Bill Russell!

 When I was young un back in the 60s and had really formed no loyalties to any sports teams the NBA was a once a week on Sunday afternoon event on the television. The teams featured were always the Celtics and the Sixers and the Knicks and then whoever they played . Wilt and Willis and Bill. Every week. But Bill Russell was the guy. Oh Wilt was the greatest of all time but Russell with his quiet dominance was the guy you couldn't stop watching. When something needed to be done, like a block, or a rebound, or a pass Russell provided it. He didn't score that much, but he was the glue. I loved watching Bill Russell as a kid. He seemed like a guy you'd run thru a wall for.

What I didn't realize as a child was Bill Russell WAS a guy you'd run thru walls for. Bill Russell had ZERO fucks left to give when he was young. What the things a child cannot realize is quiet courage. He went to Mississippi after Medgar Evers was gunned down to run basketball clinics, he was at the March On Washington with MLK, he threatened boycotts after Kentucky restaurants wouldn't seat him with his barnstorming teammates, he lived in a racist city where he was tolerated when he won for them and then was dissed with gawd awful treatment off the court ( yes some Bostonian took a dump in his house, a man ahead of his time in the MAGA world) . But Russell never backed off.

I read his auto biography in college and was shocked at his treatment. What kind of Americans treat this man like this? And if Bill Russell gets called a n*****, how must it be for William Russell, everyday black American?  This was a man who truly wasn't going to take your shit and YET that laugh. Bill Russell has the greatest laugh in history. The pure joy, not a phony moment to it. It told me this dude wasn't going to let you get to him. He was gonna laugh in your face if he felt like it. It was joyous.

Goodbye Bill Russell. I will miss you more than you will ever know and I'm just a kid from Omaha. You were the greatest winner ever.