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Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports show, but we

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Speaker 1: explore the big money issues in the world of sports.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael barr Pell and of course, very sad news

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Speaker 1: over the weekend learning that basketball legend and Hall of

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Speaker 1: Famer Bill Russell he passed away at the age of eight.

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Speaker 1: He led the Boston Celtics to eleven championships of the

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Speaker 1: course of his career, and was also well known for

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Speaker 1: his role as a civil rights activist. To dive into

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Speaker 1: Russell's career, life and legacy, we welcome Professor Aaron good

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Speaker 1: Susian to the show. He's a professor of history at

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Speaker 1: the University of Memphis and has written many books, including

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Speaker 1: King of the Court, Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution.

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Speaker 1: Professor good Susian, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

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Speaker 1: I wish it was for a much happier story, but

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Speaker 1: it is a very prominent story that's going on right

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Speaker 1: now Bill Russell. I had to dust off my my

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Speaker 1: brains to remember that two of those wins with the

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Speaker 1: Celtics were when he was ahead the coach uh and

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Speaker 1: he just gave so much to the games. Here. Yes, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Michael and Scarlett I really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: To your last point, you know, one of the underappreciated

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Speaker 1: aspects of Bill Russell's legacy was those two final championships

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Speaker 1: when he was the player coach of the Celtics. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And you know that was at a time when the

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Speaker 1: Celtics were no longer the real dominant team in the NBA.

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Speaker 1: They were an older squad that didn't come in first

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Speaker 1: place in Eastern Conference. You know, other teams that started

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Speaker 1: to surpass them in the regular season, and he and

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Speaker 1: he led them to these two improbable titles. And you

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Speaker 1: gotta remember, he was the first African American coach of

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Speaker 1: a major team sport in American history. UM, so he's

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Speaker 1: breaking barriers and leading his team to you know, those

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Speaker 1: were his tenth and eleventh NBA titles over the course

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Speaker 1: of thirteen seasons, which is just an extraordinary record. You know,

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Speaker 1: he's he's got to be considered the greatest winner in

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Speaker 1: the history of American team sports. I want to go

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Speaker 1: back to when he was named the coach of the Celtics,

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Speaker 1: because there was a lot of skepticism that accompanied his hiring.

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Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about the circumstances that

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Speaker 1: led to his hiring and what it tells you about

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Speaker 1: Boston as a sports town and and the strides that

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Speaker 1: they've since made. That's really interesting questions, Carlott. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: of course, his coach for his entire professional career had

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Speaker 1: been Read Arbach, who was stepping into a general manager

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Speaker 1: role with the Celtics and stepping away from the Bashi

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Speaker 1: And at the end of the nineties six season are

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Speaker 1: Back had decided that the time had come and he

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Speaker 1: was exploring all sorts of coaching options. One of his

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Speaker 1: choices was named Alex Hannum, who had coached a number

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Speaker 1: of professional teams and had a good reputation. But a

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Speaker 1: lot of the Celtics, in particular wrestle were quite resistant

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Speaker 1: to that choice because, uh, they weren't necessarily impressed with

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Speaker 1: Hannem's relationship with black players over the course of his career. Um,

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Speaker 1: and as you know, a number of the veteran Celtics

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Speaker 1: since retired, we're approached about the job. A lot of

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Speaker 1: them were resistant to taking the job to because you know,

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Speaker 1: again the Celtics seemed to be like sort of on

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Speaker 1: the decline at that point. And then there was the

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Speaker 1: question of how do you deal with Bill Russell, right,

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Speaker 1: who sort of looms over the team, your former teammate,

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Speaker 1: And so ultimately it came down to sort of a

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Speaker 1: basketball decision, a personality decision, uh. And those are part

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Speaker 1: of the reasons why Russell took on the job. But also,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was very aware at the time of

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Speaker 1: the significance of taking on his job as a black

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Speaker 1: man leading an integrated team in the middle of the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, and so politics also played a role in

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Speaker 1: his decision to accept the job. And as you suggest,

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Speaker 1: there was pretty considerable skepticism among some of the Boston

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Speaker 1: sports press, which had always been a little bit resistant

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Speaker 1: to Russell in different wins. And when they did not

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Speaker 1: win the title in nineteen sixty seven, Uh, they lost

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Speaker 1: to Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference finals. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: they pointed to his mistakes in terms of coaching, that

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Speaker 1: he wasn't managing his team as well as he could have. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And they thought this was a failure. And so for

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Speaker 1: him to then win the NBA titles in sixty nine

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Speaker 1: kind of left the sports press in Boston in awe

