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NBA legend Bill Russell dies at 88

Celtics icon, Hall of Famer and 11-time NBA champion Bill Russell died
'peacefully' at the age of 88, his family confirmed Sunday.



Celtics legend and 11-time NBA Champion Bill Russell died
‘peacefully’ Sunday at the age of 88.



BOSTON (AP)

Bill Russell, the NBA great who anchored a Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 championships
in 13 years — the last two as the first Black head coach in any major U.S. sport — and marched
for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr., died Sunday. He was 88.

His family posted the news on social media, saying Russell died with his wife, Jeannine, by his side.
The statement did not give the cause of death.

“Bill’s wife, Jeannine, and his many friends and family thank you for keeping Bill in your prayers.
Perhaps you’ll relive one or two of the golden moments he gave us, or recall his trademark laugh
as he delighted in explaining the real story behind how those moments unfolded,” the family
statement said. “And we hope each of us can find a new way to act or speak up with Bill’s
uncompromising, dignified and always constructive commitment to principle. That would be one last,
and lasting, win for our beloved #6.”





NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that Russell was
“the greatest champion in all of team sports.”





“Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that
he stamped into the DNA of our league. At the height of his athletic career, Bill advocated vigorously
for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed
in his footsteps,” Silver said. “Through the taunts, threats and unthinkable adversity, Bill rose above
it all and remained true to his belief that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.

A Hall of Famer, five-time Most Valuable Player and 12-time All-Star, Russell in 1980 was voted the
greatest player in the NBA history by basketball writers. He remains the sport’s most prolific winner
as a player and an archetype of selflessness who won with defense and rebounding while leaving the
scoring to others. Often, that meant Wilt Chamberlain, the only player of the era who was a worthy
rival for Russell.

But Russell dominated in the only stat he cared about:
11 championships to two.

The native of Louisiana also left a lasting mark as a Black athlete in a city — and country — where race
is often a flash point. He was at the March on Washington in 1963, when King gave his
“I Have a Dream” speech, and he backed Muhammad Ali when the boxer was pilloried for refusing
induction into the military draft.

“To be the greatest champion in your sport, to revolutionize the way the game is played, and to be
a societal leader all at once seems unthinkable, but that is who Bill Russell was,”
the Boston Celtics said in a statement.






In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Russell the Medal of Freedom alongside Congressman
John Lewis, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and baseball
great Stan Musial.

“Bill Russell, the man, is someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men,” Obama said
at the ceremony. “He marched with King; he stood by Ali. When a restaurant refused to serve the
Black Celtics, he refused to play in the scheduled game. He endured insults and vandalism, but he
kept on focusing on making the teammates who he loved better players and made possible the
success of so many who would follow.”

Following news of his death, many NBA stars reflected on Russell’s impact and legacy. Michael Jordan
described Russell to be “a pioneer – as a player, as a champion, as the NBA’s first Black head coach
and as an activist.”

“He paved the way and set an example for every Black player who came into the league after him,
including me. The world has lost a legend. My condolences to his family and may he rest in peace.”

Russell said that when he was growing up in the segregated South and later California his parents
instilled in him the calm confidence that allowed him to brush off racist taunts.

“Years later, people asked me what I had to go through,” Russell said in 2008. “Unfortunately, or fortunately,
I’ve never been through anything. From my first moment of being alive was the notion that my mother
and father loved me.” It was Russell’s mother who would tell him to disregard comments from those who
might see him playing in the yard.

“Whatever they say, good or bad, they don’t know you,” he recalled her saying.
“They’re wrestling with their own demons.”

But it was Jackie Robinson who gave Russell a road map for dealing with racism in his sport:
“Jackie was a hero to us. He always conducted himself as a man. He showed me the way to be
a man in professional sports.”

The feeling was mutual, Russell learned, when Robinson’s widow, Rachel, called and asked him
to be a pallbearer at her husband’s funeral in 1972.

“She hung the phone up and I asked myself, ‘How do you get to be a hero to Jackie Robinson?’”
Russell said. “I was so flattered.”

William Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, in Monroe, Louisiana. He was a child when his
family moved to the West Coast, and he went to high school in Oakland, California, and then the
University of San Francisco. He led the Dons to NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956 and won
a gold medal in 1956 at the Melbourne Olympics in Australia.

Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach so coveted Russell that he worked out a trade
with the St. Louis Hawks for the second pick in the draft. He promised the Rochester Royals,
who owned the No. 1 pick, a lucrative visit by the Ice Capades, which were also run by Celtics
owner Walter Brown.

Still, Russell arrived in Boston to complaints that he wasn’t that good. “People said it was a
wasted draft choice, wasted money,” he recalled. “They said, ‘He’s no good. All he can do is
block shots and rebound.’ And Red said, ‘That’s enough.’”

The Celtics also picked up Tommy Heinsohn and K.C. Jones, Russell’s college teammate, in the
same draft. Although Russell joined the team late because he was leading the U.S. to the Olympic
gold, Boston finished the regular season with the league’s best record.

The Celtics won the NBA championship — their first of 17 — in a double-overtime seventh game
against Bob Pettit’s St. Louis Hawks. Russell won his first MVP award the next season, but the Hawks
won the title in a finals rematch. The Celtics won it all again in 1959, starting an unprecedented
string of eight consecutive NBA crowns.

A 6-foot-10 center, Russell never averaged more than 18.9 points during his 13 seasons, each year
averaging more rebounds per game than points. For 10 seasons he averaged more than 20 rebounds.
He once had 51 rebounds in a game; Chamberlain holds the record with 55.

Auerbach retired after winning the 1966 title, and Russell became the player-coach — the first Black
head coach in NBA history, and almost a decade before Frank Robinson took over baseball’s
Cleveland Indians. Boston finished with the second-best regular-season record in the NBA,
and its title streak ended with a loss to Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers in the
Eastern Division finals.

Russell led the Celtics back to titles in 1968 and ’69, each time winning seven-game playoff series
against Chamberlain. Russell retired after the ’69 finals, returning for a relatively successful — but
unfulfilling — four-year stint as coach and GM of the Seattle SuperSonics and a less fruitful half
season as coach of the Sacramento Kings.

Russell’s No. 6 jersey was retired by the Celtics in 1972. He earned spots on the NBA’s 25th
anniversary all-time team in 1970, 35th anniversary team in 1980 and 75th anniversary team.
In 1996, he was hailed as one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players.

In 2009, the MVP trophy of the NBA Finals was named in his honor — even though Russell never
won himself, because it wasn’t awarded for the first time until 1969. Russell, however, traditionally
presented the trophy for many years, the last time in 2019 to Kawhi Leonard; Russell was not there
in 2020 because of the NBA bubble nor in 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns.

In 2013, a statue was unveiled on Boston’s City Hall Plaza of Russell surrounded by blocks of granite
with quotes on leadership and character. Russell was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in
1975 but did not attend the ceremony, saying he should not have been the first African American
elected. (Chuck Cooper, the NBA’s first Black player, was his choice.)

In 2019, Russell accepted his Hall of Fame ring in a private gathering. “I felt others before me
should have had that honor,” he tweeted. “Good to see progress.”

Silver said he “often called (Russell) basketball’s Babe Ruth for how he transcended time.”

“Bill was the ultimate winner and consummate teammate, and his influence on the NBA will be
felt forever,” Silver added. “We send our deepest condolences to his wife, Jeannine, his family
and his many friends.”

His family said that arrangements for Russell’s memorial service
will be announced in the coming days.
























R.I.P.
Bill Russell
The World and the NBA lost a great one.

You will forever be missed