Bill Russell

Boston (AP) -- Bill Russell redefined how basketball is played, and then he changed the way sports are viewed in a racially divided country.

Boston (AP) -- Bill Russell redefined how basketball is played, and then he changed the way sports are viewed in a racially divided country.

The Boston Celtics center, who was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and a coach, won a record 11 titles in a playing career that ...

There was a mischievous side to the icon, who also delighted in flipping the bird at his basketball colleagues in hopes of making them laugh. Russell’s death prompted tributes from the Celtics, who posted an image of his No. 6 under 11 shamrocks, to represent his championships as a player, and above two additional shamrocks, to represent his titles as a coach. Jaylen Brown, a Celtics forward who led a protest march in Atlanta after George Floyd’s death, added: “Thank you for paving the way and inspiring so many. “Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that he stamped into the DNA of our league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “As tall as Bill Russell stood, his legacy rises far higher — both as a player and as a person,” Obama wrote Sunday. “He was a civil rights trailblazer — marching with Dr. King and standing with Muhammad Ali. For decades, Bill endured insults and vandalism, but never let it stop him from speaking up for what’s right. “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.

Russell won 11 titles with the Celtics and will also be remembered for his activism off the court.

He worked as a television broadcaster afterward before returning to coaching with the Seattle Supersonics. He went four games below .500 in four seasons in Seattle before leaving. Plenty sought him out, because above everything else Russell was on the court, he was the sport's greatest winner. Despite his collegiate excellence, Russell was not the first pick in the 1956 NBA Draft. That honor went to Duquesne wing Si Green. That left Russell available at No. 2, where the St. Louis Hawks were drafting. In addition to basketball, Russell was a track star at San Francisco, notably competing in the high jump. Bryant may have played for the rival Lakers, but Russell frequently made himself available to modern players looking for advice. Sadly, Russell faced racism throughout his early life in the South and his entire career in Boston, and he became one of the most socially conscious athletes in American history. He would do so several more times, but doing so for Bryant was particularly meaningful given the friendship they'd forged. But for all the winning, Bill's understanding of the struggle is what illuminated his life. His first scholarship offer came from the University of San Francisco, a school hardly known for its basketball prowess but one that Russell was able to carry to consecutive national championships in 1955 and 1956. Along the way, Bill earned a string of individual awards that stands unprecedented as it went unmentioned by him. From boycotting a 1961 exhibition game to unmask too-long-tolerated discrimination, to leading Mississippi's first integrated basketball camp in the combustible wake of Medgar Evans' assassination, to decades of activism ultimately recognized by his receipt of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. His family released the following statement.

Celtics legend and 11-time NBA Champion Bill Russell died 'peacefully' at the age of 88, his family confirmed Sunday.

“To me, one of the most beautiful things to see is a group of men coordinating their efforts toward a common goal, alternately subordinating and asserting themselves to achieve real teamwork in action,” Russell once wrote. The Celtics exacted revenge on the 76ers the following season, winning the division finals 4-3 before defeating the Lakers 4-2 for Russell’s first championship as a player-coach. Those qualities would serve Russell in 1966 when Auerbach retired to focus on responsibilities as a general manager. I got to succeed or fail on this job not as a Black man or a white man or a green man, but as a coach. But there’s another type who makes the players around him look better than they are, and that’s the type Russell was.” He averaged at least 23 rebounds per game for seven straight seasons with a team-first acumen, all while helping to revolutionize the game on the defensive end. Boston took full advantage, often funneling opponents toward Russell. That, in turn, allowed the Celtics to play more aggressively on the perimeter. A dominant shot blocker, Russell was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player five times, in addition to earning All-Star recognition on 12 occasions in his 13-year career. Russell attended McClymonds High School in Oakland, where he was awkward and struggled to find playing time until his senior year. There, he paired up with future Celtics teammate K.C. Jones to lead San Francisco to 56 consecutive wins and NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956. Russell racked up 21,620 career rebounds (22.5 per game), which ranks second only to Chamberlain’s career mark, and was a four-time season rebounding leader. “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.

Reactions to the death on Sunday of Bill Russell, who won 11 championships during a Hall of Fame career spent entirely with the National Basketball ...

Many of us tried to follow in his footsteps." He had a career of firsts and led the way for many. Once called out of the blue because he thought I looked sad on TV ... best pep talk of my life. RIP" Russell changed the landscape of sports in America by fighting for equality for everyone - on and off the field. I admired him my entire life and he had a huge influence on my career. The world has lost a legend." On the court, he was the greatest champion in basketball history. Over the course of our friendship, he always reminded me about making things better in the Black community. "Perhaps more than anyone else, Bill knew what it took to win and what it took to lead. I looked up to him on the court and off. "Today, we lost a giant.

