Red Auerbach Dies at 89

[ValerieB]

i know 89 is a pretty ripe old age but i hated to see this headline. he was one in a million and i'm fortunate to have seen him in action many times in the '50s at boston garden games. what a wonderful character!

[sheldonm]

...bad day for retired sports legends!

[Cali]

i know 89 is a pretty ripe old age but i hated to see this headline. he was one in a million and i'm fortunate to have seen him in action many times in the '50s at boston garden games. what a wonderful character!

Not if you're a Laker fan.

But seriously, RIP Red. You were an innovator.

[chris olivarez]

He put it to the Suns a time or two or three but I'm going to miss him. I thought he really would live forever.

[GA Russell]

I would say that he remained the greatest persona of the NBA for many years after he retired from coaching.

I can recommend a book he wrote about fifteen years ago called MBA - Management By Auerbach. He discussed business principles using his basketball background.

[Randy Twizzle]

Edited October 29, 2006 by Randy Twizzle

[ValerieB]

i had never seen this before! thanks, Randy!

[GA Russell]

Here's his AP obit, from the Toronto Globe & Mail:

Red Auerbach: 1917-2006

Associated Press

Washington — His genius was building a basketball dynasty in Boston, his gift was straight talk, his signature was the pungent cigar he lit up and savored after every victory.

Red Auerbach, the Hall of Famer who guided the Celtics to 16 championships — first as a coach and later as general manager — died Saturday. He was 89.

Auerbach died of a heart attack near his home in Washington, according to an NBA official, who didn't want to be identified. His last public appearance was on Wednesday, when he received the Navy's Lone Sailor Award in front of family and friends at a ceremony in the nation's capital.

Auerbach's death was announced by the Celtics, who still employed him as team president. Next season will be dedicated to him, they said.

"He was relentless and produced the greatest basketball dynasty so far that this country has ever seen and certainly that the NBA has ever seen," said Bob Cousy, the point guard for many of Auerbach's championship teams who referred to his coach by his given name. "This is a personal loss for me. Arnold and I have been together since 1950. I was fortunate that I was able to attend a function with him Wednesday night. ... I am so glad now that I took the time to be there and spend a few more moments with him."

Tom Heinsohn, who played under Auerbach and then coached the Celtics when he was their general manager, remembered his personal side.

"He was exceptional at listening and motivating people to put out their very best," Heinsohn said. "In my playing days he once gave me a loaded cigar and six months later I gave him one. That was our relationship. We had a tremendous amount of fun and the game of basketball will never see anyone else like him."

Auerbach's 938 victories made him the winningest coach in NBA history until Lenny Wilkens overtook him during the 1994-95 season.

"Red Auerbach was the consummate teacher, leader, and a true pioneer of the sport of basketball," commissioner David Stern said on NBA.com. "The NBA wouldn't be what it is today without him."

Auerbach's nine titles as a coach came in the 1950s and 1960s — including eight straight from 1959 through 1966 — and then through shrewd deals and foresight he became the architect of Celtics teams that won seven more championships in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Red was a true champion and one whose legacy transcends the Celtics and basketball," Sen. Ted Kennedy said. "He was the gold standard in coaching and in civic leadership, and he set an example that continues today. We all knew and loved Red in the Kennedy family."

Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969. The jersey No. 2 was retired by the Celtics in his honor during the 1984-85 season.

"He was a unique personality, a combination of toughness and great, great caring about people," said author John Feinstein, who last year collaborated on a book with Auerbach on the coach's reflections of seven decades in basketball. "He cared about people much more than it showed in his public face, and that's why people cared about him."

With the Celtics, he made deals that brought Bill Russell, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale to Boston. He drafted Larry Bird a year early when the Indiana State star was a junior to make sure Bird would come to Boston.

He coached championship teams that featured players such as Russell, Cousy, Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones, all inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Phil Jackson matched Auerbach's record nine championships when the Los Angeles Lakers won the title in 2001-02.

After stepping down as general manager in 1984, Auerbach served as president of the Celtics and occasionally attended team practices into the mid-1990s, although his role in the draft and personnel decisions had diminished.

