WASHINGTON – It is poetic justice that NBA legend Bill Russell will get the highest possible civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He never received much honor while he was the pillar of the Boston Celtics. It is also a juicy twist of irony that an all-black Celtic team won the franchise’s latest championship three years ago; the city hated the black man, Russell, who gave them their first one.
I still cringe when I think about the time as a teenager when I first read Bill Russell’s biography. While he was compiling his Hall of Fame credentials as the centerpiece for the Boston Celtics dynasty, he was nonetheless the object of vicious, relentless, molten lava hate.
While he was stacking up 11 championships in 13 seasons — making the Celtics the envy of the sports world in the post-Babe Ruth era — a group of white hooligans broke into Russell’s home and defecated in his bed as part of an unending campaign to drive him out of their homogenous neighborhood. I still remember where I was when I read that paragraph.
While he was away carrying the team on his wide shoulders, his white neighbors would vandalize his home and dump his trash in his yard time and time again. While he was the most important part of the Celtics’ success, fame and appreciation always detoured around him and found the likes of Bob Cousy, John Havlicek and Tommy Heinsohn. Boston is the only city that declared cultural warfare against the very player that blessed them with so much and enabled them to stick their chests out. The cheers Bill Russell got during the games turned to howls of hate once his 6-foot-10 frame exited the famed Boston Garden.
That’s why when he retired after winning nine championships as a player, and two more as a player-coach, he metaphorically spat at the city and their media.
Despite the torrential downpour of hate, Russell carried himself with the class and dignity, never shaming the Celtics or the city with unsavory behavior or scandal. Whereas rival and friend, the late Wilt Chamberlain, was more well known because of his flash and flamboyancy, Russell is known for his icy stares and irascibility and strong opinions, particularly as it related to race. Russell was propelled into the Civil Rights Movement by his high-profile status as the pillar of the Celtics teams. But he is more proud of his walks with Dr. Martin Luther King and his front-row seat during the “I Have a Dream” speech on the Mall on Washington than of the 16 championships he compiled as a collegian, as a member of the U.S. Olympic Team and as a professional.
This is why when Bill Russell receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House, all of Boston should stop and bow. Not just bow out of appreciation, but lower their heads in shame. Baby Boomer Bostonians gave Russell heartache and pain in exchange for Russell’s gifts of gold. The treatment of Russell was the main reason that, for decades afterward, many black athletes abhorred and feared being drafted or traded to Boston’s professional teams.
In retrospect, however, the first black coach in NBA history is being honored by the first black president in U.S. history because Russell willingly took the heat for shaking the tree that enabled his many African American successors to get the fruit. –terry shropshire
