calumnus said:
SFCityBear said:
59bear said:
SFCityBear said:
MSaviolives said:
helltopay1 said:
What a sensational backcourt..Three great players...KC Jones..Hal Perry...Eugene Brown..All were local..
Jones played for Commerce High in SF...Went belly-up in 1952
Perry played for Ukiah High school
Eugene Brown played for Washington High in SF..
Jones was regarded as a "great guy" while Russell always had a *****ly, unfriendly attitude.
Jones and Perry were great defensive players, while Brown was smooth as silk and was a great scorer...
I know! While Jones was a great guy, Russell's *****ly, unfriendly attitude made him totally uppity. Right?
At that time, there were large swaths of the country that refused him the right to use the same bathroom, restaurants, hotels, drinking fountains, or go to the same schools or play on the same teams, as white people. In those places, black people were not even allowed to make eye contact with white people--if they did, they would get a "what are you looking at boy?" Think about that--a grown man being called "boy." In some games fans yelled that he was a gorilla and made monkey sounds.
But shame on him for not being a "great guy" and having a *****ly unfriendly attitude around white people. What a jerk!
What you say about the attitudes of many whites toward black athletes in Russell's playing era is absolutely true, but Russell also lived through the society's era of the civil rights movement, the early years of non-violence, followed by years of violence, culminating in the passing of the Civil Rights laws, and most of his life after that was during an era of desegregation, making many of the practices you describe illegal.
I'm not sure we should interpret his attitude as being unfriendly or uppity just to white people, or to any white people, unless we have evidence of that.
I know his USF team was exposed to some mistreatment while visiting Oklahoma for a game, and I think they may have boycotted it or a hotel. I am sure he had to deaI with racial taunts in the NBA. NBA teams often played preseason games in the South, where the attitudes of many whites toward blacks were as you describe. There were no NBA teams in the South, but the NBA was testing the waters to establish teams there. St Louis was the closest to playing in a Southern city. Fred LaCour played there for the Hawks, and was driven out by the racial prejudice there.
I don't know if Russell tried to play on white teams who would not have him. Do you? Russell's coach in high school was George Powles, a white man, who was his close friend, and his mentor, and who also suggested USF recruit him. Russell was selected for the US Olympic team in 1956. All the other players were white, except for Carl Cain, a black player from Iowa. They won the Olympic Championship. I have seen the 1956 photo of his wedding, and the white players from the Olympic team were all in the wedding party. Would he do that, if he did not get along with his white teammates? When Russell was first was drafted in 1956, his first Celtics team was all white, and his coach was Red Auerbach, who was white, a Jew. He must have gotten along well with them, because they won the NBA. Incidentally, Auerbach traded the rights to Cliff Hagan, a rookie like Russell, who would become a Hall of Famer, but a blatant racist, to St Louis, to obtain the right to draft Russell. Russell and Hagan would not have gotten along, and I bet Auerbach knew that. Red wanted championships, and that meant Russell and players who could play together.
Over the years, the Celts added black and white players, most of the time a roughly equal number of each. They must have gotten along well, because they won more NBA titles than any team in history. He coached the Celtics as player-coach, and won two NBA titles in 3 years doing that. How could he have gotten all those players to respect him and play hard for him, if he had an uppity unfriendly attitude toward white people?
And Russell was married 4 times. First was Rose, a black woman, who he admits he mistreated, and his next three wives where white. I just don't buy that Russell had a *****ly unfriendly attitude toward just toward whites, and I hope that is not what you were saying. My impression of Russell has always been that he did not suffer fools gladly, no matter their race. His lifelong friends, both coaches and players, included many whites.
K. C. Jones was also on the '56 Olympic team.
My mistake. Thanks for the correction.
And Willie Naulls should have been.
Why should Willie Naulls have been on the 1956 Olympic team? True, he was an excellent college player, and a consensus 2nd team All-American, like K.C. Jones, who did make the Olympic team that year. But we need to remember that it was the AAU which more or less controlled amateur basketball in the US, not the NCAA. The Olympic team that year had only three college players Russell, Jones, and Carl Cain of Iowa. The bulk of the team was made up of 6 players from AAU teams, including James Walsh, formerly of Stanford, and also included 3 players from the Armed Forces teams, including Ron Tomsic, formerly of Stanford.
The Olympic tryouts, I believe, may have been by teams, like they were in the 1960 Olympics, when they invited 8 teams for a tournament, including the AAU champion, the NCAA champion, an NCAA all-star team, and a NAIA small college all-star team. The coach of the tournament champion was then chosen to be the US Olympic Team coach. With this format in the 1960 Olympics, the NCAA All Stars (With Robertson and West) won the tournament, and as the All-star team coach, Pete Newell was chosen as Olympic team coach that year. Newell then selected the best players for the team. In 1956, the Phillips 66ers of the AAU won the tournament. Their coach was Gerald Tucker, and he chose who would play on the US Olympic Team, and so deference was given to the AAU players and especially those from his team, the 66ers. If you look at the 1956 Olympic roster, one reason for selecting so few college players may have been that they are all younger than the AAU and Armed Forces team members, who ranged from 23-26 years in age. The AAU at the time was also competing with the NBA for graduating college players, and with NBA salaries so low, they were able to land a lot of the nations top college players. Those AAU players were just like pros, in terms of experience, and a lot of them had offers to play in the NBA. I can see why Olympic team coaches would want more of them on our Olympic team.
To make this team, Naulls would have probably had to be on the NCAA All-Star team, and those players would be competing for probably only 3 or 4 spots on the Olympic Team. If they wanted to make the Olympic team, there were great college players ahead of Naulls in my mind: Sihugo Green and Tommy Heinsohn, both 1st team consensus All-Americans. 2-time 1st team All-American Robin Freeman would have been another, except that weeks after he graduated from college, he was chopping wood and severed two fingers. Drafted by the NBA, but he would never be able to play basketball again. Carl Cain, who did make the team, tragically injured his back at the Olympics and played in one game. Then in the final game, he got out of a hospital bed, and was sent into the game, where he made a free throw. He said it was the greatest experience of his life, and he retired from basketball with a herniated disc.
Bill Russell had been dreaming of playing for the United States in the Olympics since he was young, and he himself was worried about making the Olympic Team. He said that if he did not make the team, he would compete in the Olympics in the high jump, as he was ranked 2nd in the nation in that event. Russell also delayed signing his NBA contract, so that he could remain an amateur and play in the Olympics. Because the 1956 Olympics were played in Australia, where it was already winter, Russell had to miss 24 games of the Celtics season by arriving late to the team. Heinsohn had decided not to try out for the Olympic team, and instead sign an NBA contract with the Celtics after he was drafted. He went on to play the full season and was named NBA Rookie of the Year for 1956 over Russell, his teammate. Naulls, who did sign an NBA contract perhaps also felt it right to become a professional as soon as possible, instead of trying to make the Olympic team, where the odds were not in his favor. Or maybe playing in the Olympics was not his dream, like it was Bill Russell's and Carl Cain's.
I'm glad I got to see Willie Naulls play, in Harmon against Cal. It was a very good team with Naulls, Morris Taft, and Don Bragg of Galileo High in San Francisco. They were beaten by the USF Dons in the NCAA tournament, I think. I also got to see Naulls in the NBA as Warrior near the end of his career as a Warrior for most of the 1963 season.
SFCityBear