"Red was a guy who always introduced new things," Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca told The Associated Press in an interview this month. "He had some of the first black players in the league and some people didn't like that, but you've got to do what's right for the fans."

When Rick Pitino took the president's title when he became coach in 1997, Auerbach became vice chairman of the board. After Pitino resigned in 2001, Auerbach regained the title of president and remained vice chairman. When the team was sold in 2002 to a group headed by Wyc Grousbeck, Auerbach stayed on as president.

Through all those changes and titles, Auerbach didn't lose his direct manner of speaking, such as when he discussed the parquet floor of the Boston Garden shortly before the Celtics' longtime home closed in September 1995.

"The whole thing was a myth," Auerbach said. "People thought not only that there were dead spots, but that we knew where every one was and we could play accordingly.

"Now, did you ever watch a ballplayer go up and down the court at that speed and pick out a dead spot?" he asked. "If our players worried about that, thinking that's going to help them win, they're out of their cotton-picking mind. But if the other team thought that: Hey, good for us."

As Celtics president, Auerbach shuttled between Boston and his home in the nation's capital, where he led an active lifestyle that included playing racquetball and tennis into his mid-70s.

Auerbach underwent two procedures in May 1993 to clear blocked arteries. He had been bothered by chest discomfort at various times beginning in 1986.

Auerbach was also hospitalized a year ago, but he was soon active again and attended the Celtics' home opener. Asked that night what his thoughts were, he replied in his usual blunt manner: "What goes through your mind is, 'When the hell are we going to win another one? I mean, it's as simple as that."

Auerbach had planned to be at the Celtics' opener this season, in Boston next Wednesday against the New Orleans Hornets.

In his 16 seasons as the Celtics' coach, Auerbach berated referees and paced the sideline with a rolled-up program in his clenched fist. The cigar came out when he was sure of another Celtic triumph.

He had a 938-479 regular-season coaching record and a 99-69 playoff mark.

Auerbach had a reputation as a keen judge of talent, seemingly always getting the best of trades with fellow coaches and general managers.

In 1956, he traded Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan to St. Louis for the Hawks' first-round pick and ended up with Russell — probably the greatest defensive center of all time and the heart of 11 championship teams.

In 1978, he drafted Bird in the first round even though he would have to wait a year before Bird could become a professional.

Before the 1980 draft, the Celtics traded the No. 1 overall selection to Golden State for Parish and the No. 3 pick. The Warriors took Joe Barry Carroll. The Celtics chose McHale.

In 1981, Boston chose Brigham Young guard Danny Ainge in the second round. Ainge was playing baseball in the Toronto Blue Jays organization at the time, but was freed after a court battle to play for the Celtics.

In June 1983, another one-sided deal brought guard Dennis Johnson from Phoenix for seldom-used backup center Rick Robey.

Born Arnold Auerbach in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Sept. 20, 1917, he attended Seth Low Junior College in New York and George Washington University. His playing career was undistinguished. In three seasons at George Washington he scored 334 points in 56 games. He would often attend games at GW's Smith Center, where the court is named in his honor.

As a coach, he was an instant success, posting the best record of his career in his first season. He led the Washington Capitols to a 49-11 mark in 1946-47, the NBA's debut season, and took them to the playoff semifinals.

The Capitols had winning records the next two seasons under Auerbach, who moved on to the Tri-Cities Blackhawks for one season in 1949-50. They had a 28-29 mark, Auerbach's only losing record in 20 years as an NBA coach.

In the NBA's first four seasons, the Celtics never had a winning record. But Auerbach changed that dramatically when he succeeded Alvin "Doggy" Julian as Boston's coach for the 1950-51 campaign.

They went 39-30 that year, and the Celtics never had a losing record in his 16 seasons on the bench. Boston's lowest winning percentage was .611 in his last 10 seasons.

His last game as coach was on April 28, 1966, when Boston edged the Lakers 95-93 in Game 7 of the finals to win the NBA title. He was just 48 years old, but ready to move on.

