Just months before the season took an unexpected turn into chaos, the extended Boston Celtics family gathered for a celebration of another championship. The event, a few blocks from historic Boston landmarks tied to the team, brought together the witnesses and key figures who had shaped the city`s basketball legacy. An almost magical atmosphere filled the room, charged with the weight of history. Dignitaries, current stars like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, journalists, and past legends mingled. “The connection is family,” remarked Red Auerbach’s youngest daughter, Randy. “It’s part of our DNA.”
The occasion was the premiere of an HBO documentary series, “Celtics City,” tracing Boston`s history through its legendary basketball team. Sam Cassell, a champion as both a player and assistant coach, connected with multiple generations of Celtics personnel. “This is a lifestyle!” he later declared. “Being a Celtic is a lifestyle!”
The gleaming 2024 Larry O’Brien Trophy was displayed prominently, a focal point for photos and shared moments of pride. Owner Wyc Grousbeck joined in cherishing the recent glory, even as the team focused on securing a second consecutive title. Jayson Tatum embodies this central challenge for the modern Celtics: honoring the illustrious past while relentlessly pursuing future success. Professional athletes strive for a future so brilliant it guarantees immortality, but in Boston, this ambition is complicated. Tradition provides strength, but also carries immense pressure.
When Wyc Grousbeck purchased the Celtics in 2002, he found a franchise fractured by internal conflict, with Red Auerbach marginalized. One of Grousbeck`s first actions was to visit Auerbach and reinstate him as team president. For over two decades, Grousbeck led the team guided by a simple question: What would Red do? He built the future and won two titles by drawing on the wisdom of the past. This era was potentially drawing to a close. Due to his father`s age and estate planning needs, the team, Grousbeck`s passion, was reportedly on the market. The impending sale and the constraints of the NBA`s new collective bargaining agreement, designed to prevent dynasties, added urgency. The current team, having reached two Finals and won one, faced a ticking clock. At the HBO premiere, Grousbeck encountered Mal Graham, a retired judge and two-time Celtics champion from the dynasty era. They shared a moment, comparing their championship rings – Grousbeck`s from 2024, Graham`s from 1969 – a symbolic joining of eras.
“Last back-to-back,” someone nearby commented quietly. This was a striking reminder. Despite their mythology built on perpetual success, the Celtics have not won back-to-back championships since 1969, Bill Russell`s final season. Nine different franchises have achieved consecutive titles since then. Winning multiple titles in a row is central to the Celtics` identity, yet legends from Larry Bird and Kevin McHale to John Havlicek and Jo Jo White, and Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, all fell short of repeating.
The 2024-25 season was meant to be Jayson Tatum`s opportunity to break this half-century-long streak.
The Living Link to the Dynasty
Only two men remain from that legendary era: Bob Cousy, 96, and Satch Sanders, 86. They are the last survivors of the founding fathers of Celtics culture, not just Russell`s teammates, but the champions, the men with the rings – Cousy with six, Sanders with eight (matching Havlicek, Heinsohn, and K.C. Jones). Sam Jones had ten, and Bill Russell, eleven. Their numbers hang in the rafters, their photos adorn old Boston establishments, and their presence is tangible around the team and in the arena. Fans still wear their jerseys; their names are regularly invoked, almost like liturgy.
“Luckily, we still have Satch and Bob,” noted Celtics President of Basketball Operations, Brad Stevens.
“Cooz,” is the affectionate term Randy Auerbach uses.
“Every time Bob Cousy calls, I jump,” admitted long-time Celtics PR man Jeff Twiss.
“I literally tried to think what would Red do, what would Bob do, what would Bill Russell do,” Grousbeck stated last year, highlighting their enduring influence.
Joe Kennedy, RFK`s son and JFK`s nephew, also shared a deep connection: “I knew John Havlicek as well as I knew anybody.”
“I worked with Satch at the NBA,” said Chris Havlicek. “Mr. Cousy I’ve known since the day I was born.”
Cousy typically leaves his house only for his routine Thursday night cocktail and pizza at his country club. “I have my two Beefeater on the rocks,” he quipped.
