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 American sport — and marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr., died Sunday. He was 88 years old.
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 will relive one or two of the golden moments he gave us, or remember his signature laugh as he delighted in recounting the true story. behind how these moments unfolded,” the family’s statement said.
“And we hope that each of us can find a new way to act or speak to Bill’s uncompromising, dignified and always constructive commitment to principles. This would be a final and lasting victory for our beloved .6.”
An announcement… pic.twitter.com/KMJ7pG4R5Z
—@RealBillRussell
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that Russell was “the greatest champion in all of team sports.”
“Bill represented something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that he branded into the DNA of our league. At the height of his sports career, Bill vigorously championed the civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed on to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps,” Silver said. “Through taunts, threats and unthinkable adversity, Bill rose above it all and stayed 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 NBA history by the basketball writers. He remains the sport’s most prolific scorer 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 match for Russell.
But Russell dominated in the only statistic that mattered to him: 11 championships to two.
‘He left with King; was with Ali’
The Louisiana native also made a lasting mark as a black athlete in a city — and a country — where race is often a flashpoint. He was at the March on Washington in 1963 when King gave his “I have a dream” speech, and supported Muhammad Ali when the boxer was accused of refusing to be drafted.
“Being the greatest champion in your sport, revolutionizing the way the game is played and being a leader in society at the same time seems unthinkable, but that’s 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 remained focused on making better players out of the teammates he loved. and made possible the success of so many who would follow.”
Russell said that growing up in the segregated South and later in California, his parents instilled in him a quiet confidence that allowed him to avoid racist taunts.
“Years later, people asked me why it had to happen,” Russell said in 2008. “Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’ve never been through anything. From my first moment of life it was the idea that the my mother and father loved. me.” It was Russell’s mother who told him to ignore the comments of those who might see him playing in the yard.
“No matter what they say, good or bad, they don’t know you,” she recalled him saying. “They fight their own demons.”
But it was Jackie Robinson who gave Russell a road map for tackling racism in his sport: “Jackie was a hero to us. He always acted like 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 him and asked him to be a pallbearer at her husband’s funeral in 1972.
“She hung up the phone and I was like, ‘How do you get to be a hero to Jackie Robinson?'” Russell said. “I was so flattered.”
William Felton Russell was born on February 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 to the University of San Francisco. He led the Dons to NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956 and won a gold medal in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
Bill Russell won a record 11 NBA championships and won five MVP awards. He is one of four players named to all four NBA Anniversary Teams (25th, 35th, 50th and 75th).
More information about his extraordinary career ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/YWShOei3Mo
—@NBAPR
Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach coveted Russell so much that he traded with the St. Louis Hawks for the second pick in the draft. He promised the Rochester Royals, who own the No. 1 pick, a lucrative visit from the Ice Capades, who were also managed by Celtics owner Walter Brown.
Still, Russell arrived in Boston to complain that he wasn’t that good. “People said it was a wasted draft pick, wasted money,” he recalled. “They said, ‘It’s not good. All he can do is block shots and rebound.” And Red said, ‘That’s enough.’
The Celtics also picked up Russell’s college teammate Tommy Heinsohn and KC Jones in the same draft. Even though Russell was a late addition to the team as he was leading the U.S. to Olympic gold, Boston finished the regular season with the best record in the league.
The Celtics won the NBA championship, the first of 17, in a seventh game of double overtime against the St. Louis Hawks by Bob Pettit. Russell won his first MVP award the following season, but the Hawks won the title in a rematch of the Finals. The Celtics won it again in 1959, starting an unprecedented streak 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 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 nearly a decade before Frank Robinson took over the Cleveland Cavaliers Baseball Indians Boston finished with the second best regular season record in the NBA, and their title streak ended with a loss to Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers in the East Division Finals.
Russell led the Celtics to back-to-back titles in 1968 and ’69, winning seven-game playoff series against Chamberlain each time. Russell retired after the ’69 Finals, returning for a relatively successful but unsatisfying four-year stint as coach and general manager 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, the 35th Anniversary Team in 1980 and the 75th Anniversary Team . In 1996, he was hailed as one of the 50 best players in the NBA. In 2009, the NBA Finals MVP trophy was named in his honor, although Russell never won it himself, as it was not first awarded until 1969.
In 2013, a statue was unveiled in Boston City Hall’s Russell Square surrounded by granite blocks with quotes about 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 at a private gathering. “I felt that others before me should have had this honor,” he tweeted. “It’s good to see progress.”
Silver said he “called often [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 arrangements for Russell’s memorial service will be announced in the coming days.