On Feb. 13 of that season, Auerbach was honored at halftime of a loss to Los Angeles at Boston Garden.

"They say that losing comes easier as you grow older," he said after the game. "But losing keeps getting harder for me. I just can't take it like I used to. It's time for me to step out."

Russell became player-coach the next season, while Auerbach concentrated on his job as general manager. Russell was the first of five Boston coaches who had played for Auerbach.

Auerbach is survived by his two daughters, Nancy Auerbach Collins and Randy Auerbach; his granddaughter, Julie Auerbach Flieger, and three great-grandchildren.

Edited October 29, 2006 by GA Russell

[paul secor]

I've been a Lakers fan since I was a little kid, but I always loved to watch Red's Celtics teams run the break. He was a great coach.

Thanks for the memories, Mr. Auerbach.

[GA Russell]

Here's his obit from the LA Times:

Red Auerbach, 89; Celtics coach built a basketball dynasty

By Steve Springer, Times Staff Writer

October 29, 2006

Arnold "Red" Auerbach, who built and sustained the Boston Celtics, professional basketball's greatest dynasty, through meticulous scouting, innovative coaching, cunning deal-making and fiery leadership, died Saturday, said NBA spokesman Tim Frank. He was 89.

Auerbach reportedly died of a heart attack near his home in Washington, D.C.

"Nobody has had as much impact on a sport as Red Auerbach had on the game of basketball. He was a pioneer of the NBA. He left his philosophy of winning championships, playing hard and playing as a team with several generations of players," former Celtics coach and player Tommy Heinsohn told the Associated Press.

"He was relentless and produced the greatest basketball dynasty so far that this country has ever seen and certainly that the NBA has ever seen," Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame guard who played for Auerbach, told the AP.

A member of the Celtics organization for 55 years, Auerbach led the team to nine championships as a coach, including eight in a row, a streak unequaled by any other coach in any professional sport. Phil Jackson matched Auerbach's nine championships when the Lakers won the title in 2002.

After moving full time into the front office, Auerbach went on to engineer seven more Celtics titles as the team's general manager. The team said the upcoming season would be dedicated to Auerbach.

"Red had an unbelievable passion for winning," Kevin McHale, a former Celtics player, told The Times. "Second place to him was like 28th place. It made no difference."

Along the way, Auerbach became the first to pick an African American player in the NBA draft (Chuck Cooper in 1950), the first to start five black players in one lineup (1964) and the first to hire a black coach in the NBA (Bill Russell in 1966).

Auerbach's teams built their dynasty by consistently denying the Lakers. Eight times over a 25-year period, from 1959, when the Lakers were still based in Minneapolis, through the 1983-84 season, the Lakers and Celtics met in the NBA Finals and eight times Auerbach and the Celtics emerged victorious.

Even in his declining years, Auerbach maintained his passion for the club.

"The Boston Celtics are not a basketball team," he once said. "They are a way of life."

His life.

Arnold Jacob Auerbach was born Sept. 20, 1917, in Brooklyn, N.Y. His father, Hyman, was a Jewish immigrant from Russia who married an office clerk, Mary Thompson. Red and his brothers worked in the family's Brooklyn dry-cleaning business.

Auerbach left Brooklyn for George Washington University, where he played basketball for three years and earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1940 and a master's degree in education a year later.

He began his coaching career at the high school level and taught physical education and history.

In 1946, Auerbach became head coach of the Washington Capitols of the Basketball Assn. of America. He spent three seasons in Washington and one coaching the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. Auerbach became head coach of the Celtics for the 1950-51 season at a salary of $10,000.

Until the 1950 NBA draft, the league had left black players to the Harlem Globetrotters and their powerful owner and founder, Abe Saperstein. But once Auerbach and Celtics owner Walter Brown made the first move by choosing Cooper, the Washington Capitols chose Earl Lloyd in a later round. Lloyd became the first black to play in an NBA game, a few days before Cooper did.

Coaching was just one of Auerbach's duties in an era in which teams couldn't afford a staff of assistants, scouts, conditioning coaches and a large front office.