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Speaker 1: at this incredible achievement. And you're right about uh, the

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Speaker 1: press there was a quote that Bill Russell said. He

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Speaker 1: said it last year when he was on CBS Mornings,

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Speaker 1: and he had a game where he had just a

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Speaker 1: splendid triple double. Uh and and he just had all

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Speaker 1: these just a great game. And I think the Boston

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Speaker 1: herold wrote, thank goodness he had Couzy. Remember I had

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Speaker 1: a game where I had twenty five twenty five rebounds

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Speaker 1: kin blogs and they most of Harold said, I was

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Speaker 1: lucky I got to play with Cozy. And that's what

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Speaker 1: Bill Russell kind of put up with for sure. UH.

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Speaker 1: And part of the way to think about this is

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Speaker 1: what basketball is going through burning the Russell's career. UH.

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Speaker 1: It is becoming both a much more more dynamic sport

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Speaker 1: and a much more UH sport dominated by taller, more

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Speaker 1: fully athletic players. But also it's becoming a more black

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Speaker 1: sport at the same time. So Bob Cuzy, who was

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Speaker 1: of course an outstanding point guard for the Celtics legend

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Speaker 1: um was the hero too many of the white Boston

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Speaker 1: sports fans. Um. And he was you know, he was

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Speaker 1: six two inches, he was someone relatable, he was great

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Speaker 1: with the media. He was a personal and thoughtful guy. UH.

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Speaker 1: Russell of course held himself aloof from the press. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He felt like they didn't understand them and that they, uh,

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Speaker 1: they were always going to treat him with bigotry. And

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Speaker 1: so he created kind of this armor around him where

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't sign autographs, where he would only sort of

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Speaker 1: give of himself to people who he really trusted. H

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Speaker 1: And so they had very different relationships with the media

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Speaker 1: and thus with with Boston's fan base as well. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so that was continually driving Russell's frustrations. But you

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Speaker 1: also got to realize this, it was also what drove

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Speaker 1: Russell to be such a great winner, you know, from

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Speaker 1: his college career he said, you know, I dedicated myself

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Speaker 1: more than anything else to winning, because that's something that

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Speaker 1: they can't take away from me. Right that in your

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Speaker 1: individual honors might not come the adulation that white players received,

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Speaker 1: he might not get, but no one could take away

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Speaker 1: his championships. Yeah. I think about how he spent his

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Speaker 1: entire pro career in Boston, and there was this um

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Speaker 1: not quite comfortable relationship with the Boston sports media and

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Speaker 1: perhaps some fans as well. And I read that when

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Speaker 1: the Celtics wanted to retire his number, his number six,

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Speaker 1: Jersey in ninety two. He insisted that would be done

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Speaker 1: without anyone there, with the stands empty, which kind of

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Speaker 1: boggles in mind today. Two. Russell would sometimes say, you know,

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Speaker 1: I played for the Celtics, not for Boston. Uh. That

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Speaker 1: you know, he very much identified with his team and

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Speaker 1: with the with the culture of that team, and it

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Speaker 1: was very meaningful to him, but he had resentments with

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Speaker 1: the city itself. UM. Part of that resistance to having

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Speaker 1: his number retired was the same resistance that he had,

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Speaker 1: for instance, to signing autographs that he would later have

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Speaker 1: to being enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. That

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Speaker 1: he didn't want to be considered as a commodity. That

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Speaker 1: you wanted to be seen as an individual, as someone

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Speaker 1: with sort of the full range of humanity. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: other key aspect to think about there is that Russell

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Speaker 1: was very much involved in the civil rights struggle in

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Speaker 1: Boston in the nineteen sixties. UM. And you know he

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Speaker 1: um he participated in He was a member of the

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Speaker 1: end of a c P. The big battle ground in

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Speaker 1: Boston in the sixties was over schools and racial integration.

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Speaker 1: The stated passports called the racial and balanac which was

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Speaker 1: supposed to integrate schools in the mid nineteen sixties, but

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Speaker 1: it was it was resisting that in practice. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: Russell was an active spokesman for racial justice at that time,

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Speaker 1: as well as coming to the South and participating in

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Speaker 1: the March on Washington and going to a conference at

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Speaker 1: the White House. You know, he was a very politically

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Speaker 1: astute um actor. That also is true that he obviously

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Speaker 1: you know, talked with Martin Luther King, and he also

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Speaker 1: sat alongside Muhammad Ali during the time when he refused

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Speaker 1: to go to the Vietnam War. And I wonder if

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Speaker 1: you could take us through that for people who do

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Speaker 1: not understand. I am sure that there were some people

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Speaker 1: in the Celtics organization thinking about, oh no, don't do that.

