[剪報] Red a once-in-a-lifetime find for Celtics
Red a once-in-a-lifetime find for Celtics
By John Powers, Globe Staff, 6/12/2003
He was cast in bronze nearly two decades ago, sitting on a bench in
the middle of Quincy Market, brandishing a stogie and a rolled-up
program at the pigeons. Red Auerbach wasn't sure then how he felt
about premature permanence and he's not sure now.
''It felt funny,'' says the eternal Celtic, now 85 but still living
on cigars and Chinese food. ''In all the years it's been there, I
think I've actually seen it maybe six or seven times. It makes me
nervous.''
Auerbach, who is a decade past quintuple heart bypass surgery, long
ago was granted as much immortality as he can use. His number (a
symbolic 2, following club founder Walter Brown) was hoisted to the
Causeway Street rafters in 1985, the same year his statue was unveiled.
He was enshrined in basketball's Hall of Fame 35 years ago. He has an
honorary degree from everybody but the Great Oz. Tonight, he'll be
back in town to accept The Sports Museum's lifetime achievement award
at the FleetCenter.
''This is probably the most remarkable story in all of sports,'' says
Tom Heinsohn, the former Celtic player and coach who'll also be honored
tonight along with former Bruin Phil Esposito, former Patriot Steve
Grogan, former Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, former women's professional
baseball player Mary Pratt, sportscaster Don Gillis, and sports
columnist Tim Horgan. ''Red came in 1950 and he's still here. One man
with the same organization who wasn't the owner -- nobody else has ever
lasted that long.''
Auerbach may spend almost all of his time in Washington, but he still
holds the title of president and checks in frequently with the new
Celtic hierarchy. He has outlasted nearly a dozen owners and as many
coaches, more than 250 players and one demolished building. He's had
chances to leave -- after he retired from coaching in 1966, during the
bizarre franchise swap with Buffalo in 1978, and whenever a new owner
came through the revolving door, most recently this season. But he
never has. What Auerbach says was a five-minute decision has endured
for 53 years.
He came to Boston because he couldn't stay in the Tri-Cities (Moline,
Ill., Rock Island, Ill., and Davenport, Iowa, if you're counting). Ben
Kerner, who owned the Blackhawks, traded John Mahnken to the Celtics
for Gene Englund despite Auerbach's objections, violating the Redhead's
cardinal rule for front-office types: Thou Shalt Not Meddle. ''It was a
terrible deal,'' Auerbach says. So he headed for the Hub.
The beauty of the Celtics was that Brown, a hockey man, couldn't tell a
basketball from a beach ball. He settled on Auerbach by asking a bunch
of local sportswriters and sportscasters whom he should hire. Auerbach
agreed to a one-year contract for $10,000 and a piece of the profits
from a money-losing club. It was the best deal Brown ever made -- for
one salary, he got an entire staff.
''What Arnold was doing for the Celtics is what 12 people are doing
now,'' muses Bob Cousy, Auerbach's point guard for 13 years and six
titles. ''He was the coach, the general manager, the traveling secretary,
the head scout. He was a one-man gang.''
But Auerbach's biggest job was salesman, peddling roundball in a baseball
and hockey town that dismissed basketball players as circus giants in
sneakers. ''There were stories about pituitary freaks,'' he says.
''People thought all you had to be was tall.''
So Auerbach took to the road to hawk his product directly to the
customer. ''We did a lot of clinics,'' he says. ''We had a portable
court in the back of a truck and we'd go to supermarket lots.''
It wasn't just the citizenry that Auerbach had to sell -- it was the
Boston press, who'd opined that the pros would have a hard time handling
Holy Cross. ''Some writers would say, good college team, the Celtics are
lousy,'' says Auerbach. ''So we scheduled a scrimmage with Holy Cross --
Cousy was a rookie then -- and we beat them so bad it wasn't even funny.''
If seeing was believing, Auerbach made sure everybody from Eastport to
Block Island saw his ball club. ''We used to play 25 exhibition games
before the season,'' says Heinsohn. ''We dedicated every high school gym
that was built in New England for 15 years. We'd start out in Maine, then
we'd meander over to New Hampshire, then to Vermont, western Massachusetts,
Connecticut, then come back home.''
The caravan, four men to a vehicle, was led by Auerbach, his pedal to
the floor. Rookies had to drive with Auerbach. None of the veterans
would; Cousy even had it written into his contract. ''Arnold drove
like a madman on these country roads,'' testifies Cousy. ''He's lucky
he's still alive. He must have had three cars die right under him.
They'd start smoking and he'd leave them by the side of the road.''
Once, Cousy remembers, he and several teammates had pulled off for an
informal pit stop an hour outside of Bangor when they saw a cloud of
dust in the distance. ''We said, only one person could be driving that
fast on this road,'' Cousy says. ''We flagged Red down and told him we'd
run out of gas and he drove off, cursing. We gave him a 10 count and went
after him. He's at this one-pump station, talking to a farmer with a gas
can in his hand. Well, we went by him at 70 miles an hour, honking the
horn and loving every minute of it.''
As the titles began coming and the dynasty grew, Auerbach didn't need to
play traveling salesman, but he still lived like one. His home during his
coaching days was a two-room suite on the ninth floor of the Lenox Hotel
in the Back Bay with a pull-chain toilet and a hot plate. ''We're not
talking about the Waldorf,'' says Cousy.
But for Auerbach, it sufficed. His wife and two daughters were living
in Washington and most of his time during the season was absorbed by
his multiple Celtic duties. ''My days were occupied,'' he says. ''I
was in the office every morning. I'd go to practice, then I'd take
off and do my own scouting, seeing as many games as I could.''
Auerbach had a season-by-season handshake arrangement with Brown, yet
he says the idea of taking a richer, easier deal elsewhere never
occurred to him. ''I never gave it a thought,'' he says. ''You're
happy, you like the people, and you like the fans.''
Even after he gave the coaching whistle to Bill Russell, even after the
club was bounced from owner to owner to owner (''I've had some humdingers'')
in the '60s and '70s, Auerbach stayed put. The only time he got the urge for
going was in 1978, when the franchise was swapped and John Y. Brown, the
Kentucky-fried tycoon, took over.
There was a four-year offer from the Knicks to be their hoop god, which
he'd all but accepted, until the Bostonian-in-the-street (`Ayy, Red, stay!)
made an impassioned pitch and Auerbach realized he couldn't see himself
in the Garden as a visiting rival. ''It wasn't a question of money,'' he
says. ''It was a question of where I'd be happiest.''
Then there was John Y. Brown's itch to play general manager, which brought
back the specter of Ben Kerner. ''I couldn't get along with him,'' Auerbach
says. ''He had this ego -- a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.'' Once
Brown acquired a backup guard on his own for $50,000 and a first-round
draft pick, Auerbach threw up his hands. ''I couldn't believe it,'' he
says. ''That's when I knew that it would never work.''
Brown soon left, Larry Bird arrived, and Auerbach stayed -- and stayed.
His name is still up high on the masthead, but the Redhead hasn't needed
a formal title for a few decades now. The man who came for one year has
become the symbol of Celtic permanence.
''The man played it the best anybody could ever play it,'' Heinsohn says.
''He is the premier survivor of professional sports.''
--
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