50 Years Later

http://www.telegram.com/article/20130224/COLUMN08/102249911/1009/sports



NBA: 50 years after retirement, Bob Cousy's legend grows


Bill Doyle NBA





Bob Cousy retired from the NBA 50 years ago next month — March 17, 1963.


‘We love ya, Cooz.”

It could be the most famous phrase ever uttered in Celtics history.

Bob Cousy was so choked up with emotion that he had trouble speaking while addressing the crowd at his retirement ceremony during his final regular-season game as a Celtic. Finally, a fan broke the tension by shouting, “We love ya, Cooz.” Cousy sobbed while the crowd gave its beloved point guard a rousing ovation.

Believe it or not, that memorable moment will have occurred 50 years ago next month. Cousy’s retirement party took place on March 17, 1963. Yes, it was St. Patrick’s Day, certainly an appropriate day to honor a Celtic great.

“It doesn’t feel like 50 years,” Cousy said, “probably because I’ve been able to maintain a relationship with the team.”

Cousy, 84, worked for the Celtics as a broadcaster for many years and still serves as a consultant.

This column isn’t nearly long enough to list all the highlights of Cousy’s Hall of Fame career, but they include winning an NCAA title with Holy Cross, capturing six NBA championships with the Celtics, earning the 1957 NBA MVP and playing in the NBA All-Star Game in each of his 13 seasons. He was also invited to the White House six times, had a private audience with the Pope, graced the cover of Sports Illustrated four times, was honored when the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame began presenting the Bob Cousy Award to the nation’s top collegiate point guard and lived to see a statue of him erected outside the Hart Center at Holy Cross.

“I’m the luckiest SOB to come down the pike with some skills to play a child’s game,” Cousy said.

Nevertheless, Cousy insists his emotional retirement ceremony is right up there with anything that has happened to him.

“I suppose,” he said, “I should remember my wedding day more clearly, but I have to admit that’s not quite the case. That was certainly a highlight.”

The fan who yelled, “We love ya Cooz” was a diehard Celtics fan named Joe Dillon, a water department worker from South Boston. Cousy can’t remember ever meeting him, but Dillon’s family wrote to him over the years, most recently to inform him that Dillon had passed away a few years ago.

Cousy said when he visits the Garden, fans still occasionally shout, “We love ya, Cooz.”

“It got so much attention at the time that copycats like to do it from the stands,” Cousy said. “It’s nice to be remembered.”

Cousy was showered with such gifts as a Fleetwood Cadillac and sterling silver trays and tea sets. Unfortunately, the sterling silver sets were stolen from his Worcester home in the 1980s. Through the years, Cousy bonded not only with Celtics coach Red Auerbach — whom he always called by his first name of Arnold — and his teammates, but with the media. He purchased watches and presented them during his retirement ceremony to the newspaper reporters to repay them for their kindness over the years.

“I never had a negative thing written about me,” he said.

The following month, Cousy retired after helping the Celtics beat the Lakers to capture their sixth NBA championship and their fifth in a row. He was only 34 years old, but he was tired of the travel and he wanted to spend more time at his Worcester home with his wife, Missie, and their two daughters.

“I was worn out mentally,” Cousy said. “I wasn’t worn out physically. With that team, with the strength we had, Arnold could have done what Doc (Rivers) is doing with (Paul) Pierce and (Kevin) Garnett. He could have gotten the best out of me for short minutes.”

When people ask Cousy why he didn’t do that for two or three more years, his answer is always the same.

“If I was earning $18 million,” Cousy said, “I’d have stayed there until they had to carry me off on a stretcher.”

Cousy was making $35,000, not $18 million, so he decided to go out on top of his game. He took a pay cut to $12,000 to coach the Boston College basketball team, but his shoe and basketball endorsement contracts and appearance work supplemented his income. After compiling a 114-38 record, including trips to the NCAA Elite Eight and the NIT championship game in six years at BC, Cousy resigned.

“The recruiting even then was a cesspool, and it hasn’t gotten any better,” he said.

Cousy said some people at BC still think he left to accept more money to coach in the NBA, but he insisted he had no intention of coaching anywhere when he left BC. Only after he departed the Heights did the Cincinnati Royals come calling, and Cousy told his attorney to ask for a ridiculous amount of money so they’d stop asking.

Instead, Royals owners Max and Jeremy Jacobs — yes, that’s the same Jeremy Jacobs who owns the Boston Bruins today — agreed to Cousy’s request of $125,000 a year, an apartment and a car. So Cousy coached the Royals for 4-1/2 years before the Jacobs family sold the team and he was let go, but not before he made enough money and invested it wisely to assure him of a comfortable life.

