Celtic Historians?

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

Happy New Year to All,
	In one of the posts discussing the Celtics broadcast team,
someone observed (correctly, I think) that Bob Cousy is often
dismissive of Tommy Heinsohn's opinions.  This may be a holdover from
the days when Couz was one of the brightest stars in the league and
Heinsohn a  rookie, but something else occurred to me.   1969, which
was Russell's last year as player-coach, was also, obviously, Tommy's
first as coach of the post-Russell C's.  It also was the year that
Cousy took the Cincinnati Royals coaching job.  Does anyone know the
chronological order in which these events occurred?  I'm wondering if
Cousy, perhaps, thought that he might have had a chance at coaching
the Celts, and might have even turned down coaching offers in
anticipation of Russell's retirement (after all, if you count the ABA,
there must have been 15 new teams started in the late 60's: I'm sure
Cousy could have gotten a job).  Could there have been a little
resentment over the choice?
	In general, Rick Pitino's  service would seem to mark the
temporary end of the Celt's practice of favoring former players as
coaches.  I think that this has generally been a positive thing,
causing Celtic players to think of themselves as future coaches, and
leading to a more serious approach to the game: it's probably a big
factor in the number of former Celtics who've become coaches.  Once in
while (Jo-Jo White, I'm pretty sure about) it might have caused some
hard feelings between former stars and the team.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com