He and Sanders communicate about once a month.
“Satch is having hard times,” Cousy shared, his voice full of warmth. “His wife has been in hospice for over a month… Ginnie is about ready to leave us. I haven’t spoken to him in a few weeks. I remind him not to look over his shoulder. We’re the only two freaking guys left!”
Much of their conversation involves dark humor about mortality. Cousy references the “big basketball court in the sky.” The quiet anticipation of loss is ever-present. As noted in Marcus Thompson II`s book on NBA dynasties, “What was evident then… was how the grains of sand in their hourglasses were dwindling.”
“You’re not going anyplace,” Satch teased his friend last year. “You’re only 95.”
“But I’m in a wheelchair now,” Cousy replied.
“Cooz, that happens.”
A Visit with Satch Sanders
Satch Sanders greeted me in the lobby of his retirement community, where he mentioned being the sole Black resident among 300, and the only former Boston Celtic. The staff clearly adored him. As we walked towards his apartment, passing a billiards table, he spoke softly, “My wife just died two months ago.”
“I’m really sorry, sir,” I offered.
He smiled faintly. “We all fall in that group,” he said, “particularly in a place like this.”
A room down the hall with blue walls features photographs of residents who have passed away. Four new pictures had been added just that week. “The guys always joke about a picture in the blue room,” he shared. “The women act a little more serious. We were five years here. That’s a long run. I know some people who are moving in and I’m saying to myself, how long will they last?”
Leading me down a long corridor, he turned and continued until we reached his door. African masks hung on the wall – his wife believed it important to bring things they cherished when they downsized. A sign she`d hung read, “Two old crabs live here.”
“Time to take that down,” he murmured.
He hadn`t attended his wife`s funeral, nor Bill Russell`s. “Funerals are always…” he trailed off. Years ago, he stopped going. For a man whose life has been described by strangers, a eulogy held little meaning. He didn`t want to hear well-meaning words about his friend being in a better place or his wife looking good in her casket. “She looked better when she was alive,” he stated simply.
“Being alive is important,” he emphasized. “Being dead… is… gone. It’s being gone.”
His apartment was filled with light. He raised the blinds, looking out at the cottages. His wife, Gin, used to say they resembled postcards in winter, dusted with snow. A framed piece of the old Garden`s parquet floor hung on the wall. His wife`s medical records sat in a tall stack on the table, little use now. Near his chair were a red 3-pound weight and a black 5-pound weight.
“Just kick some pillows out of the way,” he said, shrugging. He makes pillows as a hobby.
“Something to do, you know?” he chuckled softly.
I inquired about the recent losses within his basketball family. “I don’t answer calls when people start out with, ‘Did you know?…’ ‘Did you know’ is always gonna be followed up with, ‘He died.’”
He sighed twice. “Did any of the deaths really hit you differently?” I asked.
“Chamberlain,” he replied instantly. “We always saw him as being so big and so strong.”
“What about Bill Russell?” Sanders shook his head.
“Russell was human,” he said.
Uncertainty and the Legacy`s Weight
After following the Celtics` repeat attempt for almost a year, I flew to Boston during what felt like the potential final days of a promising season. Some seasons build, some hold on, and some witness things slip away. This year, Boston experienced all three simultaneously, and the end seemed near. In the preceding week, they had squandered significant double-digit leads (20, 20, and 14 points) to fall behind 1-3 against the resurgent Knicks. In the final minutes of the last loss, Jayson Tatum suffered a terrifying injury to his right Achilles. The season, though technically still alive, felt secondary as Boston awaited news on Tatum`s condition.
On the plane, I texted with Karen Russell, Bill`s daughter, whom I’d met at the HBO party. We chatted about her visits to K.C. Jones’ daughter in Atlanta for Southern food and discussed Tatum`s injury. An Achilles injury would likely sideline him for the entire following season. Karen, protective by nature, tried to remain hopeful before the official diagnosis. “I’m struggling to not be worried,” she shared.
