Red Auerbach, the greatest sports executive in history and a great basketball coach as well, died yesterday. He has long been one of my heroes—because of his ability to thoughtfully break through the conventional wisdom and develop innovative ways of building and coaching a basketball team; because of his wisdom about human beings and the variety of things that motivate them; because he was a good man who helped break down racial barriers in sports; because he was incredibly funny and did not take himself too seriously; and because one of my other great heroes, Bill Russell, loved him.
I didn’t know Red but did meet him twice.
The first was at basketball camp when I was twelve. He gave an incredible talk and I followed him around the rest of the day soaking in every word he said. He said something that day that has always stuck with me: “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.”
The second time, I almost killed him. I had been standing on line to get spring 1983 playoff tickets for the Celtics from about 3:00 in the morning. I finally got to the ticket booth at 1:30 pm and discovered that that would not take a credit card or a check. I had to rush up to the executive offices to get my check approved and then get back before they ran out of tickets. In my rush, and daze after having been awake for about 29 hours straight, I burst through the door into the Celtic’s offices and knocked Red over. I helped get up, apologized, told him how much I admired him, and then ran off.
That, by the way, was the year the Sixers beat the Celtics in the seventh game in Boston . And, in perhaps the most incredible thing fans ever did at Boston Garden, we stood up and chanted “Beat LA” once we knew the game and series was over.