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Speaker 1: This could become another Colin Kaepernick story where you stand

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Speaker 1: up for his civil rights and then it all falls apart. Yeah. Well, certainly,

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Speaker 1: you know, Muhammad Ali by sixty s sixty seven, when

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Speaker 1: he's making his choice not to serve in the Vietnam War,

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Speaker 1: is you know, receiving an enormous backlash from from the press. UH.

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Speaker 1: And people think he's misguided, and people think he's a

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Speaker 1: dupe and all these things, and Russell, along with Jim Brown,

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Speaker 1: along with then lu Els Indoor now Careen, Aldos bar

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Speaker 1: Uh and a number of other athletes meet with Ali

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Speaker 1: in Cleveland in n seven to sort of discuss this

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Speaker 1: right to sort of here here out Ali um. And

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Speaker 1: it's being portrayed in the press as they're there to

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Speaker 1: try to convince Ali to change his mind. But for

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Speaker 1: the players more they tend to see it. Morris, we

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Speaker 1: want to hear what he has to say. And Russell

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Speaker 1: emerges from this and he writes an article for Sports

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Speaker 1: Illustrated that basically defends Ali's decision. He says, you know,

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Speaker 1: here's a guy who's doing this out of principle, out

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Speaker 1: of a religious conviction. Uh, he's only suffering for this right.

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Speaker 1: He's losing his title, he's losing his money, he's losing

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Speaker 1: his his with their lifeblood. But he's doing what he

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Speaker 1: thinks is right. So there's nothing selfish about this. It's

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Speaker 1: a really sort of powerfully written article about kind of

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Speaker 1: like the state of American culture and politics by the

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Speaker 1: late sixties. You know, professor, you are your your area

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Speaker 1: specialty is uh the civil rights movement. You've been teaching

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Speaker 1: courses on us histories since eighteen seventy seven. You focus

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Speaker 1: very much on UH African American history as well. I'm

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Speaker 1: wondering if you could place Bill Russell when it comes

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Speaker 1: to how Boston fits in and the business of sports,

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Speaker 1: not just in that one city, but across the US.

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Speaker 1: Put it into perspective for us in terms of the

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Speaker 1: business of sports. You know, one of these things that

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Speaker 1: we can't sort of separate from Russell's legacies to think

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Speaker 1: about him as one of the engines that's driving the

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Speaker 1: NBA's commercial transformation. When he steps into the NBA in

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Speaker 1: the mid nineteen fifties, it's a small time league, so

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Speaker 1: it's got a reputation of a so called bush league.

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Speaker 1: It's no, it's nowhere. It's not considered a major sport

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Speaker 1: along the lines of baseball or boxing or even professional

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Speaker 1: football at it. UH. And by the time he retires

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Speaker 1: in you know, there's a big national television contracts, there's

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Speaker 1: commercial jet travel, there's modern race labor relations UH and

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Speaker 1: a lot of that is driven by Russell and his

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Speaker 1: and his tears. They make the game more dynamic, more

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Speaker 1: television friendly. His rivalry, Little Chamberlain is what drives the

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Speaker 1: a lot of the television exposure. UM. And so he

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Speaker 1: brings that to the form. And you almost can't separate

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Speaker 1: that from the political aspect, from the civil rights aspects,

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Speaker 1: because it's the increased visibility of the NBA that gives

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Speaker 1: Russell and Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson UH and other

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Speaker 1: black cathletes in the NBA a platform through which to

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Speaker 1: speak out against racial injustice. UH. And so those are

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Speaker 1: sort of intertwine factors in my book I call the

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Speaker 1: Basketball Revolution. Russell changes the way basketball is played, the

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Speaker 1: way basketball is perceived, and ultimately what his meaning is

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Speaker 1: in terms of American culture, in terms of race, and

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Speaker 1: in terms of civil rights. I want to expand more

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Speaker 1: what you were just saying. Can you imagine if Bill

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Speaker 1: Russell was playing the day, the endorsements he would get,

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Speaker 1: it would be off the chart. But like you said,

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Speaker 1: back in that time, it was a totally different era.