A somber blue cloud of uncertainty hung over the franchise. How long would Tatum be out? Would he recover completely? When would the team sale finalize? New owners would inevitably want to mold the team. Furthermore, the NBA`s collective bargaining agreement had imposed a de facto deadline on the current roster for a year now. It felt like a doomsday clock, and when Tatum fell, the minute hand leaped towards midnight. Simultaneously, with Cousy at 96 and Sanders at 86, the living connection between the uncertain present and the glorious past felt thinner and more vulnerable than ever.
The next morning, with eight hours until Game 5, I visited a quarter piece of an old Boston artifact, preserved by Ted Tye, a Celtics season-ticket holder and businessman. It was a section of the scoreboard that hung in the old Garden during Bill Russell`s final two championship runs – their last back-to-back titles. After the Garden was demolished, the scoreboard spent years in a suburban mall food court, blending into the background among fast-food vendors. When that mall was also torn down, a foreman called Tye in a panic. “We’re about to destroy the scoreboard,” he warned.
“Just stop,” Tye instructed. He collected pieces of Boston history, so he had the scoreboard dismantled and moved to a warehouse. It sat there for years, stripped of its complex electrical systems, a mere shell. Eventually, he installed one side in a new building on the former site of the Boston Herald offices, visible to cars on the adjacent elevated freeway. The original bulbs were replaced with electronic panels displaying the date and time: May 14, 11:29 a.m.
This scoreboard, installed in 1967, was hanging overhead the last time Tye saw his father alive, at a Celtics game in 1989. Watching the HBO series, Tye paused the screen and recognized himself and his late father sitting directly behind Red Auerbach. The Celtics are deeply interwoven into his life, and like many in the city, Tye was concerned about Tatum. “That’s a tough injury,” he said. “You don’t know if Brad Stevens is gonna break it all up now.”
Raising Banner 18
The Second Quarter
On October 22, 2024, the Boston Celtics received their championship rings and raised the franchise`s 18th banner. It was the season opener, unusually warm for the city. Bob Cousy arrived hours early, chauffeured by the team. VIPs waited in a tent, where the Massachusetts governor, who had worn Cousy’s No. 14 in basketball, expressed her pride. The arena filled, the tent emptied. Cousy waited in the tunnel in a wheelchair. Celtics PR veteran Jeff Twiss wheeled him out when given the cue. Cousy looked up at him. “Don’t f— this up,” he joked.
Former champions emerged onto the court, introduced like royalty. “Six-time NBA champion, No. 14, Bob Cousy!” Twiss guided Cousy to center court through a line of fans and dignitaries. Bob waved to the cheering crowd. He is the only living player to have witnessed the raising of both the first and the most recent Celtics banners. As Dan Shaughnessy later wrote, “Cousy played with John Havlicek, who played with Cedric Maxwell, who played with Kevin McHale, who played with Rick Fox, who played with Antoine Walker, who played with Paul Pierce, who played with Avery Bradley, who played with Jaylen Brown.”
Cedric Maxwell followed, representing titles from the 1980s. Then came three members of the 2008 championship team: Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and “with the 2024 Larry O’Brien Trophy, The Truth, No. 34, Paul Pierce!” Pierce proudly spun the trophy. KG pounded his chest, hidden behind dark sunglasses. They gathered as Adam Silver presented the rings. Jaylen Brown rested an arm on Bob Cousy’s wheelchair. Jayson Tatum stood on Cousy’s other side, an arm around Ray Allen.
Silver announced that this title elevated the Celtics past the Lakers with 18 championships to 17, prompting a loud clap from KG that echoed into the microphone. “Eighteen banners,” Silver said, looking up, then towards Bob, before continuing. “And of course, six of those rings belong to Bob Cousy!” The crowd responded with a deep roar of “COOZ,” which might sound like boos to the uninitiated. The ceremony concluded. Twiss wheeled Cousy back beneath the arena. He slipped into a waiting car, heading home to watch the game.
