Chicago Sun Times Bill Russell Interview

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

      A conversing all-star 
      August 18, 1999
      BY RON RAPOPORT CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST 
      Bill Russell, who led the Boston Celtics to 11 NBA titles in 13 years, 
      will appear Saturday and Sunday at Sportsfest 99, which begins Thursday at 
      the Rosemont Convention Center. The Chicago Sun-Times caught up with 
      Russell at his home in Seattle and found the Hall of Famer in a 
      conversational mood. 
      BR: I don't think I've ever been in Chicago except for basketball games. 
      S-T: You'll find it has changed from the days you were beating the Bulls. 
      Speaking of places you don't go much, you returned to Boston recently for 
      a celebration in your honor. What was that like? 
      BR: My daughter, Karen, who went to Georgetown and Harvard Law School, set 
      it up. We raised several hundred thousand dollars for the National 
      Mentoring Partnership. We hope to have 2 million adults mentoring kids 
      one-on-one around the country by 2001. 
      S-T: Bet you saw some old friends there?
      BR: A whole bunch of them. Wilt [Chamberlain], Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], 
      Oscar [Robertson], Larry Bird, Willis Reed, Bob Pettit, Earl Monroe, Jerry 
      Lucas, Bill Walton. And Michael Jordan, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Magic 
      Johnson and Bill Bradley sent videos.
      My time in the NBA was extraordinary because there were only eight teams 
      when I started, and we were fighting to make our sport accepted at the 
      same level as baseball and football. We were basically a part of the same 
      community, but we were all trying to kick the hell out of each other. 
      We introduced the game to America at large via television. It seemed like 
      the Celtics were on television every Sunday. In fact, It seemed to me like 
      we were on twice every Sunday. (laughs) It was a good thing for basketball 
      to have a dynasty. It gave people a team to love and a team to hate. 
      S-T: Were you aware you were building something bigger? 
      BR: Yeah. We wanted to get the salaries up. (laughs) There was a practical 
      side to the whole thing. We struck the 1964 All-Star Game in Boston, or 
      rather we delayed it, to make the league recognize the union. We told 
      them, no players association, no All-Star Game. We got the association.
      S-T: So you have a lot of pride in helping make the league what it's 
      become.
      BR: Yes. When a guy like Shaquille O'Neal gets a contract for $100 
      million, that says something good about what we were doing. I think it's 
      great there's that much money in the game. I applaud it.
      S-T: Do you spend a lot of time watching basketball? 
      BR: I'm a junkie. I've got a satellite dish and an NBA package, and 
      sometimes at 4 o'clock I'll start getting the East Coast games, then I get 
      the Midwest games, then the Mountain games, then the West Coast games. 
      Sometimes, I'll have 11 games on in one day. My lady says I've fused a 
      clicker into my left hand. It goes with me everywhere I go. 
      S-T: That's a junkie, all right. Anything you don't like about what the 
      league has become?
      BR: I think the game is too physical. The real good players are still 
      mostly finesse players. In some instances, I would be more physical than 
      guys who are playing now--we used to have fights two or three times a week 
      (laughs)--but there's too much hand-checking, and at center they just beat 
      each other up. You see a guy put his knee in a guy's back and push him 
      out? There's got to be a better way than that.
      One of the reasons I love women's basketball is they can't just run and 
      jump over somebody or push somebody out of the way. What a lot of guys 
      haven't learned is how you get around a guy you can't jump over or push 
      aside. It goes back to passing--and not carrying the ball (laughs). 
      The one thing I thought in his last few years that set Michael Jordan 
      apart from the rest of the players in the league was that he was the most 
      fundamentally sound player out there. He had developed skills in all 
      aspects of the game: how to run plays, how to set picks, how to be a good 
      passer and see the court. All the fundamentals. 
      S-T: Now that Jordan has been retired a year, what's your opinion of his 
      place in NBA history? 
      BR: I've never seen a player any better. But I've seen players as good. I 
      could say the same thing about Oscar when he was at his best. I think we 
      all would have said the same thing about Magic. We would say the same 
      thing about Larry Bird. And I know when I saw Wilt playing, I couldn't 
      imagine anybody being any better. Of course, I never watched me play 
      (laughs). That was a joke.
      S-T: You're saying we pay more attention to the present than the past? 
      BR: That's the way we are as a society. What's now is great, the best 
      there is. And it's more true of basketball than other sports. People will 
      still say that Babe Ruth is the greatest player ever. But basketball is a 
      more evolving game than all the rest. 
      S-T: Everybody seems to be making lists these days. What's your opinion 
      about that? 
      BR: I just think it's the end of the century (laughs). It gives them 
      something to do. I look at it kind of askance because the people making 
      the lists don't know what it takes to play the game. I had a ballot on the 
      NBA's list of the 50 greatest players, and I personally saw every one of 
      them play. You've got guys making lists of the greatest baseball players 
      who didn't see Honus Wagner or Ty Cobb, or even Hank Aaron or even Willie 
      Mays. 
      I'll give you an example of what I mean. I don't want to get ranting and 
      raving--but I will (laughs). I was watching ESPN and two guys are sitting 
      there and there's this little box behind them with five teams in it: the 
      Lakers the year they won 33 consecutive games, the Bulls the year they won 
      72, another Laker team, I think, the 1967 76ers and the 1964 Celtics.
      So they're saying what they think the top team of all time is and then, 
      just as they're leaving, they say the '64 Celtics were Bob Cousy's team. 
      Bob Cousy had been retired a year and a half. So I learned early on not to 
      concern myself with awards because I will not ever concede to these people 
      that they can critique my career. I said I'll just try to win every game, 
      and then it becomes a historical fact and not anyone's opinion.
      S-T: You still have strong feelings about the Celtics then?
      BR: I'm very proprietary about them. They were my team. Hannah Storm 
      introduced me once and she said, "We have Bill Russell, a Hall of Famer," 
      and I said, "Excuse me, I'm a Celtic." That's far more prestigious than 
      being a Hall of Famer. 
      S-T: Of all the things you've accomplished on the court, what's your 
      greatest memory?
      BR: In 1956, we won the NCAA title, the gold medal in the Olympics and the 
      following April, my rookie year, we won an NBA title. So in a period of 13 
      months, I won a collegiate championship, a world amateur championship and 
      the world professional championship. But the best part of it was the fun I 
      had and the friends I made while we were doing it.
      S-T: What's Bill Russell up to these days? 
      BR: Playing not as much golf as I'd like to. I'm just trying to grow old 
      gracefully. You've got to have fun. I once told my lady there was only one 
      promise I was going to make to her. That I'd make her laugh at least once 
      every day.