, Red Auerbach was very aware of the fact that Lakers had almost dethroned the Celtics in the 1962 Finals when, in game seven, a jump shot by Frank Selvy just missed going through the hoop. Still, Auerbach was confident that, with a couple of breaks, the Celtics could wrap-up another title in less than seven games.

  Game one of the finals was played in Boston and the Celtics beat the Lakers 117–114. In game two, also played in Boston, the Celtics went ahead two games to none defeating Los Angeles 113–106.

  The finals moved to Los Angeles for game three, and the Lakers finally won, defeating the Celtics 119–99. In game four, also played in LA, the Celtics moved out to a 3-games-to-1 lead, with a 108–105 win over the Lakers.

  Back at Boston Garden for game five, the Lakers were facing elimination but took command after Tom Heinsohn, who had scored 23 points, was ejected and Bob Cousy, who had scored 12, fouled out. Led by Elgin Baylor with 43 points, and Jerry West with 32, the Lakers took command of the game and defeated the Celtics 126–112. In the losing effort, Sam Jones had scored 36 points and Bill Russell, 24, for Boston.

  So the finals returned to Los Angeles for game six with the Celtics up 3 games to 2. Bob Cousy had a premonition that this would be the final game in his career with the Boston Celtics. He later wrote in his book, The Killer Instinct, that when the Celtics arrived in LA, he walked into his hotel and locked the door. Cousy wanted to be alone, he didn’t answer the telephone and ordered all his meals via room service. Then, he sort of a went into a trance, fixated on the upcoming game. “I talked to no one,” said Cousy. “I thought so long and so intensely about Frank Selvy, the Laker guard I would be playing against, that if he had walked into that room I might have leaped at his throat and tried to strangle him.”35

  In game six, Bob Cousy sprained an ankle and was helped to the bench. But when the Lakers went ahead by one point, he came back into the game. The Celtics were leading 104–102 with 2:48 left when Tom Heinsohn stole a Jerry West pass intended for Rudy La Russo, drove and scored. From that point on, Bob Cousy worked the clock as he had done in the old days, fancy dribbling as the final seconds on the clock ticked off and his career came to an end. When the buzzer sounded, Cousy threw the ball high into the air and raced to embrace Red Auerbach.

  The Celtics won the game 112–109, winning their sixth NBA championship and fifth in a row. Bob Cousy had scored 18 points in the game while holding Frank Selvy to just 3. His heir apparent, Sam Jones, scored 36 points.

  For thirteen years with the Boston Celtics, Bob Cousy had played on six NBA championship teams playing 30,131 minutes, scoring 16,955 points (18.5 points per game), and having 6,945 assists (7.6 assists per game). He had led the NBA in assists eight years in a row (1952–53 to 1959–60) and been a 13-time All-Star.

  There have been many sports dynasties, but the mystique of the Boston Celtics of the 1950s and 1960s has been enduring in its legacy in that it defined a professional sport for a couple of generations of fans. It also had a deep psychological effect on those who competed against the Celtics.

  Oscar Robertson stated, in regard to the 1963 NBA Semi-Finals series against the Celtics, by the Cincinnati Royals he was dejected. “Afterwards, the reporters, fans, and players alike blamed our loss on the circus debacle and the ownership chaos. The truth is we had the opportunity to beat Boston. We couldn’t do it. A lot of the Royals were gun-shy about playing them; it was almost as if they couldn’t go forward and play aggressiv
ely against the green-and-white Celtics uniforms.”36

  Jerry West played his heart out in the 1963 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics, averaging 29.5 points per game, and felt the sting of defeat everlasting.

  “During the 1960s, we [the LA Lakers] lost to the Boston Celtics six times in the Finals,” said West. “If it had been six different teams we’d lost to, perhaps the pain of those losses would be diluted. But the same team over and over? Those losses scarred me, scars that remain embedded in my psyche to this day.”37 Even later, when West became the general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers, he tried to avoid going to Boston Garden—he didn’t like it there and the memories of playing there were too painful.

  ———

  * In 1970–71, the NBA divided the teams in two conferences. Previously the league had two divisions but no conferences (with the exception of the 1949–50 when the NBA had three divisions).