As the car drove through the streets, the world outside the arena felt unfamiliar to him. Where had the old Boston Garden stood? Was it here, or a block away? Cousy gazed out the window, leaving the cheering crowd behind. “I’ve had my moment in the sun,” he reflected.
More Time with Satch
Satch recounted a story about Cousy and the future King of England. Years ago, Prince William and Kate planned to attend a Celtics game in Boston. The team wanted to show the utmost respect and asked Bob Cousy to travel the 47 miles from his home. Cousy called Satch. “Are you going?” he asked. “I’m not going,” Satch replied. “Well, I’m not going either,” Cousy declared. The team intervened, emphasizing to Sanders, “You’re the youngest of the two.”
“So I went,” Satch told me. “Did Cooz go?” Satch laughed. “No, he didn’t go.” Satch attended and spoke with the royals, who seemed most fascinated by his size 18 shoes. “Mah GAWD!” he exclaimed, mimicking a British accent.
He shifted slowly in his seat. I asked about the experience of aging. He smiled in a way I found unsettling. “How old are you?” he inquired. “Forty-eight,” I said. “What do you wish someone had told you at 48?”
“Just being real about this is the best you’re gonna be,” he stated. “Things aren’t getting better. You are deteriorating slowly but surely. The hope is you’re gonna be around for a fair amount of time and feel pretty good, but the odds are against it. You’re probably gonna suffer with the things older people suffer with. Legs aren’t what they used to be. Sleepless nights. Friends and people dying.” Born in 1938, his father in 1905, his maternal grandfather in 1870, his maternal great-grandfather, James, born enslaved without a last name in 1830.
“Understand that it’s a diminishing returns situation. You’re not gonna get better like fine wine. People like to use those old sayings.”
“Getting older is losing… being less than.”
“Less than you were,” he repeated. “You know?”
Photos adorned the wall, including one he cherished showing Wilt Chamberlain about to posterize him. Another captured him in a confident, Magic Johnson-like stride, bringing the ball upcourt, dappled in light. His eyes in the photo searched, likely for Russell. A smile crossed Sanders` face remembering. “What of that guy still exists?” I asked. He walked over to the photo, his knees popping like Rice Krispies. He grinned softly as he recalled the moment. “That guy,” he said with a laugh. The photo hung near tall wooden elephant statues and a cat figurine his wife loved. The first thing he noticed was his apparent happiness in the picture. He laughed again, recalling his dribbling wasn`t how the team`s offense was designed. “Auerbach is probably on the side crying the blues,” he speculated.
In the photo, he wore a thigh brace. He thought the referee was Willie Smith and the defender looked like Wayne Hightower. “But anyway, I know Auerbach is wishing I’d give up the ball.” Sanders looked back at me. “I could handle the ball,” he insisted.
Soon, he was moving to a smaller apartment. “It’s less expensive,” he explained. There was a long pause. “And, um,” he said before another pause, “If I stay here, I’m thinking about her all the time.”
Each month, he writes a column for the community newsletter, called “Satch`s Corner.” They are quite humorous. Writing is his main hobby now, along with making pillows and watching the Celtics on television. His former neighbors often bring their grandchildren and great-grandchildren to meet the only celebrity in the complex. “You’re that basketball player,” they say, pointing at the photo on the wall. Nobody wants to know the 86-year-old man in front of them; they want to know the man captured on the wall.
Brotherhood and Personalities
Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, college roommates, remained close friends. Satch Sanders learned that Cousy would curse at you in French if you missed one of his passes. Tommy Heinsohn discovered that Cousy often woke screaming from chronic nightmares, sometimes even sleepwalking, driven by the pressure of superstardom. A few of them, including Cousy, swiped matchbooks bearing the presidential seal during a White House visit. President Kennedy, hearing his hometown team was there, rushed to meet them. As they said goodbye one by one, Satch Sanders grew flustered and, reaching the president, blurted out, “Take it easy, baby.” Kennedy roared with laughter, as did the Celtics, who teased Satch about it for years.
