Pro Basketball: All the Credentials

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Ever since last spring, when Arnold ("Red") Auerbach, 48, announced that this season would be his last as boss of the world-champion Boston Celtics, pro basketball's No. 1 coaching job had gone begging. Auerbach's first choice as his successor was former Celtics Star Frank Ramsey, but Frank pleaded that he was too busy supervising the nursing homes he owns in Madisonville, Ky. Bob Cousy, who earned the nickname "Mr. Basketball" in 13 years with the Celtics, refused to quit as coach at Boston College. Ex-Celtics Forward Tommy Heinsohn told Red that he preferred his settled routine as a Boston insurance agent to the ulcers of a pro coach.

Auerbach was getting desperate when Bill Russell, the Celtics' towering (6 ft. 10 in.) center, five times the Most Valuable Player of the National Basketball Association, walked into his hotel room one day and announced: "Red, you always told me if I've got anything on my mind to get it off. If you still want me, I'd like the job." Sighed Auerbach: "You've got a deal." So, last week, William Felton Russell, 32, became the first Negro head coach of any big-league team in the history of pro sport.

Better Than Good. Good players do not necessarily make good coaches—but Russell's credentials are better than good. Intensely competitive and emotional ("He has left his lunch in men's rooms all over the country," says Hein-sohn), Russell played center on the U.S. team that won a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics, joined the Celtics during the 1956-57 season, and led them to their first N.B.A. title. With the exception of 1958, when Russell was nursing an injury, the Celtics have won the championship every year since. Last week they were just one victory away from their eighth straight, after beating the Los Angeles Lakers 122-117 to take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven play-off finals. Russell scored 25 points, pulled down 18 rebounds—and, as usual, played the full 48 minutes. "If a sorcerer told me, 'I'll break your arm and your team will win the championship,' " he has said, "I'd be walking around right now with my arm in a sling."

The simple fact that he is a Negro is enough to ensure that Bill Russell will be a controversial coach. Russell would be controversial in any color. Often arrogant, usually angry, always outspoken, he is a born boat rocker—"all hung up," in the words of his close friend and archrival, Wilt Chamberlain. He named his four-year-old daughter Kenyatta after Jomo Kenyatta, the onetime Mau Mau leader and current President of Kenya. He has called pro basketball "a child's game," insisted that "it isn't incumbent upon me to set a good example for anybody's kids but my own," refused to sign autographs because "I owe the public the same thing it owes me—nothing." As a coach, Russell admits, he will have to improve his public relations. "But I won't conform to anybody's code of behavior," he insists. "My name is still William Felton Russell. I'm not going to sell my soul for a job."