In Passing...

 

Little by little, with the certainty of the tides, bits and pieces of my childhood are being chipped away, leaving me with bittersweet memories in their stead.

Bill Russell was the most recent of my childhood heroes to pass. Sam, KC, Heinsohn, Sharman, Ramsey, Jungle Jim Loscutoff, the remarkable Havlicek, Johnny Most, and Red all went earlier. 

Thankfully, Cooz and Satch are still with us.

If you didn't have the good fortune to have been born in Boston in 1947, then you probably were not listening to Celtics games on the radio as a 10-year-old in 1957. 

God, what you missed! 

Because of a commitment to the U.S. Olympic team competing in Melbourne that year, Russell didn't join the Celtics until December. He was unimpressive in his first few games, scoring 5 or 6 points a game. But Red knew what he had in Russell. It's why he persuaded St. Louis to trade Russell to the Celtics for Easy Ed Macauley, an established star and St. Louis native, and promising rookie Cliff Hagan. As fate would have it, the three of them would compete for the NBA championship that April. 

And pudgy 10-year-old Joel would be lying on his Esmond Street bed with a radio up to his ear listening to Johnny Most excoriate the refs and those dirty, filthy St. Louis Hawks. The final score of the seventh game was 125-123, in DOUBLE overtime. Russell played 54 minutes, scored 19 points, and snatched 32 rebounds.

For the next 12 years Russell would lead the Celtics to 10 more championships.

But you probably knew all that already. 

What you didn't know, what nobody knew but me, was how Russell made me feel. He made me feel that the promise of an America in which all people were treated equally, a promise I had learned about in the 4th grade at the Sarah Greenwood School, was real. He made me feel that black people and white people (Heinsohn and Sharman were whiter than white) could work together joyfully in common cause. He made me feel that effort was at least equally as important as talent. He made me feel that basketball defense was more important than offense. When I learned that allegedly Russell threw up before every game, he made me feel queezy.

Much later, when I learned of the racial roadblocks Russell faced when he tried to buy a house in Reading, I felt angry. I felt even angrier when I read about the vandalism Russell and his family endured in that house.

So Russell provided the youthful, naive me with an idyllic version of the promise of America. In 1964, when the Celtics were the first team to start five black players (Russell, Sanders, Sam, KC, and Willie Naulls), I was even more convinced that America could keep her promise. I was 16. What did I know?

Later, when I read that Russell could be arrogant or impatient with the fans, refusing to sign autographs, I felt that his 11 Celtic championships should be enough for any fan. After all, some of those fans may have come from Reading.

I guess what I'm lamely trying to say is that throughout his life Russell made me feel a whole lot of things that had nothing to do with basketball. The other Boston sports legends of my lifetime, Williams, Orr, and Bird, didn't make me FEEL what Russell made me feel.

Of course those innocent wishes and hopes that Russell inspired in the little brain of 10-year-old Joel Getman were proven many times over to be just pipedreams. If Russell helped put those dreams there, the daily headlines helped push them out. "Trump Wins in Shocking Upset" comes to mind.

Nevertheless, Russell worked all his life to try and help America fulfill her promise. And he never lost that magnificent smile.

R.I.P. Mr. Russell. I know you'd agree, ain't life grand.