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Speaker 1: Well very much so in the in UH. When he

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Speaker 1: breaks into sporting in the nineteen fifties, the expectation was

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Speaker 1: that an athlete needed to be sort of humble and

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Speaker 1: soft spoken and deferential, kind of the models where people

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Speaker 1: like Joe DiMaggio and Joe Lewis. And this is particularly

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Speaker 1: group of black athletes, right, they were supposed to always

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Speaker 1: sort of be uh, make sure that they didn't defend

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Speaker 1: white sensibilities. Uh. And Russell kind of goes through kind

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Speaker 1: of a personal and political crisis over the course of

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Speaker 1: the sixties. And I'm very much driven by the civil

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Speaker 1: rights moment. What am I doing to help society? And

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Speaker 1: part of his decision is the way that he's going

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Speaker 1: to present himself is unique. That he is going to

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Speaker 1: um not adhere to white expectations, that he is going

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Speaker 1: to be uh. If he has militant or defiant thoughts,

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Speaker 1: he's going to express them. Here's a guy who defends

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Speaker 1: Malcolm X in the Nation of Islam in the early

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Speaker 1: nineteen when there's no other black athletes who are doing

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Speaker 1: so prior to Mhammed ali'st version. UM. So it's a

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Speaker 1: really it's a different world in a lot of ways

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Speaker 1: in terms of UM, the relationship between an athlete and

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Speaker 1: the medium at that time, particularly for black athletes. What

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Speaker 1: do you think his legacy is for modern players like

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Speaker 1: a Lebron James, like Steph Curry, how do they look

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Speaker 1: at Bill Russell in terms of what they're able to

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Speaker 1: do and what and the opportunities that they have now

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Speaker 1: as a result of his his playing, his coaching, right,

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Speaker 1: and what I think for the modern generation, for the

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Speaker 1: Lebrons and the Curries of today. Right, in some ways

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Speaker 1: they build off of multiple levels in terms of how

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Speaker 1: the NBA has has advanced and the icon sup preceded them. Right,

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Speaker 1: that players like Russell made it legitimate to speak out

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Speaker 1: on political issues to uh, to advocate for the African

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Speaker 1: American community, where especially as a sports sort of mass

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Speaker 1: marketing black athletes. And then the next generation, right, the

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Speaker 1: sort of which we consider as more of a political generation,

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Speaker 1: the Michael Jordan's and Shaquille o'neils and so on, also

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Speaker 1: just sort of take that profile of the NBA and

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Speaker 1: and bring it up even higher, uh to too much,

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Speaker 1: ah different degree, so that when we have another sense

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Speaker 1: of racial crisis as we've had in recent years, right,

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Speaker 1: uh dating you know, if you think about the Traypon

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Speaker 1: market case, and if you think about the uh the

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Speaker 1: murders and the in Ferguson and so on, uh, and

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Speaker 1: then the election of Donald Trump, right, it brings all

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Speaker 1: these athletes back into a political world. But now with

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Speaker 1: this whole new level of this whole new voice, this

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Speaker 1: whole new level of exposure. We are pretty much running

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Speaker 1: out of time, but I'm gonna bring it down to

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Speaker 1: some good old bar stool talk and some barbers shop talk.

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Speaker 1: When we talk about Bill Russell, I think he was

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Speaker 1: probably the greatest defensive player ever to play the game.

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Speaker 1: And if you see L. A. S. John Wooden can

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Speaker 1: say that, uh, that's good enough for me. Professor, just

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Speaker 1: just to leave it on that note, What are your

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Speaker 1: thoughts about that so people can go to the bar

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Speaker 1: and talk about Bill Russell. I would tend to agree.

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, in terms of he was the

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Speaker 1: only he was the first athlete to really dominate basketball

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Speaker 1: through defense. You know, he was he was fine on offense,

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Speaker 1: but he was you know, he changed the game based

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Speaker 1: on what he did with defensive rebounding. And I don't

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Speaker 1: know if we can say that about really any other

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Speaker 1: player in NBA history. So at the very least, you

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Speaker 1: have to consider him the best defensive player in NBA history.

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Speaker 1: And I think, and like I said, you have to

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Speaker 1: consider him the greatest winner in American sports history. Professor

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Speaker 1: Aerum good Susian UH Professor of History, at the University

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Speaker 1: of Memphis, written many books, including King of the Court,

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Speaker 1: Bill Russell and The Basketball Revolution. You were so kind

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Speaker 1: to come join us on such a short notice because

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Speaker 1: of the sad news. Thank you, Professor my pleasure. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much. This has been the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Barr, along with Scarlett fo Catch us here

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Speaker 1: each and every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday exploring the world

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Speaker 1: of money and sports. Catch me on Twitter at Big

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Speaker 1: Bar Sports and I'm on Twitter at Scarlett s. You're

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Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports on Bloomberg Radio around

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Speaker 1: the world. M