Happy Birthday

86 years young, and a Celtic immortal. #25, born on 5/25.

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Happy Birthday to 8x @NBA Champion KC Jones

Wow, 86? Times goes by so fast. He is older than Russell?

KC was waiting at USF for his basketball soulmate, Bill Russell, to arrive. KC had been there for a year and was working on a problem, a lost shot. He'd been a good shooter in high school, but no more. Offense wasn't his specialty, though. It was defense.

KC's college coach, Phil Woolpert, was in the process of introducing the new (old) concept of man to man defense, copied from Phog Allen at Kansas. He was looking around for fast, athletic players and right under his nose found the two greatest defensive players of all time.

It's difficult to tell what influence Woolpert had on his two stellar players. Russ and KC roomed together and practiced together and talked constantly for four years. Russ wrote that KC showed him how to view the game as five players working together, where Russ had previously focused on his individual development.

KC and Russ invented the modern game of basketball together at USF. Someone should write a book. As an example, when Red first saw Russ switch off his man to cover another man, he was amazed and made Russ explain what he was doing.

That's right....I forgot they were roommates. It just seems like a shock to see their ages. Russ is beginning to show his age a bit, walking with a cane or having someone walk with him. But not much gets by him, he came to Boston to see the Celtics play in the playoffs.

Just recently he gave all the Russell/Celtic fans out there a scare when he got rushed to the hospital with what they thought was a heart scare. Turns out he was dehydrated. He was sent home the next day.

Just as we are losing our World War II veterans on a daily basis, we will start losing some of these wonderful men who have brought us so much while
playing basketball.

Oh well, enough of that, Happy Birthday to KC, hope is was a great one

1 of 3 C’s that played for and went on to coach the team to the Championship.

Neat thing is. They all won 2 as coaches.

beat

You can go up and down the list and end up with one of my favorite players. K.C was a defensive specialist. Happy Birthday to him. He won as a player and as a coach.