Celtic Pride vs. Tanking

Play hard.  Play with Pride.  If you lose trying your best, then you only lost the game, nothing else.  Lose because you didn't give it all and you lose yourself too.



Go Celtics!





http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2013/10/celtics-pride-vs-tanking.html




Celtics Pride vs Tanking
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
by FLCeltsFan   12:08 PM

Having been a Celtics fan for over 40 years, I am well aware of Celtic Pride. It's a phrase is a phrase that is kicked around a lot by Celtics fans and the media. Celtic Pride was the name of a publication I used to subscribe to back in the 80's. It was a magazine style monthly publication that included stories from behind the scenes. It was really great to get that issue every month, especially for those of us out of the area who didn't get the local news on the team. But, along with the glory years of the Celtics, the publication went by the wayside.

Celtic Pride is also the name of a movie starring Dan Akroyd and Daniel Stern as two rabid fans of the Boston Celtics. Mike O'Hara (Stern) and Jimmy Flaherty (Aykroyd) are die-hards in the truest sense of the word. They're the type of season ticket holders who go to every game wearing green and they eat, drink, and breathe the Celtics. In the movie, the Celtics have reached the NBA finals, and the series is knotted at 3-3. Looking for an advantage for their beloved Celtics, Mike and Jimmy decide to meet the star opposing player, Utah Jazz bad boy Lewis Scott (played by Damon Wayans) at a bar, get him drunk, then kidnap him while he's out cold. In the end, the die hard Celtic fans have to cheer for the Jazz in order to avoid being charged with kidnapping. I may be the only one on the face of the earth who actually liked this movie and even bought both the VHS and the DVD of it. The Celtic Pride in this movie is that of the fans for the team, so much so that they would do anything to help their team win. Around the league, Celtics fans are known for their fanaticism and being fans of the most storied franchise in the NBA is a good reason to be proud.


From the sixties through the late eighties, Boston Celtic fans were the ultimate in arrogance. The parquet floor of the old Boston Garden seemed to just exude pride. First it was Russell vs Wilt and then Bird vs Magic. The Celtics racked up banner after banner seemingly with ease. They had a few years in the seventies when they were down but they bounced right back to win more banners. No other franchise can boast 17 championships or as many Hall of Fame players or as many retired numbers. Celtics fans are a proud bunch and with good reason.

This is from a 2002 issue of the Sporting News.
On April 21, the simple act of a leisurely stroll by five white-haired gentlemen, along with a few bars of Bruce Springsteen background music, suddenly awoke Celtic Pride.

Moments before the Celtics faced the 76ers in the first game of the teams' Eastern Conference opening-round playoff series, Tom Heinsohn, K.C. Jones, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell and even Red Auerbach supplied the home fans with an impromptu spine-tingler.

The quintet of Boston icons decided among themselves to walk side by side, in front of the Philly bench, across the parquet floor and to their seats in Section 12. For good measure, the Celtics blasted The Boss' "Glory Days" over the FleetCenter's usually unnoticed loud speakers.

The legends were back, and so were the Celtics. "That gave me chills," says Boston general manager Chris Wallace. "You're around this stuff all the time, but that really probably brought it home maybe more than any event I've been through in the five years I've been with this team. When those guys walked across the court, that showed that we're not just another sports franchise."


Red Auerbach was the master of gamesmanship. He would do anything to get the edge in a game. He would have cold water piped into the visiting locker rooms in the old Garden. It is said that he turned up the heat in the locker rooms during the playoffs as well. It was so bad that opposing teams had to bring oxygen for their players just to get through the games. Also the dead spots on the floor were legendary. I remember watching one game a player was dribbling up the floor and Dennis Johnson seemed to be herding him over toward the side. Suddenly, DJ swooped down and grabbed the ball as it hit the ground and didn't come back up. His opponent had hit a dead spot and DJ knew right where it was and was ready to grab the ball when it didn't bounce back up from the dribble.

The past has always been a security blanket for Celtics fans. 17 World Championships. Red Auerbach, Russell, Heinsohn, Cousy, Havlicek, the Jones Boys, Cowens, Bird, McHale, Parish, DJ, Sharman, Walton, Maravich and so many more. No other team has such a rich history or such a winning tradition. Then came the dark ages known as the '90s, and with them came the ML Carr debacle and the Pitino years. The fans who have stuck with the team through it all are the real die hard fans, those with real Celtic Pride.

I came across this statement in John Havlicek's biography and it has always stuck in my mind.
He also had the inner drive that characterized "Celtics pride." After his first year Havlicek went home and worked hard to improve both his outside shooting and his dribbling. The next season he led the team in scoring.

"The inner drive that characterized Celtics pride." The context of this statement seems to indicate that Celtics pride is something inside the players to make them want to be better. Something inside that makes them work harder because they are Celtics and that means something. Celtics Pride is what drove Havlicek to work to improve his dribbling and his shooting after his first year. It is what drove all of the Celtics' legendary players to be the best they could and to work to become a team capable of winning a championship year after year. It is what kept Bird in the gym hours after practice working on his game even though he was already a superstar.


Baxter Holmes has written a great 3 part article on Brad Stevens that has brought all these thoughts about Celtic Pride to mind. In today's portion of the article, he discusses “The Butler Way” and how that was, in part, derived from Bill Russell's book, “Russell Rules: 11 lessons on Leadership From the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Winner.” From the article,

Two of Russell’s ideals stuck with them, one about team ego (“My ego demands — for myself — the success of my team”); and the other about the culture of the Celtics: “ ‘Celtic Pride’ is a real concept, a culture, and a practice rather than an idea. We lived it and breathed it. But we were each responsible for it. It began with a collective determination never to embarrass ourselves.”

Today, on the front wall of the Butler men’s basketball room is a placard that reads: “The Butler Way begins with a ‘collective determination never to embarrass ourselves.’ And we agree that The Butler Way is not merely a concept, but a ‘culture and a practice — and we all are responsible for it.’ ”

The Celtics and tanking should never be used in the same sentence. Never. Tanking and the lottery have never worked out for the Celtics and I have little faith that they ever will. I'm hoping that Brad Stevens brought "The Butler Way" with him to Boston and has presented it as what it originated as: Celtic Pride. Ronald Nored, now a player development coach with the Celtics, had this to say about Stevens,

“The guy, he just invests in you. He just wants you to be better in any way possible. That’s how he is with everyone. Once you see that, he’s an easy guy to root for, an easy guy to want to do things for.”

Brad Stevens seems like he was destined for this team for this time, to bring back Celtics Pride. Listening to him and reading about him, I don't see an ounce of tanking in him. He will strive to give his players the inner drive. And he will be sure that they have the collective determination never to embarrass themselves by giving less than their best effort. They will work hard to get better. They will exhibit that intangible quality that comes from being a Celtic: Celtic Pride.



bob
MY NOTE:  My thoughts on this preceded the article.

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Brad couldn't consult a better bible than Russ' book. I recall, at BDC, posting a fairly in-depth synopsis of each chapter and the lessons to be derived. I don't know whether or not I have included that in my "writings" forum, but this could be a very good time to run it again.

I've often wondered how many of his rules were really credos that governed his life on and off the court versus just being lessons invented to fill up the book. Russ definitely has the capacity to go in either direction and to do it convincingly. But, whatever the case, I will forever be grateful for my favorite Russell Rule—"Invisible Man"—which I've used countless times in my personal and professional lives. It really works like a charm.

Sam