  9

  Cousy Takes Over at Boston College & Jerry Lucas Joins the Royals

  Since enrolling at Holy Cross eighteen years ago, Bob Cousy had lived in Worcester, Massachusetts. He had become a partner in an insurance company in Worcester, and following his playing days with the Boston Celtics, he planned to continue living in the town with his wife, Missie, and two daughters. But upon hanging up his black Chuck Taylor All-Star high-top sneakers, Cousy was presented with several other options for a career and signed contracts with three companies to do public relations and sales.

  But basketball had been his life, and Cousy didn’t want to completely separate himself from the game. As luck would have it, in early summer of 1963, Boston College offered him the head coaching job for its basketball program with a salary of $12,000 a year. As Boston College was located in Chestnut Hill, about an hour’s drive from Worcester, it was a perfect fit for both his work and domestic life.

  In 1962–63, the Boston College Eagles had finished the season with a record of 10–16 under interim-coach Frank Powers, a BC professor, who had agreed to take the job. When Cousy took over, Powers agreed to stay on as an assistant and coach the freshman squad.

  Cousy knew that Boston College was primarily a football school, but it was his goal not just to rebuild the Golden Eagles basketball program but to put it on the map. He believed that he had an ace in the hole for recruiting by just being Bob Cousy. He wanted to recruit players that had similar backgrounds and goals like him. In other words, Cousy wanted players from a poor economic background with a hunger to succeed.

  Cousy’s first blue-chip recruit was John Austin, a 6′0″ guard from Washington, D.C.

  Red Auerbach had told Cousy about Austin, and he helped recruit him for Boston College while still playing for the Celtics.

  John Austin had begun playing basketball in Washington at the Boy’s Club, competing against Dave Bing and John Thompson. As a sophomore, he played at Bishop Carroll High School in D.C. and then transferred to DeMatha High in Hyattsville, Maryland. Austin’s teams won championships at both schools.

  As for enrolling at Boston College, Austin remarked, “I enjoyed Catholic high school so much, I wanted to continue in a Catholic College. I also wanted to take advantage of the tremendous academic atmosphere of Boston, and thirdly, I knew Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics and he told me Bob Cousy would be BC’s new coach. I felt that I could learn a lot from him and also be seen by the Celtics at the same time.”1

  As a sophomore in 1963–64, John Austin was the only black player on the Boston College team. Playing three years of varsity ball, 1963–66, John Austin would become the Boston College all-time scoring leader for a three-year varsity career finishing with an average of 27.1 points per game.

  Bob Cousy’s first game as Boston College coach, December 12, 1963, would be a 74–93 loss to Massachusetts. It would be rough going for the Golden Eagles as they would ultimately lose the first five games of the season to Massachusetts, Connecticut, St. Bonaventure, Temple, and Canisius before giving Cousy his first win defeating Dartmouth.

  But there was hope for BC, a few days after defeating Dartmouth, they defeated Georgetown 107–97 with John Austin scoring 49 points.

  In his first year as coach, Bob Cousy’s Boston College Golden Eagles would finish unranked and undistinguished with a record of 10–11, including two losses to arch-rival Holy Cross. Cousy could not remember any team of his ever finishing with a record below .500, and he knew that he had his work cut out for him in elevating the status of the Boston College basketball program. But John Austin finished the year with a scoring average of 29.2 points per game, and Cousy knew there was a player that he could build his team around.

  In Cincinnati, by August 1963, local businessman Warren Hensel had still not completed his purchase of the Cincinnati Royals. By early October, Hensel would still be waiting to complete the verbal agreement he had with Louis Jacobs and Emprise Corporation to complete the sale.

  While there has been substantial speculation that Warren Hensel could not come up with the cash to buy the Royals, the fact was that Louis Jacobs, after carefully considering the deal, had decided to renege on his promise to sell the team to Hensel. On October 3, Ambrose “Bro” Lindhorst, attorney for Jacobs, announced that the Royals were not for sale.

