Red a once-in-a-lifetime find for Celtics

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Red a once-in-a-lifetime find for Celtics


By John Powers, Globe Staff, 6/12/2003

e was cast in bronze nearly two decades ago, sitting on a bench in the middle
of Quincy Market, brandishing a stogie and a rolled-up program at the pigeons.
Red Auerbach wasn't sure then how he felt about premature permanence and he's
not sure now.



''It felt funny,'' says the eternal Celtic, now 85 but still living on cigars
and Chinese food. ''In all the years it's been there, I think I've actually
seen it maybe six or seven times. It makes me nervous.''

Auerbach, who is a decade past quintuple heart bypass surgery, long ago was
granted as much immortality as he can use. His number (a symbolic 2, following
club founder Walter Brown) was hoisted to the Causeway Street rafters in 1985,
the same year his statue was unveiled. He was enshrined in basketball's Hall
of Fame 35 years ago. He has an honorary degree from everybody but the Great
Oz. Tonight, he'll be back in town to accept The Sports Museum's lifetime
achievement award at the FleetCenter.

''This is probably the most remarkable story in all of sports,'' says Tom
Heinsohn, the former Celtic player and coach who'll also be honored tonight
along with former Bruin Phil Esposito, former Patriot Steve Grogan, former Red
Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, former women's professional baseball player Mary
Pratt, sportscaster Don Gillis, and sports columnist Tim Horgan. ''Red came in
1950 and he's still here. One man with the same organization who wasn't the
owner -- nobody else has ever lasted that long.''

Auerbach may spend almost all of his time in Washington, but he still holds
the title of president and checks in frequently with the new Celtic hierarchy.
He has outlasted nearly a dozen owners and as many coaches, more than 250
players and one demolished building. He's had chances to leave -- after he
retired from coaching in 1966, during the bizarre franchise swap with Buffalo
in 1978, and whenever a new owner came through the revolving door, most
recently this season. But he never has. What Auerbach says was a five-minute
decision has endured for 53 years.

He came to Boston because he couldn't stay in the Tri-Cities (Moline, Ill.,
Rock Island, Ill., and Davenport, Iowa, if you're counting). Ben Kerner, who
owned the Blackhawks, traded John Mahnken to the Celtics for Gene Englund
despite Auerbach's objections, violating the Redhead's cardinal rule for
front-office types: Thou Shalt Not Meddle. ''It was a terrible deal,''
Auerbach says. So he headed for the Hub.

The beauty of the Celtics was that Brown, a hockey man, couldn't tell a
basketball from a beach ball. He settled on Auerbach by asking a bunch of
local sportswriters and sportscasters whom he should hire. Auerbach agreed to
a one-year contract for $10,000 and a piece of the profits from a money-losing
club. It was the best deal Brown ever made -- for one salary, he got an entire
staff.

''What Arnold was doing for the Celtics is what 12 people are doing now,''
muses Bob Cousy, Auerbach's point guard for 13 years and six titles. ''He was
the coach, the general manager, the traveling secretary, the head scout. He
was a one-man gang.''

But Auerbach's biggest job was salesman, peddling roundball in a baseball and
hockey town that dismissed basketball players as circus giants in sneakers.
''There were stories about pituitary freaks,'' he says. ''People thought all
you had to be was tall.''

So Auerbach took to the road to hawk his product directly to the customer.
''We did a lot of clinics,'' he says. ''We had a portable court in the back of
a truck and we'd go to supermarket lots.''

It wasn't just the citizenry that Auerbach had to sell -- it was the Boston
press, who'd opined that the pros would have a hard time handling Holy Cross.
''Some writers would say, good college team, the Celtics are lousy,'' says
Auerbach. ''So we scheduled a scrimmage with Holy Cross -- Cousy was a rookie
then -- and we beat them so bad it wasn't even funny.''

If seeing was believing, Auerbach made sure everybody from Eastport to Block
Island saw his ball club. ''We used to play 25 exhibition games before the
season,'' says Heinsohn. ''We dedicated every high school gym that was built
in New England for 15 years. We'd start out in Maine, then we'd meander over
to New Hampshire, then to Vermont, western Massachusetts, Connecticut, then
come back home.''

The caravan, four men to a vehicle, was led by Auerbach, his pedal to the
floor. Rookies had to drive with Auerbach. None of the veterans would; Cousy
even had it written into his contract. ''Arnold drove like a madman on these
country roads,'' testifies Cousy. ''He's lucky he's still alive. He must have
had three cars die right under him. They'd start smoking and he'd leave them
by the side of the road.''

Once, Cousy remembers, he and several teammates had pulled off for an informal
pit stop an hour outside of Bangor when they saw a cloud of dust in the
distance. ''We said, only one person could be driving that fast on this
road,'' Cousy says. ''We flagged Red down and told him we'd run out of gas and
he drove off, cursing. We gave him a 10 count and went after him. He's at this
one-pump station, talking to a farmer with a gas can in his hand. Well, we
went by him at 70 miles an hour, honking the horn and loving every minute of
it.''

As the titles began coming and the dynasty grew, Auerbach didn't need to play
traveling salesman, but he still lived like one. His home during his coaching
days was a two-room suite on the ninth floor of the Lenox Hotel in the Back
Bay with a pull-chain toilet and a hot plate. ''We're not talking about the
Waldorf,'' says Cousy.

But for Auerbach, it sufficed. His wife and two daughters were living in
Washington and most of his time during the season was absorbed by his multiple
Celtic duties. ''My days were occupied,'' he says. ''I was in the office every
morning. I'd go to practice, then I'd take off and do my own scouting, seeing
as many games as I could.''

Auerbach had a season-by-season handshake arrangement with Brown, yet he says
the idea of taking a richer, easier deal elsewhere never occurred to him. ''I
never gave it a thought,'' he says. ''You're happy, you like the people, and
you like the fans.''

Even after he gave the coaching whistle to Bill Russell, even after the club
was bounced from owner to owner to owner (''I've had some humdingers'') in the
'60s and '70s, Auerbach stayed put. The only time he got the urge for going
was in 1978, when the franchise was swapped and John Y. Brown, the
Kentucky-fried tycoon, took over.

There was a four-year offer from the Knicks to be their hoop god, which he'd
all but accepted, until the Bostonian-in-the-street (`Ayy, Red, stay!) made an
impassioned pitch and Auerbach realized he couldn't see himself in the Garden
as a visiting rival. ''It wasn't a question of money,'' he says. ''It was a
question of where I'd be happiest.''

Then there was John Y. Brown's itch to play general manager, which brought
back the specter of Ben Kerner. ''I couldn't get along with him,'' Auerbach
says. ''He had this ego -- a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.'' Once
Brown acquired a backup guard on his own for $50,000 and a first-round draft
pick, Auerbach threw up his hands. ''I couldn't believe it,'' he says.
''That's when I knew that it would never work.''

Brown soon left, Larry Bird arrived, and Auerbach stayed -- and stayed. His
name is still up high on the masthead, but the Redhead hasn't needed a formal
title for a few decades now. The man who came for one year has become the
symbol of Celtic permanence.

''The man played it the best anybody could ever play it,'' Heinsohn says. ''He
is the premier survivor of professional sports.''

Thanks,

Steve
sb@maine.rr.com

[demime 1.01b removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of H.gif]

[demime 1.01b removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of Big.gif]