Bill Russell, the NBA great who anchored a Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 championships in 13 years died on Sunday. He was 88.

In 2009, the MVP trophy of the NBA Finals was named in his honor. 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. Bill was the ultimate winner and consummate teammate, and his influence on the NBA will be felt forever. 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. But it was Jackie Robinson who gave Russell a road map for dealing with racism in his sport: "Jackie was a hero to us. "She hung the phone up and I asked myself, 'How do you get to be a hero to Jackie Robinson?'" Russell said. The Celtics won it all again in 1959, starting an unprecedented string of eight consecutive NBA crowns. 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." 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. It was Russell's mother who would tell him to disregard comments from those who might see him playing in the yard. Often, that meant Wilt Chamberlain, the only player of the era who was a worthy rival for Russell. 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.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Bill Russell, the cornerstone of a Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 National Basketball Association titles and a powerful voice for ...

"He was one of the first athletes on the front line fighting for social justice, equity, equality, and civil rights," Johnson said. On the court, he was the greatest champion in basketball history. "For decades, Bill endured insults and vandalism, but never let it stop him from speaking up for what's right. "The promise of America is that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives," Mr Biden said in a statement. "Throughout his life, he forced us to confront hard truths. Yet, he never gave up".

Auerbach, the longtime Boston Celtics coach, had confided in Russell that he planned to retire from coaching. Russell and Auerbach had created a dynasty ...

“With a lot of truly great players, it was tough for him to understand why regular players did not have the same drive, focus and commitment to winning that he did,” Jerry Reynolds, an assistant for Russell on the Kings, said in an interview Sunday. “There’s just not very many people wired like that. He was a longtime civil rights activist who coached the Celtics during the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. “It rubbed a lot of Bostonians the wrong way,” Russell wrote in his 2009 book. Russell did not talk often about being the first Black coach in a major sports league. Bernie Bickerstaff, who is Black, watched Russell take over as head coach of the Celtics just as he was about to enter into a life of coaching. “I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager.” Russell left the Celtics in 1969 but took over the SuperSonics from 1973 until 1977. “At that time, you didn’t think about anything like that,” said Bickerstaff, who became the coach of the SuperSonics in 1985. “At the time, Boston was a totally segregated city — and I vehemently opposed segregation.” Art Shell became the N.F.L.’s first Black head coach in the modern era for the Oakland Raiders in 1989. “For example, when I was finally named publicly, I didn’t know that I had just become the first African American coach in the history of major league sports.” Russell, who died Sunday at 88, would go on to win two championships as the head coach of the Celtics, his 10th and 11th championship rings. Auerbach, the longtime Boston Celtics coach, had confided in Russell that he planned to retire from coaching.

Known as the winningest NBA player of all time, Bill Russell also blazed trails as a civil rights advocate.

Regarded as a recluse for much of his post-retirement years, Russell did occasionally take to social media in the final stages of his life, posting about basketball and his travels. In 2009, the NBA renamed the Finals Most Valuable Player award the “Bill Russell Award,” a fitting honor for a man who went 21-0 in winner-take-all games between his collegiate, Olympic and professional careers. Russell boycotted an exhibition game in 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky after two of his teammates were denied service in a coffee shop and was a highly visible member of the Black Power movement. Even as the Vietnam War and other off-court issues compromised his attention during his last season, Russell went out on top in his final campaign, combining with John Havlicek to lead the Celtics to a seven-game NBA Finals victory over the Lakers. Russell had 26 rebounds in his last professional game, a 108-106 road victory that cemented Boston as the first team to win the NBA Finals after losing the first two games. Bitter feelings over his treatment in Boston led Russell to forgo attending his own jersey retirement in 1972 and Hall of Fame induction in 1975. The 1966 series, also against the Lakers, required seven games, and he willed the Celtics to a 95-93 victory with 25 points and a game-high 32 rebounds.

Jordan certainly had his own share of success as a player, winning six titles and an NBA-record six Finals MVP awards, an honor which was eventually named after ...

But the reverence with which so many pillars of sport and society speak of Russell shows that his legacy will live forever. In 2011, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 13 seasons as a player, he won 11 championships and five MVP awards, as well as earned 12 All-Star selections.

Bill Russell, who won 11 National Basketball Association titles in 13 years with the Boston Celtics spanning the 1950s and 1960s, has died. He was 88.

The game of basketball suffered a significant loss on Sunday morning, when it was announced that NBA legend and pioneer Bill Russell had passed away at the ...