  “I just don’t understand it,” remarked Hensel. “I’ve been at a complete loss. I haven’t been able to talk to the man [Jacobs] in several months. My only contact has been with Bro Lindhorst.”2

  According to Oscar Robertson, the Royals players considered the front office situation bizarre, but they had to concentrate on preparing for the coming season.

  Bizarre was an understatement. Since the end of the 1962–63 playoffs, while deciding what he wanted to do with the Royals, Louie Jacobs had been using Warren Hensel as an unpaid front office pawn, allowing him broad discretion in making decisions for the Royals. To that end, Hensel hired Jack McMahon as the Royals new coach replacing Charlie Wolf. Then, in mid-August, Hensel convinced Jerry Lucas to sign with the Royals after courting him for months.

  Warren Hensel was no doubt a decent and honest man with good intentions in attempting to buy the Royals, but he was also naïve in dealing with a man like Louis Jacobs.

  In 1972, Sports Illustrated proclaimed Louie Jacobs, “The Godfather of Sports.” Warren Hensel didn’t realize that, in dealing with Louie Jacobs, he was scraping along the dark side of sports. Jacobs never cared about the character of the people he did business with. Louis Jacobs’ modus operandi in making deals was driven by his penchant for being pragmatic, quid pro quo. His deals didn’t always involve a formal contract, and instead of developing business plans, Louie relied on rational action or intuition as his guiding force.

  Louis Jacobs, Louie, or L. M., as his friends called him, was a self-made man—a real Horatio Alger story. Born into poverty on Delancey Street on New York’s Lower East Side, he, along with his two brothers Marvin and Charley, sons of a Polish immigrant tailor, built a sports concession empire.

  Louie started it all after the family, by then numbering six, moved to Buffalo around the turn of the twentieth century. Louie Jacobs got his introduction into the sports concession business by selling peanuts in the Buffalo ballpark and popcorn at the Gayety Theatre, a local burlesque house. Meanwhile, Louie’s siblings shined shoes and rented canoes at Delaware Park Lake. The three learned how to accumulate capital and put it to use opening concession booths.

  At the age of 15, Louie Jacobs was arrested in Buffalo for hiring boys to run cabs for him. Under existing laws, Jacobs was too young to be an employer.

  By 1927, the Jacobs brothers had got their first big league contract to provide concessions for the Detroit Tigers at Navin Field.

  Louie went to Detroit and personally managed the employees and every aspect of the contract. At the end of the 1927 season, Jacobs took a check for $12,500 to Tigers owner Frank Navin and presented it to him. The stunned Navin inquired, “‘What’s this for?’ ‘You made a bad contract,’ said Louie. ‘You deserve more than you guaranteed.
’”3

  Frank Navin spread the word, and soon the Jacobs brothers were running concessions in several major league parks. The business known as Jacobs Brothers, beginning in 1915, evolved into what is known as Sportservice in 1948. Later in 1961, the business expanded into Emprise Corporation, and Sportservice became a subsidiary. With the passing of his brothers, Louie Jacobs restructured the Emprise Corporation ownership so that he became an employee of his sons, Jeremy and Max.

  In 1960, Sportservice was the concessionaire to the Rome Olympics. By the early 1970s, Sportservice was the concessionaire for seven Major League Baseball teams (Baltimore Orioles, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Montreal Expos, Milwaukee Brewers, and St. Louis Cardinals), eight NFL professional football teams, four NHL hockey teams, and five NBA teams located in Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati. In addition, Sportservice had contracts with fifty horse and dog tracks in the USA and Canada, plus ten more in England and Puerto Rico, while also doing various golf tournaments.

  By the early 1970s, Emprise had 70,000 employees working in 39 states, Canada, England, and Puerto Rico and was a hundred million dollar a year operation, selling five million bags of peanuts annually, thirty million soft drinks, twenty million hot dogs, and twenty-five million containers of beer.

  Along the way, Louie Jacobs and his brothers did business with many solid citizens and sports icons. Bill Veeck signed contracts with Sportservice for every major league franchise that he owned, the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox, and the minor league Milwaukee Brewers.

  In regard to the company’s cash flow, it was Louis Jacobs’ belief that money should go out of the company as fast as it came in to sustain growth.