Red Arnold Auerbach
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by user Josh Q. Public
Josh Q. Public: Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.
Public Service Announcement:
First I was going to write about Joe Niekro. Knuckleballer. Emery board. Grew up on the same street with John Hondo Havlicek. Taught Tim Wakefield everything he knew. What’s not to like? Then I was going to write about Trevor Burbick. Wild story. At the age of 16 saw God. At the age of 51 dead in a church. At the age of 29, with cross and bible in hand, busts into Don Kings hotel room. Recites the 91st Psalm: “The Lord is on your side…Only thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.” At the age of 51, butchered, Lizzy Borden style. Olympian. World Champion. Last man to fight Ali.
Then this. I didn’t see it coming. Arnold Red Auerbach. I’ve been singing his praises all week. I’ve been singing about all his disciples coaching in the NBA. I’ve been singing about his place in the fight against racism. I’ve been singing about his desire to win. But somehow, none of it prepared me for this. Red Auerbach dead. Wednesday will be the first season opener in NBA history without the redhead. As far as the Celtics have been concerned, we’ve always held out hope. We knew Red was there. It gave us comfort. Made us feel secure. This is truly the end of an era. In the upcoming days and weeks, you’re going to be hearing a lot about Red. I don’t feel I can write anything that would do him any justice. So, instead of me talking about Red, I’ll let Red do the talking.
Red on Winning:
I’ll tell you why I’m doing it, because this is one 62-year-old man who still wants to win. And you want to know something else? I like the feeling. When you lose that, baby, it’s time to go home.
There’s no substitute for winning, that’s the bottom line. When you win, you’re a genius, regardless of what it took.
They say that losing comes easier as you grow older. But losing keeps getting harder for me. I just can’t take it like I used to. It’s time for me to step out.
If your keeping score, win.
The hardest thing to do is win it the second time.
There are ways to gain an edge. I’ll give you an example: If you’re playing against a fast-breaking team, you put new nets up so the ball won’t go through quick. It hangs up. In kickball, you water the field the night before; or you let the grass grow. In hockey, you make soft ice if you’re playing against a fast team. In baseball, you raise or lower the pitcher’s mound according to your pitcher, not their pitcher.
If they think we got an edge, we got an edge.
You don’t kiss your enemy! You see, theoretically, if I’m playing against you, if you make me look bad and I get fired, you’re my enemy. That means you’re taking the food out of my mouth, out of my family’s mouth. So as long as you’re my enemy, let’s be enemies! I saw a game the other night, after it was over, guys from both teams were hugging each other…We never did that! Until the game was over, we were fighting for our life! We zoomed right into the dressing room afterward.
Red on Coaching:
Some coaches have to show every day that they’re in control. That’s a sign of weakness in my book.
I never missed a practice or a game in 20 years. There was no such thing as a day off. It was tough.
I was a coach who listened. I had guys when I was coaching who were in their thirties, like Cousy, Havlicek, Russell, all those guys. They were very bright. I’ve got to be stupid, as a coach, not to utilize their intelligence.
I don’t ever want a guy to say to me, when I tell him to do something, “Why?”
You play as you practice. (Are you listening AI?)
Eighty percent of the announcers who do color on TV are fired coaches. If they were such experts, why’d they get fired?
Look after your people.
You know what bothers me? All these ballplayers, they all want to play for contenders. That’s bullshit. You play where you’re playing and do the best you can and let things work out. It’s like coaches. When you get a good coach, whether it be a Phil Jackson or somebody else, what the hell does it take to have a ready-made ball club that’s star-studded?
(More Phil Jackson) Phil is obviously a good coach. You don’t win that many games without being a damn good coach…Remember one thing: He’s been very fortunate. He picks his spots. That’s all I can say.
It’s a great feeling to be the coach of the best team in the world.
They said you have to use your five best players; but I found you win with the five who fit together the best.
Spread the credit when you win. Take the blame when you lose.
Red on Bill Russell:
This is a guy who made shot-blocking an art. Today, there are very few people who know how to block shots like he did. They like to smack it away into the stands. Russ kept the ball in play and I’d say 75 percent of the time, we came up with the ball.
Bill was an emotional guy with a great mind. You could fool him once, but you’d never fool him twice.
There’s no player today who compares to Bill Russell. As great as Shaq is, it would have been interesting to have Chamberlain knock bodies with him; or Russell blocking all his shots. See? Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, John Havlicek, shoot! I mean, John Stockton is a hell of a player, but I don’t take him ahead of Cousy.
I had to have somebody who could get me the ball. I’d been tipped off about Russell by my college coach, Bill Reinhart. Bill said Russell was the greatest defensive player and greatest rebounder he’d ever seen.
Nobody had ever blocked shots in the pros before Russell came along. He upset everybody.
Red On Racism:
Black, white, or whatever, we didn’t give a damn. If you could play, you could play, and that’s the way we were.
Adolph Rupp was no racist. Yes, he hated black players. He also hated white players and green players, if they couldn’t play.