After Cousy’s first season coaching BC, he declined Auerbach’s offer to become coach of the Celtics.

“I didn’t want to coach guys I played with,” Cousy said.

All these years later, Cousy has no second thoughts about never coaching the franchise that he helped popularize.

“Every step of the way, I’ve been lucky,” Cousy said. “I have no regrets whatsoever. I don’t want any do-overs. I don’t need any mulligans. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Cousy doesn’t need any mulligans on the golf course either. On Wednesday, he shot an 82, beating his age by two strokes, in the wind on the championship course at Bear Lakes CC in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he and Missie spend their winters. Last month, he carded his seventh career hole-in-one, using an 11-wood on the 165-yard, par-3 13th hole on the Bear Lakes links course. His playing partners celebrated his ace, but he purposely remained calm.

“I wanted to be Mr. Cool,” Cousy said. “They said, ‘How come you’re not more excited? I said, ‘Hey, it’s my seventh one, what’s the big deal?’ ”

Cousy considers the notion that the Celtics are better off without point guard Rajon Rondo to be hogwash, even if they did win eight of their first nine after he was lost for the season with a torn ACL in his right knee.

“Obviously, I have probably an inflated opinion of the point guard value in this game,” said Cousy, who led the NBA in assists for eight consecutive years. “It’s like driving a car without a designated driver.”

Cousy expects the absence of Rondo, who has broken several of his team assist records, to catch up with the Celtics.

“I’m very high on Rondo,” Cousy said, “and you can’t take a point guard like that out of the lineup and have everything remain the same and have them continue to win. I bet by the end of the season, they will have lost more than they win without Rondo.”

Cousy has heard that Rondo is too intense and a control freak.

“That was probably the wrong thing to say to me,” Cousy said, “because I was intense and to some degree I was a control freak. If you’re running the show, you’ve got to establish your authority. If you take control, it helps the overall confidence of the team. It helps the coach to know that he’s got a coach on the floor, and it gives the ones who are insecure a crutch to lean on.

“The cool, the lackadaisical, the lack of passion or intensity to me is much more of a negative than being overly intense.”

Prior to Thursday’s trade deadline, a lot was said and written about whether the Celtics should have traded Pierce. Cousy believes strongly that Pierce, the franchise’s second all-time leading scorer, should retire as a Celtic.

“I heard that Garnett said he wanted to die a Celtic,” Cousy said. “I think Paul should feel the same way. His identity is completely tied to the Celtics. When he gets to be 84, he’ll feel much better about having played his entire career with the Celtics than going somewhere and wasting a year or two even though he would have earned a few million bucks. For a lot of reasons, he’ll be much happier in his retirement if he goes out as a Celtic.”

The Celtics may deal Pierce before next year’s trade deadline even if he wants to stay.

“I’d like to think,” Cousy said, “that the Celtics would accommodate him if he says, ‘I’d like to stay and play out my years with the Celtics,’ but it’s more difficult for them to do than for him to do.”

Pierce, 35, has only next season left on his contract. He’s scheduled to earn $15 million, but the Celtics could buy him out for $5 million. He won’t play forever, so fans should start thinking of what they’d like to shout out during his retirement ceremony. It won’t be easy though to top “We love ya, Cooz.”



bob



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You learn something new everyday. For 50 years I thought that it was Sam that cried out those famous words"WE LOVE YA COOZ". Now I find out that it was Joe Dillon from South Boston. It sure was right up there with the best when it comes to sports farewell ceremonies. Another that I'll always remember was the Lou Gehrig farewell at Yankee Stadium. While Cousy recalled how he was "lucky every step of the way", Gehrig proclaimed that he was "the luckiest person in the world". Classy statements from Classy people. Ah, the memories.

Swish

Swish,

There were articles, about 5-10 years after The Cooz retired, that the actual words uttered by Joe Dillon were, "We ALL love you Cooz.!" All I could make out from the first balcony was "We love you Cooz."

When I worked for a Boston advertising agency during the first half of the 1960s, one of our clients was The Boston Herald. Someone at the agency got me a blowup of Cousy, towel draped around him, wiping his eyes. I was lucky enough, before the start of a game, to approach Cooz, who was sitting in the first row under a basket. I showed him the photograph, and he said, "Some people just don't know how to keep their emotions in check." Then he signed it for me. It's one of the possessions that goes out of the house with me if there's ever a fire.

Regardless of whom I have been privileged to befriend or meet in pro basketball, it will always be The Cooz who made me an instant addict at age 13 in 1950. I could never get enough of watching him and searing into my memory his mannerisms, his moves, his leadership qualities, etc. I could adopt his mannerisms. As for leadership, I had nothing to lead. But mimicking his moves was out of the question.

Thanks, Cooz,

Sam