They played gin rummy or hearts on turboprop planes, often Russell, Heinsohn, and Cousy. On a goodwill tour behind the Iron Curtain, they convinced two Polish coaches to dress as secret police with fake badges and pretend to arrest Heinsohn, who was completely fooled and chain-smoked until Cousy and Auerbach revealed the prank, bursting into laughter.
Russell once walked into the locker room wearing a cape. “Here comes Batman!” Cousy quipped.
Few teams have been chronicled like the Celtics of the 1950s and `60s. Gary Pomerantz’s book on Cousy and Russell, The Last Pass, is a definitive work. Bill Russell wrote three memoirs. These books and dozens of others portray a specific time and place, and a deep brotherhood that endured long after their playing days. They didn`t always agree, but they loved each other.
Their lives were intricately linked. Sam Jones jokingly “brainwashed” Bill Russell’s son, Buddha, into declaring Sam his favorite player. Russell loved lifting one of Cousy’s daughters high and shouting, “Hey, little Cooz!” Sanders frequently lost his contact lenses, once stopping a game as ten players crawled on the court searching for it. Bill Russell, of course, found it. “Here, Satch,” he announced triumphantly. “Do I have to do everything on this team?”
Heinsohn was the team`s glue. He’d sit with radio man Johnny Most late at night in hotel lobbies, listening to Most’s stories as a B-24 gunner in World War II. Everyone respected Heinsohn. During one Finals, he confronted Wilt Chamberlain. “Do that one more time and I’ll knock you on your ass,” Wilt threatened. Heinsohn stood his ground. “Bring your f—— lunch,” he retorted.
K.C. Jones would sing whenever he could. Satch could do an excellent Russell impression. Russell received good-natured teasing for getting his low-slung Lamborghini stuck in the snow. One night, Cousy and Heinsohn shared a drink with Lauren Bacall at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel bar. Tall and striking, she wore a perfume of roses and blackcurrants. Noticing Cousy`s gym bag, she snatched it, dramatically pulled out a jock strap, and playfully tossed it across the bar at him. He dodged it and threw the “smelly projectile” back.
On the road, Cousy’s seniority and fame afforded him a large suite, which often became his solitary world. Heinsohn, conversely, enjoyed painting watercolors, often looking out from his hotel window. This team was composed of unique, fascinating individuals. Russell was an avid reader; the book that most affected him was a biography of the complex Haitian revolutionary Henri Christophe, who built a fort to defend Black people from enslavers. The fort, a rare monument in the Western Hemisphere built by a Black man, and especially that phrase, deeply resonated with Russell.
Cousy also devoured books: histories, novels, memoirs like Theodore H. White`s The Making of the President 1960 and To Kill a Mockingbird, the latter moving him profoundly. Sometimes, Heinsohn could coax Bob out for a drink. Like Russell, Cousy was a complex, private person, bearing deep emotional scars from his impoverished and violent upbringing. He’d murmur to himself in French all night, his subconscious never finding peace. As Russell wrote, “In later years, as the pressure built up, Cousy went through the torture that only a superstar can really know… lonely nights, horrible hotel rooms, and nightmares. There is the story Cousy tells about his nightmares and sleepwalking that got so bad he eventually had to tie himself to his bed… he once got out of bed stark naked and wound up dashing himself against trees as he ran from his frightening dream – and this was offseason.”
Russell and Cousy: On Court and Off
On the court, everything centered around Russell. While most NBA players trapped defensively would yell “Help,” Russell’s Celtics shouted “RUSS!” Every offensive play started with an entry pass to him. Yet, outside the team, much of the acclaim went to the flamboyant and famous Cousy.
Reporters and fans attributed Celtic victories to Cousy – his genius, his talent, his leadership. For years, the press tried to provoke him into making negative remarks about Russell, but he consistently refused. To much of the public, the white star in Boston was the center of the basketball universe, with the Black star revolving around him. Reporters wrote glowing pieces about Cousy, crowding him in the locker room, which hurt Russell.