"If we had a game on a Wednesday and another on a Friday," Auerbach told The Times in 2004, "I'd have practice on Thursday morning. Then I'd get on a plane and go to a college doubleheader in New York or Philly or wherever the games were…. And then, on top of that, I'd have my former players … steer me on which players to see and which to not bother seeing."

Along with a keen sense of talent and a broad network from which to glean the names of future stars, Auerbach was a master wheeler and dealer. He put together three crucial deals to first put the Celtics atop the basketball world and then to reinvent them several more times.

In 1956, Auerbach acquired Russell, a center who had excelled at the University of San Francisco and on the U.S. Olympic team at the Melbourne Games, by obtaining the first-round draft pick of the St. Louis Hawks for forward Cliff Hagan and center Ed Macauley.

Actually, it was more complicated than that. The Hawks had the No. 2 pick. The Rochester Royals had the first pick. So Auerbach persuaded Brown, the Celtics owner who also owned the Ice Capades, to offer several performances of the show to Lester Harrison, owner of the Royals, in exchange for Harrison's agreement not to take Russell.

Auerbach got his man, and the Celtics went on to win 11 titles in 13 years with Russell at center, the last two with Russell serving as player-coach after Auerbach stepped down.

The Celtics struggled through much of the 1970s, but Auerbach reinvigorated the franchise by selecting a player named Larry Bird out of Indiana State. It would have been a no-brainer to select Bird in 1979 after he had led his team to the finals of the NCAA tournament. But by then it was too late.

Auerbach had gambled on Bird with the sixth pick of the 1978 NBA draft, knowing he would have to wait a year to sign the junior forward, but also knowing that it would be worth the lost year. No other team seemed to realize that Bird was eligible after having played a year at Indiana before transferring to Indiana State.

Auerbach completed the front court that would prove a dominating force in the 1980s by trading his first and 13th picks in the 1981 NBA draft to the Golden State Warriors for center Robert Parish and a selection he would use to get McHale.

Auerbach thought he had the core for yet another championship run when he used the second pick of the 1986 draft to select Len Bias, only to have Bias die of a cocaine overdose while celebrating his selection.

Although Auerbach had a knack for identifying athletes who would become stars, he preferred role players, those who valued winning over compiling individual honors.

"He was really enamored with putting players together to form a team," McHale said. "He would say, 'Wouldn't you rather play with a guy who knows how to play and will play with you than a guy who is more talented, but selfish?' "

Auerbach's Celtics were known for their playmaking offense, bruising defense, relentless rebounding and the sixth man, a fresh reserve who would come off the bench to give his team a boost.

Bob Cousy, Dave Cowens and John Havlicek were among those who thrived in that team environment.

"We have never had the league's top scorer," Auerbach said of the Celtics' dominance. "In fact, we won seven league championships without placing even one among the league's top 10 scorers. Our pride was never rooted in statistics."

One of Auerbach's players, Bill Sharman, who went on to coach the Lakers in 1971-72, their first championship season in Los Angeles, said he learned many of his techniques from Auerbach.

"He would do so many things to break up the monotony of practice," Sharman told The Times. "He would match the biggest guys on the team in scrimmages with the smallest. And the losers would have to run laps, do push-ups or buy lunch."

Among Auerbach's honors were the designation on the NBA's 35th anniversary team as "Greatest Coach in the History of the NBA," membership in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and awards for Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year. In 1985, on the occasion of Auerbach's 68th birthday, a life-size sculpture of him, cigar in place, was unveiled in Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

Auerbach and his late wife of 59 years, Dorothy, had two daughters. Because one of those daughters, Randy, suffered from asthma, the family never moved to the damp climate of Boston. Instead, they stayed in Washington all the years Auerbach was with the Celtics, with Red living in a Boston hotel.

In addition to his daughters, Randy Auerbach and Nancy Auerbach Collins, Auerbach is survived by a granddaughter and three great-grandchildren.

Auerbach was feisty to the end. Once asked if he looked back with favor upon those Lakers teams he had battled so ferociously as a coach, he replied, "They were the enemy then and they are the enemy now."