“My friendship with him was such that it’s almost like I played with him instead of against him,” Jerry West said of the great Bill Russell. “He went through so much and handled it all so quietly. I admired him so much as a human being.”
Boston Celtics legend and NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell died on Sunday at the age of 88. A look at his life on and off the court in pictures.
The Lakers legend still has a framed complimentary quote from Russell hanging in his bathroom, a statement about the highest honor being the admiration of one’s peers.Bill Russell, left, of the Boston Celtics is shown as he holds his coach Red Auerbach under the shower after they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 95 - 93 to win their eighth straight National Basketball Association Championship at the Boston Garden on April 28, 1966.
He was never embraced like the Celtics’ white stars such as Bob Cousy and John Havlicek. His suburban Boston home was once ransacked and defaced with spray-painted racial slurs after he had been honored there. He refused to sign autographs because he didn’t want to be a role model for a society that didn’t accept him, and he once led his teammates in the boycotting of an exhibition game when their Kentucky hotel refused service to the Black players. So, the FBI opened a file on him in which he is called, “An arrogant Negro.”Meet Red Auerbach, Larry Bird and the city of Boston: the villains of HBO’s “Winning Time” and real-life nemeses of the Los Angeles Lakers.
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