Sharing a picture with Bill Russell that came after his first championship in 2015, Steph Curry was able to reflect on what the trailblazer and icon meant to him and the game of basketball. Acknowledging Russell's impact on both basketball ad the world around it, Steph shared his appreciation for an unparalleled legacy. The game of basketball suffered a significant loss on Sunday morning, when it was announced that NBA legend and pioneer Bill Russell had passed away at the age of 88.

Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell was a civil rights trailblazer, before, during and after his basketball career. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of ...

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Russell showed as much love and respect to younger players as they showed to him. Some, like Charles Barkley, referred to him simply as “Mr. Russell.”

And you finally got in the right uniform.” He also shared a special bond with Kevin Garnett, who in 2008 took the Celtics to their first N.B.A. finals since 1987. Russell led the Boston Celtics to 11 championships, seven of them with N.B.A. finals wins over the Lakers — and all of them colored in Celtics green. He looked at the group intently and pointed at each of them. “I think that you’re going to win at least two or three championships here,” Russell said. The statement mentioned Russell’s championships — two in high school, two in college, one in the Olympics and 11 in the N.B.A. — nodded to his personal accolades and highlighted his lifelong fight against racial discrimination. On Jan. 26, 2020, Bryant died in a helicopter crash with his daughter Gianna and seven other people. They marveled at his talent on the court, how he became the most feared defender of his era — a dominant force before blocks became an official statistic. It was a bit of a role reversal for Russell, who in his later years was usually the one delivering zingers. West played on six of those Lakers teams that lost to Russell’s Celtics, and the two became friends later in life. “Where did they find all these tall people?” Russell asked, onstage at an N.B.A. awards show in 2017. It was a day to celebrate Elgin Baylor, whom the Los Angeles Lakers had just honored with a statue outside their home arena.

One of basketball's great players has died. Bill Russell was a star with the Boston Celtics and won the most titles of any NBA player: 11.

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NBA legend Bill Russell, an 11-time NBA champion with the Boston Celtics and the first Black head coach in the league, passed away "peacefully" Sunday, ...

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. "The countless accolades that he earned for his storied career with the Boston Celtics -- including a record 11 championships and five MVP awards -- only begin to tell the story of Bill's immense impact on our league and broader society. As tall as Bill Russell stood, his legacy rises far higher -- both as a player and as a person. Our thoughts are with his family as we mourn his passing and celebrate his enormous legacy in basketball, Boston, and beyond." "Along the way, Bill earned a string of individual awards that stands unprecedented as it went unmentioned by him. "It is with a very heavy heart we would like to pass along to all of Bill's friends, fans, & followers," the statement reads.

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 ...

Thank you for all you did for us and this game. This is a teary-eyed Sunday knowing that we lost a legendary human being@RealBillRussellHis dedication to civil-rights, human-rights and the sport of basketball puts him beyond legendary status. Thank you for everything you have given to the game and all of us. My condolences and prayers to his family.pic.twitter.com/v2aHm5x4yt Was an absolute honor to spend time with#BillRussell. He was a walking encyclopedia. The ultimate leader and just happened to be one of the best hoopers ever! Thank you, Bill, for leading the way and giving us such a high bar to shoot at. My friend. My hero. RIP to an all-time winner, teammate and person. May he Rest in Power. Bill Russell was an inspiration to me in so many ways.

So many in the NBA community are paying tribute to the extraordinary life Russell led.

My condolences and prayers to his family.— Harrison Barnes (@hbarnes) pic.twitter.com/v2aHm5x4yt July 31, 2022 Thank you, Bill, for leading the way and giving us such a high bar to shoot at.— David Robinson (@DavidtheAdmiral) July 31, 2022 (3/4)— Boston Celtics (@celtics) July 31, 2022 I will forever remember his cackling laugh, sense of humor and love for the game of basketball.— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) pic.twitter.com/tLaK2gjlGa July 31, 2022 Since the day we met, he mentored me and shared advice.— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) July 31, 2022 This is a teary-eyed Sunday knowing that we lost a legendary human being— Robert Horry (@RKHorry) @RealBillRussellHis dedication to civil-rights, human-rights and the sport of basketball puts him beyond legendary status. Over the course of our friendship, he always reminded me about making things better in the Black community.— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) pic.twitter.com/K73adpaWZ4 July 31, 2022 He handled every adversity with dignity and grace, and walked away a champion. I looked up to him on the court and off. His success on the court was undeniable; he was dominate and great, winning 11 NBA championships. This is a loss being felt deeply across the world, particularly among current and former Celtics and the NBA community at large. Russell won an NBA record 11 NBA championships, including eight straight, over a 13-year career with the Boston Celtics -- the final two of which he served as Boston's head coach in addition to playing.

