Red Auerbach

Athletic coach and business executive

• Born: September 20, 1917
• Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
• Died: October 28, 2006
• Place of death: Washington, D.C

Auerbach spent fifty-seven years with theBoston Celtics basketball team, coaching it to nine championships and managing it to seven more.

Early Life

Red Auerbach (OW-ur-bak) was born in Brooklyn to Hyman and Marie Auerbach, the second of three sons. Hyman, a Russian Jew, had emigrated from Minsk with his family at age twelve, and after working in several restaurants, he went into the cleaning business. There was little extra money in the Auerbach household. The brothers helped in the business while growing up and scrambled to earn extra money in a number of ways, including washing taxicabs. His flaming red hair gave Red Auerbach his lifelong nickname.

The family lived in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, a stronghold of Eastern European Jews. Baseball and football were almost unknown in Williamsburg, because the area lacked surfaces on which to play, so Auerbach gravitated toward basketball. He discovered he was good at the game and determined to become a high school coach. That meant going to college, and though he qualified for basketball scholarships, he lacked the money to pay what was not covered, and so he ended up at the only school he could afford: Brooklyn’s Seth LowJunior College, from where he transferred to George Washington University.

He drifted away from Judaism in adulthood, but he remained proud of his heritage. In June, 1941, he married Dorothy Lewis, whom he had met in college. The couple had two daughters, Nancy and Randy. After serving nearly two years in the Navy, where he coached basketball, he thought he had achieved his life’s goal when he was hired for coaching jobs at St. Albans Preparatory School, then at Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C. Being in the right place at the right time got him his first professional basketball coaching position at the newly formed American Basketball Association, forerunner of today’s National Basketball Association. He coached the Washington Capitols, then went to Illinois to coach the Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa-based Tri-City Blackhawks. From there he went to the Boston Celtics. Auerbach never left the franchise that made him a legend.

Life’s Work

As coach of the Boston Celtics, the team with the worst record in 1950, Auerbach started with a three-year contract. He knew the job meant more than coaching. In the early days of professional basketball, he also served as manager, talent scout, and public relations professional. Boston, like most cities, had not yet realized the potential of the sport. Auerbach had to be a promoter in order to fill the number of seats necessary to break even. Profitability was still in the future. The situation was rocky at first. Auerbach could be blunt, profane, and abrasive, and he insisted on having complete control.

Soon his true talents emerged. First was his genius at making trades to secure the players that best matched his vision for the team. He looked not only at a player’s ability to guard and shoot but also at how he would function with the team as a whole. Auerbach was not afraid to take risks. In what is regarded as one of the best trades in the history of basketball, he acquired Bill Russell. Russell was an important part of Auerbach’s first championship team, which also consisted of Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Frank Ramsay, and Bill Sharman, among others. In the 1980’s, when Auerbach had retired from coaching and was the team’s general manager, he pulled off another history-making trade when he acquired Kevin McHale and Robert Parish for the team that eventually made up the best starting five ever to grace a basketball court: Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge, McHale, and Parish.

Second was his genius in bringing out the best in his players. He had few rules, because he believed in treating his players as individuals. That meant bending when he felt it was the right thing to do. For all his blustery talk, Auerbach cared about his players and knew how to motivate them. When he decided to step down as coach and function only as manager (and, later, president of the club), he selected Russell to take his place, the first black coach in the National Basketball Association. Auerbach did not do it to make history. He knew instinctively that no one else could coach Russell as well as Russell himself.

Despite winning nine championships as coach and seven more as manager, Auerbach experienced some bad times. One of the worst came after the Celtics won the 1980 championship (against the Houston Astros) with a dream team comprising Bird, Johnson, McHale, Ainge, and Parish. Bill Walton was the sixth man, and K. C. Jones the coach. Auerbach was confident he had made the right decisions to infuse the aging team with new blood. He had made a deal to get his choice draft pick, Len Bias from Maryland. The day after Bias was seen on television proudly showing his new Celtics jersey, he dropped dead from a drug overdose. Then Reggie Lewis, a new member of the team, died of a heart attack. Walton retired because of foot injuries, and Bird’s back injuries forced his retirement. Auerbach did what he had to do. He kept his focus on the team, and at the time of his death of a heart attack in 2006, the Boston Celtics were still a formidable team.

Significance

Auerbach brought professional basketball to the popularity it enjoys today. He single-handedly built a true sports dynasty, and his record is unlikely to be equaled. Winning teams fill stadiums, both at home and on the road. He spent a total of fifty-seven years with the team and will forever be a Boston icon. He was so famous for lighting his victory cigar when it became apparent his team had the game sewn up that, until his death, many Boston restaurants had signs proclaiming “No Smoking” and in smaller letters, “Except Red Auerbach.” Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame and was the recipient of seven honorary degrees.

Bibliography

Auerbach, Red, and John Feinstein. Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game. New York: Little, Brown, 2004. Auerbach brings the reader behind the scenes of his illustrious career with anecdotes about all the game’s greats.

Russell, Bill, and Alan Steinberg. Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Russell shares his memories of Auerbach, the man who coached him to championships and later made him the NBA’s first black head coach.

Shaughnessy, Dan. Seeing Red: The Red Auerbach Story. Avon, Mass.: Adams Media, 1995. The first biography of the legendary Celtics coach.

Slater, Robert O. Great Jews in Sports. Middle Village, N.Y.: Jonathan David, 1983. Auerbach wrote the foreword and is featured in the book.

Taylor, John. The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball. New York: Random House, 2005. The story of one of sports’ greatest rivalries, with a lot of information about Auerbach.