The US Athletic Hall of Fame - Coaches 2023
Red Auerbach
- Contest: The US Athletic Hall of Fame - Coaches 2023
- Embed from Getty Images
- Sport(s): Basketball
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Statistics:
9 NBA Championships (1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965 & 1966)
1 NBA Coach of the Year (1965)
938-479 Record
Member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame -
*7 NBA Championships (1968, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1984 & 1986)
*1 The Sporting News Executive of the Year Award (1980)
*As an executive
What would the Boston Celtics be without Red Auerbach? They might still have the same name, but they would not be the Boston Celtics.
You can go a step further and say the National Basketball Association's entire landscape is better because of Auerbach.
A guard at George Washington, Auerbach immediately went into coaching and was the first head coach of the Washington Capitols of the Basketball Association of America when the league was founded. Auerbach did well, taking them to the finals in 1949, and hoped to do more when the BAA merged with the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association. Auerbach was not a part of that, as he resigned when his requests to rebuild were denied by ownership.
Auerbach went on to Duke as their assistant coach, but that was a brief stop as he was given the green light to build up the Tri-City Hawks. That was short-lived as ownership traded his top player (John Mahnken), and he resigned again.
In 1950, he was tapped by Boston Celtics owner, Walter Brown, to take over the coaching duties, and he was finally able to build a team from the ground up. With his first-ever pick, he took Chuck Cooper, the first African-American, and broke the color barrier. He would assemble talent that filled specific roles, and once he secured Bill Russell, all the pieces were in place.
Stressing teamwork over stardom, the Celtics were a jigsaw puzzle with no missing pieces. A famed trash talker, Auerbach got into opponent's heads often before they took the floor. Boston won their first championship in 1957, and from 1959 to 1966, Auerbach's Celtics were the perennial champions, a dynasty that has never been equaled in basketball. By far, Auerbach was the best coach in the sport, building a team that cared only about Celtic green and not whether they were black or white. He loved his players and respected them, and they respected him back.
Auerbach stepped down as coach, focusing on his general managing duties, and as he went out, he again broke the color barrier by naming Russell as his successor, who was the first African American coach in a major North American league. Auerbach won seven more NBA championships with the Celtics as an executive, earning sixteen titles in total.
We are proud to nominate Red Auerbach for the United States Athletic Hall of Fame.
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