Basketball fans, athletes and elected leaders are mourning the death of Celtics great Bill Russell. The NBA legend and civil rights advocate died Sunday at ...

"He was the best." "My dad used to talk about him as just, the guy, how he was just this incredible player, and there was nobody like him," he said. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said she was devastated by the news. Gov. Charlie Baker called Russell the greatest of all time, as someone who broke barriers in both "the game of basketball and the game of life for Black athletes and Americans." "He put up with a lot in Boston, and he just kept on winning, kept on working at it, dedicated to the sport, just a good person," he said. "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."

Properly measuring the greatness of Bill Russell, the legendary Boston Celtics center who died Sunday at the age of 88, has always been a challenge in our ...

Sportswriters jeeringly referred to him as “ Felton X” for his role in the Black Power movement, and the abuse he received from Boston fans was epitomized in 1971 when a group of burglars broke into his Massachusetts house, spray-painted racist slurs, vandalized his trophy case and defecated in his bed. He endured untold abuse from fans, journalists and basketball organizations dating back to his years at San Francisco, and he developed a reputation as a cold, aloof person — rather than a happy warrior — because of his refusal to bow to racist forces both within the NBA and broader American society. And though the NBA’s record on racial diversity in coaching lags behind its reputation, Russell’s coaching success forced white front offices to realize that Black coaches could win, opening the door for a number of legends. After teammates Satch Sanders and Sam Jones were refused service at a coffee shop in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1961, Russell joined them in a boycott of a game against the Hawks. At the University of San Francisco, Russell led a program that had been below .500 before his arrival to national championships in 1955 and 1956, earning NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors in the first of those efforts and UPI Player of the Year honors in the second. Three years later, Russell was again at the center of a historic act of protest. And in Russell’s case, the championships say even more than the individual attributes. For one, Russell’s pioneering impact as a defender is still felt today, in an NBA that puts a premium on versatile and “switchable” big men. We once calculated that each of the five players who’d played for the best defenses in NBA history (relative to league average) were part of the Celtics’ dynasty, with Russell’s average team suppressing offense by a staggering 6.1 points per 100 possessions relative to league average. But as ring-counting has fallen out of style in favor of ever-more-sophisticated individual statistics, it can be hard to contextualize the legacy of a player who averaged 15.1 points per game, had no official numbers for his famous shot-blocking ability and did most of his winning in an NBA with fewer than 10 teams. Which was delayed by several months because Russell was 1 leading the U.S. to gold in the 1956 Summer Olympics (held in November and December because the host country, Australia, is in the Southern Hemisphere). easily its best, and they produced the league’s best record. And yet, in many ways, Russell created the NBA as we know it today.

The basketball legend, who died Sunday aged 88, was doggedly committed to using his platform to amplify his political actions, setting a template for ...

During his first championship run in 1957, Russell blocked Jack Coleman in the final minute of regulation in the deciding Game 7 to keep the Celtics in the game and allow them to eventually win the title. In 1961, he boycotted a game in Kentucky after a white waitress refused to serve two of his Black teammates at a coffee shop. He was subjected to racism throughout his career, even in Boston, the city he represented for 13 years: vandals once broke into his Massachusetts home and covered the walls with racist graffiti. During his 13 seasons in the league, he led the Boston Celtics to 11 NBA championships, including eight consecutive titles from 1959 to 1966. And yet, despite the outpouring of kind words in his memory, Russell may still be the most underappreciated icon in NBA history. To begin with, Russell is the winningest player in NBA history and it’s not even really close.

Rare was the working person around N.B.A. arenas these past few decades who never had an encounter with the majestic Bill Russell. On occasion, mostly a ...

I remember him telling me that by going to law school, I could be part of a generation that could build off what his generation had started, and effect change in a very different way.” In the book, Russell wrote that he and Auerbach had seldom socialized or delved into personal or social issues. While the contemporary best-ever debate is laser focused on Air Jordan versus King James, Russell’s contextualization of the argument only required flashing the ring he wore that 2007 day at the rookie transition program — a gift from the N.B.A. commissioner at the time, David Stern, commemorating all 11 of Russell’s titles. And of course, off the court, too, with his activism during the civil rights era.” “I tell all the kids — rich, poor, Black, white — that you must be your own counsel,” he told me. “He obviously had a big impact on me, as a center, always talking about blocking the shot but keeping it inbounds, things like that. I was a terrified young reporter for The New York Post in the late 1970s when my editor ordered me to “get Russell” for an assigned story. Russell nodded and said, “Wait outside for me.” So I parked myself in the first row of seats behind the broadcast table. “Quite true,” Russell responded in his gravelly voiced, meditative manner. I listened with fascination as Joakim Noah, a player of French, Swedish and Cameroonian descent, asked Russell if he felt underappreciated in racially polarized Boston despite winning 11 titles in 13 seasons, from 1957 through 1969. As I hopelessly stammered through my introduction, Russell looked up from a plate of food and said nothing. “He’s from Vecsey’s paper,” Cunningham told Russell, referring to Peter Vecsey, the widely known N.B.A. columnist.

