FILE - NBA great Bill Russell reacts at a news conference as he learns the most valuable player ... [+]
Michael Oher, the pro football player, and I took the stage in front of 2,000 people in Seattle a few years ago for a Q&A session I was asked to lead. As we walked onto the stage, our jaws dropped. Not at the size of the crowd, but at the size of the man in the very first row. There sat the unmistakable Bill Russell, all 6-feet-10 of him with that bright white hair and beard framing an ageless face and penetrating eyes.
Russell, who died on Sunday at 88, was sitting in that Seattle ballroom with an open notepad and a pencil poised to take notes. Locked in and engaged, Russell, who could have commanded any stage anywhere he wanted, chose to come to this particular event to hear Oher.
“I was so impressed to see you taking notes down there,” I mentioned to Russell after the session. “It’s not like there a lot of other people doing it. What gives?”
Russell’s answer pretty much said it all. “Every day’s a learning day,” he said, flashing that big smile. “And I was interested in how and why Michael was willing to commit himself to overcoming so many hardships.” Russell was nearing 80 and had spent his life overcoming obstacles — he had to guard Wilt Chamberlain and overcome racism growing up in Louisiana and California.
Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, left, talks to player Bill Russell during practice at Babson ... [+]
He faced more prejudice as a player for the Boston Celtics from 1956 to 1969. “I had never been in a city more involved with finding new ways to dismiss, ignore or look down on other people,” Russell wrote about the city’s ethnic tribalism in his book, “Second Wind.” He managed to win over the good people of Boston, although it took 11 championships, five MVP seasons and numerous other accolades to do it.
He had sat side-by-side with Muhammad Ali, the running back Jim Brown, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar to support Ali’s decision not to serve in the military during the Vietnam War. Russell was an important part not only of one of the two greatest basketball teams of all time – the Celtics nemesis Los Angeles Lakers would emerge as the other – but of the national conversation and debate over race and equality as well. He’d written books and provided game analysis on television. He had an honorary degree from Harvard.
And there he was with his trusty notepad, scribbling away that day in Seattle because it was another opportunity to learn something.
That captures why Russell was, and always will be, in a class of one. He embodied the phrase life-long learner in ways both big and small. And his constant thirst for growth and knowledge allowed him to break many barriers.
Bill Russell attends the 2019 NBA Awards at Barker Hangar on June 24, 2019 in Santa Monica, ... [+]
One other story rounds out the portrait of Russell.
It involves another great Boston Celtics basketball player and legend by the name of John Havlicek, who has told the story of witnessing a stranger approach Russell to ask whether he played basketball. Such occurrences are common enough among this group of athletes, but Russell’s answer was less so.
“No,” Russell told the man. When Havlicek asked Russell, who may, in fact, have been the best player in the world at the time, why he answered the way he did, Russell, told Havlicek, “John, that’s what I do. It’s not who I am.”
Who Russell was may be described as a person who would have made his mark in any endeavor to which he set his mind, because setting his mind to something, learning from his experience and making everyone around him wiser and better for it was his true gift. And it wasn’t limited to basketball. He could easily have been a college professor or a novelist. Politics might have been hard for him because he was well-known for speaking his mind, even when doing so made him appear cold and surly.
He was a great coach. For two seasons with the Celtics after Red Auerbach retired, he was both player and coach, a rare feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that the Celtics won the NBA Championship in one of those seasons. Sports history reveals no correlation between being a great athlete and being a great coach. It’s one thing to lead by example as an athlete; it’s quite another to motivate others to take ownership of the parts of the game that come less easily to us.
Russell led by example – as he showed that day in Seattle. And his example will motivate others for many years beyond his passing.