To me, a person always has been a person, whether he could play or couldn’t play, regardless of his religion or color. If he were better than the next guy, hey, he should play.
Red On the Celtics Mystique:
Paul Silas had been in the league for about eight or nine years, and we got him in a trade. And after about four months in Boston, he came over to me and he says, “You know, I’d like to say something to you, Coach.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “When I was in Phoenix, I always felt that the Celtic mystique and pride was a bunch of crap.” He said, “I want you to know that it’s the greatest thing I ever saw, and I want you to know that I’m happy to be a part of it.” That gave me a great, great thrill.
Individual honors are nice, but no Celtic has ever gone out of his way to achieve them. We have never had the league’s top scorer. In fact, we won seven league championships without placing even one among the league’s top 10 scorers. Our pride was never rooted in statistics.
One thing is that our players always were happy. We treated them as people. That was the Celtic mystique, or pride, or whatever you call it. We have a history of taking care of our own. For example, Cousy and Tom Heinsohn are our TV announcers. Rick Weitzman is a scout. Dennis Johnson is a scout. M.L. Carr is our community relations guy. We hired Dave Cowens to teach the big men. All our coaches, except two, Bill Fitch and Jimmy Rodgers, have been Celtics. Hey, Larry Bird is in the front office now. As a result, we got a reputation: If you play in Boston, and keep your nose clean, the Celtics will take care of you.
Red On Wilt Chamberlain:
Chamberlain was the most unbelievable physical specimen ever. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do on the basketball court. One year he scored fifty points a game. Another year he led the league in assists. He was so strong it was frightening. But there was one thing he couldn’t do. He couldn’t beat us. Just couldn’t do it. Russell wore him out, running up and down the court, and you (Sam Jones ) you drove him crazy. Remember how we ran that pick-and-roll play, where Russell would feed you the ball and Chamberlain had to switch? He’d always get there just as you released the shot, and you, you sonofabitch, you’d say in that high-pitched voice of yours, ‘Too late.’ And you made the shot every time.
Red On the Fans:
A Guy jumps out at me screaming in my face that the Celtics get away with murder, that I stole the game by intimidating the referees. He won’t get out of my way. So finally I just popped him in the nose. Knocked him down and kept walking.
I don’t sit in the (luxury) boxes with all that food and all that stuff in there…I like to hear what the people say, even at my age. I like to see if there’s any bitching and moaning during the games.
Red on Role Players:
That’s a player who willingly undertakes the thankless job that has to be done in order to make the whole package fly.
Red On All His Disciples Coaching in the NBA:
It gives you the feeling that the Celtics stood for something that the other owners appreciated. And that’s why a lot of these guys were hired. It stands for integrity, teamwork, pride. It’s so many things. It’s a mystique.
Red On The Internet:
I never bought into that whole Internet thing. I don’t even own a fax machine.
Red On Rick Pitino:
I knew right from the beginning that he was headed for the pile. I respect him, he’s a helluva coach, he really is…but he didn’t like Rick Fox! He didn’t like David Wesley. He didn’t like Danny Fortson. You know what I mean…we differed on a lot of things. But that was his opinion as the CEO, so he made the moves. Hey, he’s where he belongs. He’s a great college coach.
Pitino, he sold them a bill of goods. They didn’t consult me on Pitino. He’s a hell of a coach in college, but I never would’ve OK’d what they gave him. The money was way out of whack. We could have gotten him for half of that.
Red on Reggie and Len Bias:
The bad break of it all was that the league never gave us a chance to recover from Reggie Lewis. Forget about Bias, they never gave us a pick or anything to recover from that, but they could have given us cap money to use for Reggie. They made us carry his salary on our cap for three years. Three! Today, they changed that rule. They realized how shabbily they treated us. When you lose two All-Star players and get nothing back…just think about that. Go to New Jersey and take away Kidd and Van Horn. Where the hell would they be?
People don’t realize how good he (Bias) was, unless they saw him play. One of the early guys that was 6-foot-8 and could really run. I used to know him before it happened. Lefty Driesell was a good friend, still is.
He (Bias) was not a drug user. That’s why he died, he didn’t know how to use them! We tested him out a week before…So did a lot of other teams. He passed three physicals from three teams.
Red On the Parquet Floor:
The whole thing was a myth. People thought not only that there were dead spots, but that we knew where every one was, and we could play accordingly. Now, did you ever watch a ballplayer go up and down the court at that speed and pick out a dead spot? If our players worried about that, thinking that’s going to help them win, they’re out of their cotton-picking mind. But if the other team thought that: Hey, good for us.
Red On John Y. Brown:
I told him he had two weeks to sell the team or I was gone. I told him there was no way I was going to work for him anymore. That’s when he sold the team to Harry Mangurian. This was right after I almost took the job with the Knicks. I actually had accepted the Knick offer and was going to take the job when I changed my mind.
Peace out homies. Rest in peace Red. Six Two and Even! Josh Q. Public