The NBA icon built a legacy off the court as a voice for civil rights.

On the court, he was the greatest champion in basketball history. “I didn’t want to go to Mississippi. I was like anyone else. Charles Evers asked him if he’d be willing to visit the state and stage its first integrated basketball camp. His belief in equality and the stances he took helped create a pathway that athletes today continue to walk in. I was afraid I might get killed,” Russell would later write. “In the end, I live with the hopes that when I die it will be inscribed for me: Bill Russell. He was a man.” I called Eastern Airlines and ordered my ticket.” And it was Russell, Alcindor and Brown sitting beside Ali in Cleveland in 1967 when the boxer announced he was refusing induction into the U.S. military to fight in the Vietnam War. Russell didn’t just risk sullying his reputation, he put his life at risk in the wake of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi. Just days after Evers was slain, Russell reached out to the leader’s brother, Charles Evers. He wanted to inquire about what he could do to help. When former President Barack Obama presented Russell with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, he called it an example of how he “stood up for rights and dignity of all men.” In a time when Jim Crow laws in the South existed to silence the views of Black people, he was groomed to be an unapologetic thinker. Charles was about to drive off when the attendant pulled a gun and said, “Don’t you try that, boy, unless you want to get shot,” Russell recalled in his book.

Bill Russell goes up for a block against the Los Angeles Lakers. Russell playing for the Boston Celtics against the L.A. Lakers in 1963.Photograph ...

That he lived to be an uncontroversially beloved culture-hero—given the fires of those years, and given the pressures he so elegantly accepted—is one of history’s miracles, a dark but brightening irony that might have made him cough up one of his surprisingly high-pitched, cackling laughs. When he talked about his involvement with the civil-rights movement, he didn’t sound like a happy warrior or an eager activist—just a man who, by dint of his color and his status, had a job that he knew he couldn’t shirk. He loaned his presence, loaned that face and his voice, to help solve a problem he hadn’t caused. The cost and the substance of his greatness was total awareness, an impossible density of movement and thought. Say the guy in the middle has the ball and I want the guy on the left to take the shot. The fifties and sixties were excruciating years in America, and they became a social gantlet for Russell. He was big, smart, self-accepting, sometimes remote, rightly pissed—the kind of Black man who flips switches in the wrong kinds of minds. Part of it was the intelligence and rectitude of his playing style. The details of his devastating genius sound fake: his teams won eleven N.B.A. championships in thirteen seasons, and he won five M.V.P. awards, in a time when that award was decided by a vote among the players themselves—his helpless rivals, undoubtedly bitter at his stinginess with victory, found his greatness impossible to ignore. Over six-nine with long limbs and air-cutting speed, he offered his physical and mental gifts at the altar of defense. Russell’s gait was straighter, his hair darker, and his mien, at least in public, more consistently grave when, during the fifties and sixties, as a slim, graceful, brilliant center for the Boston Celtics, he unspooled a record of excellence unmatched in American organized sports. Many of his most far-fetched deeds were un-videotaped and therefore subject to the twin whims of memory and time. Or he grinned from the crowd at games or award shows, sometimes—well, surprisingly often—flipping a quick middle finger at his friends.

The NBA's all-time leading scorer pens a touching essay to the big man who influenced him on and off the court.

Abdul-Jabbar tapped music legend Chuck D (Public Enemy, Prophets of Rage), a prominent basketball fan in his own right, to draw the featured art for the essay. And I thought I saw in his eyes a recognition of someone, like him, who had a passion for the game that burned deep and hot and bright.” “He knew Ali could speak eloquently and passionately for himself, and that if we were open, we would see the truth in what he said. Abdul-Jabbar candidly describes how Russell influenced him off the court, notably by how he handled himself amid the Cleveland Summit—a group of mostly Black athletes tasked with judging the sincerity of boxing champion Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the U.S. Army for religious reasons. That it’s mostly disappointing, disillusioning, or disheartening,” Abdul-Jabbar writes in the essay. Abdul-Jabbar writes about being starstruck at age 14 when he first met Russell, whom he describes as his “childhood hero.”