He never forgot being passed over for Most Valuable Player in Northern California after leading his college team to a national title, despite their 55-game winning streak. Forty years later, simply mentioning the name Ken Sears could still provoke a reaction. So, while he acknowledged Cousy`s greatness, he resented the way he was lionized. As Russell wrote, “I would get things like this: You’ve blocked fourteen shots, scored twenty-three points and grabbed thirty-one rebounds against somebody like Chamberlain and the Celtics are now one up in the Eastern finals and you come out of the dressing room door and someone says: ‘Let me shake your hand. I’ve just shaken the hand of the greatest basketball player in the world, Bob Cousy. Now, I want to shake the hand of the second greatest.’”
The season Russell played without Cousy, the Celtics` attendance dropped by 1,500 fans per game.
As teammates, their conversations largely focused on basketball, little else. Cousy read news of Russell`s outspoken views on racism in Boston and America but didn`t discuss them with him. “He went his way and I went mine,” Russell admitted. Pomerantz suggested Cousy was too preoccupied with being Bob Cousy to fully engage with Russell`s experiences with racism. If Russell found it hard to move beyond surface-level discussions with Cousy, Cousy struggled to go deeper too. Both would later admit to profound loneliness, spending thousands of days side-by-side yet never truly understanding each other.
Pomerantz compared them to baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, noting, “The problem was… they both really wanted to be Ruth.”
Bob Cousy Day
Cousy`s playing career concluded in 1963 with “Bob Cousy Day” on St. Patrick`s Day, an event sometimes called “St. Cousy Day on Bob Patrick Day,” reflecting its significance in the city`s Irish community. Cousy arrived alone, entering the stadium through a passage from his hotel, only to find the arena door locked. He knocked for minutes before a cleaning crew member inquired who was pounding so hard. “One of the players,” Cousy replied.
A microphone descended from the rafters, and a wooden lectern was set up. Chairs were placed on the court for the Cousy family. Owner Walter Brown presented gifts: a sterling silver tea set and a 1963 Cadillac. Red Auerbach read a letter from President John F. Kennedy, stating that wherever basketball was played, the rhythmic movement of the ball between teammates would serve as a memorial to Bob Cousy. When Auerbach hugged him, a fragile emotional dam within Cousy broke. He began to sob, burying his head in Red`s shoulder. The team`s founder and owner, Walter Brown, spoke next.
He recalled the franchise`s early struggles. “Things always weren’t so good with the Celtics,” Brown said. “One year, things were so bad I couldn’t pay them their playoff money. Bob never said a word.” Brown credited Cousy`s commitment, and that of his teammates, with keeping the team afloat, even when he had to mortgage his house and sell furniture. Their grace secured the franchise`s future, benefiting generations from Russell and Bird to Tatum.
Cousy spoke last, placing his notes on the podium. His wife and daughters joined him at center court, the girls holding flowers. He fought back tears from the start. Looking at the silent crowd, he sniffled into the microphone. “Mere words seem so inadequate…” his voice cracked, and he stopped, looking down. His daughter also wiped away tears. The moment felt like a Viking funeral. The crowd applauded as Cousy composed himself. “I hope you’ll bear with me,” he managed.
The mayor and governor sent gifts. Cousy thanked everyone, including his teammates` wives for their kindness to his family. His daughter handed him a tissue. He spoke of missing the brotherhood that dissipates after leaving a team, and broke down again. An emotional silence hung over the Garden. “WE LOVE YA, COOZ!” a fan shouted, breaking the spell.
His younger daughter, his mother, wrapped in a mink stole, and Bob himself all wept. His voice cracked one more time before he finished. He didn`t name his teammates or speak of Russell. He hugged his mother, then his wife, then his daughters, and blew a kiss to the crowd. The organist played the opening notes of `Auld Lang Syne`, and the Garden erupted. Fans rose through the haze of cigarette smoke, leaning over the loge decks. They cheered for two minutes and six seconds, a continuous, shifting wave of applause.
The team gathered later at the Lenox Hotel. Russell stood up to speak, loosening his tie. “If Bob Cousy were this much less a man,” he said, holding his enormous hands an inch apart, “I would have resented him.”
“I didn’t want to come tonight,” he continued.
