He was a child when his family moved to the West Coast, and he went to high school in Oakland, California, and then the University of San Francisco. “She hung the phone up and I asked myself, ‘How do you get to be a hero to Jackie Robinson?’” Russell said. The feeling was mutual, Russell learned, when Robinson’s widow, Rachel, called and asked him to be a pallbearer at her husband’s funeral in 1972. He showed me the way to be a man in professional sports.” “They’re wrestling with their own demons.”īut it was Jackie Robinson who gave Russell a road map for dealing with racism in his sport: “Jackie was a hero to us. “Whatever they say, good or bad, they don’t know you,” he recalled her saying. From my first moment of being alive was the notion that my mother and father loved me.” It was Russell’s mother who would tell him to disregard comments from those who might see him playing in the yard. “Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’ve never been through anything. “Years later, people asked me what I had to go through,” Russell said in 2008. Russell said that when he was growing up in the segregated South and later California his parents instilled in him the calm confidence that allowed him to brush off racist taunts. He endured insults and vandalism, but he kept on focusing on making the teammates who he loved better players and made possible the success of so many who would follow.” When a restaurant refused to serve the Black Celtics, he refused to play in the scheduled game. “Bill Russell, the man, is someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men,” Obama said at the ceremony. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Russell the Medal of Freedom alongside Congressman John Lewis, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and baseball great Stan Musial. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, and he backed Muhammad Ali when the boxer was pilloried for refusing induction into the military draft. He was at the March on Washington in 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. The native of Louisiana also left a lasting mark as a Black athlete in a city - and country - where race is often a flash point. Often, that meant Wilt Chamberlain, the only player of the era who was a worthy rival for Russell.īut Russell dominated in the only stat he cared about: 11 championships to two. He remains the sport’s most prolific winner and an archetype of selflessness who won with defense and rebounding while leaving the scoring to others. “Through the taunts, threats and unthinkable adversity, Bill rose above it all and remained true to his belief that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.Ī Hall of Famer, five-time Most Valuable Player and 12-time All-Star, Russell in 1980 was voted the greatest player in the NBA history by basketball writers. At the height of his athletic career, Bill advocated vigorously for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps,” Silver said. “Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that he stamped into the DNA of our league. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that Russell was “the greatest champion in all of team sports.” (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Bill Russell on the red carpet at the 2019 NBA Awards at Barker Hanger in Santa Monica on Monday, June 24, 2019.
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