Auerbach, pride of Celtics, dies
Pro basketball legend was 89
By Peter May, Globe Staff | October 29, 2006
Arnold "Red" Auerbach, who for more than half a century was the combative, competitive, and occasionally abrasive personification of pro basketball's greatest dynasty, the Boston Celtics, died yesterday in the Washington area. He was 89.
He died of a heart attack, the Associated Press reported, according to an NBA source who did not want to be identified.
In two decades of National Basketball Association coaching, Auerbach won 938 games, a record when he retired in 1966, as well as a record nine NBA championship titles, a number he shares with Phil Jackson. In those 20 years, 16 with the Celtics, Auerbach had only one losing season while winning almost two-thirds of his games.
Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1968 and, 12 years later, was recognized as the greatest coach in NBA history by the Professional Basketball Writers Association of America. That same year, 1980, he was inducted a second time into the Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to the game.
In 1996, he was honored on the 50th anniversary of the NBA as one of its greatest 10 coaches. His coaching achievement is recognized annually with the awarding of the Red Auerbach Trophy to the league's Coach of the Year. Auerbach himself won the award only once, in 1965. The award was named in his honor in 1967.
But Auerbach's genius extended well beyond his coaching. He moved into the Celtics' front office, starting in 1966, and by then already had shown his ability to judge talent with the acquisitions of future Hall of Famers such as Bill Russell, John Havlicek, and Sam Jones through trades or the NBA Draft. Later, as the team's general manager, he would engineer deals for Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and Dave Cowens -- all of whom also are in the Hall.
Proof of Auerbach's impact on the game as both a coach and talent evaluator is the number of his players who made it to the Hall of Fame (14) and the number of his players who became coaches (30), including eight of the 12 players on his 1962-63 championship team. Three of his players, Tom Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, and Don Nelson, later won Coach of the Year honors. Nelson won it three times.
He was also a social force in the NBA, drafting the league's first African-American player in 1950 in Chuck Cooper, hiring the first African-American head coach in pro sports in 1966 in Russell, and having five African-Americans as the Celtics' starting lineup in 1964, an NBA first. He was an international ambassador for the game as well, leading NBA teams on exhibition tours through Europe.
"I never thought he'd die," author John Feinstein, who last year collaborated with Auerbach on "Let Me Tell You A Story: A Lifetime In The Game," told the Associated Press. "He was a unique personality, a combination of toughness and great, great caring about people. He cared about people much more than it showed in his public face, and that's why people cared about him."
Auerbach was fiercely competitive, sometimes to the point of boorishness. It was Auerbach who would break out a celebratory cigar during Celtics home games -- never on the road -- when it was clear his team had won. He once had a writer's seat moved from the floor to an upper box at Boston Garden because of an unfavorable story. He ordered a complimentary mention of Cedric Maxwell to be excised from one of his books after he felt Maxwell betrayed him.
In 1984, Auerbach was invited to coach an old-timers team in the All-Star Game and was ejected for arguing with the officials. In his early years as the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern would joke to friends that he felt his real first name was "Stupid" because of all the conversations he had with Auerbach.
Whether it was tennis, racquetball, basketball, knowledge of Chinese cuisine, or simply having the final word, Auerbach was relentless. As former player agent Ron Grinker once said of Auerbach, "Red plays chess. The other general managers play checkers."
This was an excerpt from the Boston Globe story which I felt was too long for general interest.I saw the news that he died on ESPN just after I awoke...I cried, The Celtics were a large part of growing up sports in Mass.Auerbach was the master of the modern game...period.
At least he went of a heart attack sleeping, like my Dad did.They were alike in their insistence on hard work well done.This ethic is sorely lacking these days in our young people, by and large.May he R.I.P. TCBS BC
TCBS BC