He paused, and everyone leaned in, knowing Bill Russell always spoke the truth. “I’m too big a man to cry,” he said, surprising Cousy, who was stunned.
“We see each other as brothers,” Russell affirmed. “You meet a Cousy not once in a month but once in a lifetime.” He looked at Cousy, the weight of their complex relationship and what might have been, had they been friends, heavy in the air. Both men felt it. Their wives, Missie and Rose, cried in each other’s arms.
Russell bowed his head and walked away.
Later, in private, he gave Cousy a gift he chose himself from a jewelry shop founded in 1796, near Paul Revere’s silver store. It was a desk clock, with a bronze engraving on the back: “May The Next Seventy Be As Pleasant As The Last Seven. From The Russells To The Cousys.” Bob and Missie placed the clock on a mahogany table in their dining room, where it remains today. He has sold most of his memorabilia – rings, a signed photo from President Kennedy, a basketball from his 5,000th assist – nearly everything. “But not that clock,” Pomerantz confirmed.
The Present and Future
“Four, three, two, one,” a coach counted during practice as Jayson Tatum navigated a double team at the end of a drill. He missed. The coach retrieved the ball, and the sequence repeated. “Seven, six, five.” Tatum was the last player in the Auerbach Center gym, moving from wing to wing, practicing jump shots, making and missing, driving for layups.
“Twelve, 11, 10,” the coach counted.
Tatum dribbled at the elbow, fluidly fading back for a jump shot that clanged off the back of the rim. The powerful energy felt at Bob Cousy Night still exists as scattered elements, eager to coalesce again, each carrying a thread of history. Bob and Russ, Heinsohn, Hondo, Satch Sanders, Sam and K.C. Jones – they paved the path Jayson Tatum walks now, moving through familiar stages. Like Cousy and Russell, he has reached a moment of clarity, understanding his significance to Boston, to the city and its people. This is a beautiful phase in the life of every great Celtic.
But a second, deeper truth awaits a rare few, it seems. It lies not outwardly, but inwardly. The true life`s work for a Celtics legend is to comprehend their meaning to each other, what they could have meant to teammates and rivals. The pursuit of greatness demands such intense focus on the self that the traveler might realize too late that the journey`s real purpose was the people with whom they shared it – fellow seekers following the trail blazed by Cousy and Russ.
Tatum moved along the three-point line, shifted left at the top of the key, and missed again. Driving down the right baseline, he hit a fadeaway. He has won one title and strives for another. Living intensely in the present takes a toll. Bob Cousy once spoke to me about championships, about winning 11 titles in 13 years. Even now, he fixates on the ones they lost. “It should have been 12,” he insisted. Bill Russell, he recalled, injured his ankle in the 1958 Finals, leading to their loss without him. That was 67 years ago, yet it feels like yesterday. Jayson Tatum`s sneakers squeaked in the gym. He finished the drill and moved to the free-throw line. The older generations say Jaylen Brown is more interested in history. He is reportedly the only current Celtic who has made an effort to get to know Satch Sanders. Tatum, meanwhile, is focused on being Jayson Tatum.
Swish.
Swish.
Miss.
Russell 11. Sam Jones 10. Havlicek 8. Sanders 8. Cousy 6. Bird 3. Tatum 1.
Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish.
He settled himself. Received the ball. Dribbled, feeling the leather. Bill Russell lived for 88 years; for 75 of them, he was not an active Boston Celtic. These careers are brief moments. Tatum exhaled.
Swish.
Russell`s Tribe and Trials
Russell played six seasons after Cousy retired, and during that time, he often contemplated the concept of tribes. It was how he viewed the world – small groups with unique customs, rules, and rituals. It was his core philosophy, his lens. Russell famously stated he played for the Celtics, not for Boston. He saw his team as a sacred assembly, a vessel for exploration and a safe haven. They were not mere entertainers but warrior kings. Regardless of their origins – Russell Black, Red Jewish, Cousy the son of immigrants, Ramsey a Southerner – they belonged to a tribe more powerful than the ones they were born into. They had, in essence, been reborn. They were Celtics.
Bill’s father, Charles Russell, often shared wisdom. A tribe, he taught, should be proud but never arrogant, powerful but not destructive. “You must acknowledge and accept other tribes,” he told his son, “And never say, ‘My tribe can do this, so they’re better than yours.’”
Russell struggled emotionally and mentally in those initial seasons without Cousy. Medgar Evers was assassinated. John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Russell spent long periods staring at walls, admitting he was “on the verge of a nervous breakdown” multiple times.
Russell described basketball as “the loneliest life in the world. A world of bright lights and screaming emotion and vast amounts of money – and deep wells of loneliness. So deep. Such an abyss. You fall far into it and all your life struggle to come back up.”
Boston itself never truly felt like home, but the Celtics did. The team earned him his place in the lineage of proud patriarchs in his family. His grandfather Jake bravely chased the Ku Klux Klan off his land with a shotgun. His other grandfather used his own funds to build the first school for Black children in his area. When a gas station attendant called his father “boy” and threatened him, Charles Russell pursued the man with a tire iron – a moment Bill Russell recalled with pride as an old man. His inheritance was a fierce rhetorical and spiritual defense.
Russell drove south the year after Cousy retired, traveling through Jim Crow states with his children to visit family. His son, Jacob, named after his grandfather, repeatedly asked to stop for food. In his everyday life, his father was one of the most famous men in America. But in the South, he was simply Black. It was agonizing for Russell to keep his hands on the steering wheel as his son pleaded, “Daddy, can’t we stop? Daddy, I’m hungry.”
Season after season, he led his team to victory, eventually taking over as head coach after Auerbach stepped down. Russell was the first Black head coach in any major American sport. The Celtics had already drafted the first Black player, hired the first Black coach (which was Russell himself), and started the first all-Black lineup.
Russell read, studied, and championed causes important to him. Martin Luther King Jr. met with Russell while preparing for his “I Have a Dream” speech and invited him to sit on the stage, but Russell felt he didn`t belong and watched from the crowd. He organized a basketball camp in Mississippi in Medgar Evers’ honor after his murder. He supported John Carlos, Tommie Smith, and Muhammad Ali. Playing in Boston, he later said, was traumatic. His house was vandalized repeatedly. His prospective neighbors in the suburb of Reading openly opposed his moving in, circulating a petition. Rose Russell wept upon hearing about it. “They don’t want us here,” she said.
Not long after winning his third of eleven titles, a man approached Russell at a stoplight while he was driving his new Lincoln. “Hey, n—–,” the man yelled. “How many crap games did it take you to win that car?” For 13 seasons, Russell felt confined, claustrophobic.
“As we got to know each other better, I think the thing that I was most curious about was how he handled all of the pressure,” his widow Jeannine Russell shared. “He was carrying the weight of the whole city, his team, the black community, and his own expectations on his shoulders.”
Finally, after the 1969 season and two consecutive titles, Russell retired. He drove alone in his Lamborghini to California, accelerating across the flat expanse of the American west, returning towards home – his old home in Oakland and his new one on Mercer Island in Seattle.
Decades passed. The Celtics legends began to pass away. Red Auerbach’s daughters, living on opposite coasts, divided the responsibilities: Randy handled the West Coast burials, Nancy the East Coast. Their father deeply cherished these men, who remained eternally young in his memories. “The phone would ring and he would just light up,” Randy Auerbach recalled.
Auerbach hosted weekly lunches at a Chinese restaurant in D.C. and often played tennis with Sam Jones, who lived nearby. But in 2006, Red`s health rapidly declined. Russell flew to D.C. to say goodbye. Red sat in his favorite chair. They talked warmly about the past. “What happened to that sports car you had?” Red asked, still teasing him about the Lamborghini. Russell smiled. “We are driving a nice, slow minivan,” Russell replied. “It’s come to that?” Auerbach chuckled.
Not long after, Red Auerbach died. His daughters made only two personal calls to former Celtics players to share the news: Bill Russell and Bob Cousy.
