Boston Celtics legends facing their mortality

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/10/14/boston-celtics-legends-facing-their-mortality/



Boston Celtics legends facing their mortality



Satch Sanders, Bob Cousy, Dave Cowens, Tom Heinsohn, and Bill Russell among last remaining links to sport’s greatest dynasty




Boston Celtics legends facing their mortality




By MARK MURPHY | markr.murphy@bostonherald.com | Boston Herald



PUBLISHED: October 14, 2019 at 5:30 am | UPDATED: October 14, 2019 at 9:56 am




The guys are talking about it, you know.

Satch Sanders and Bob Cousy were out to dinner last spring, and Sanders, wary and bemused, looked across the table at his 90-year-old friend.

“Guys are trying to talk about who will be left standing, a last man standing kind of thing,” he said of their fellow Celtic survivors.

Both men broke out laughing over the grimness of it all.


“We joked about that, but it’s a reality we all face,” Sanders says now, thinking back further to a 2018 conversation with Frank Ramsey, the wry, sharp-witted Hall-of-Famer who had originally put Sanders’ thoughts on this fateful track.



“Frank Ramsey and I talked on the phone, and he would say, ‘Who do you think is going down next?'” Sanders said, raising his quiet voice into a loud, braying imitation of Ramsey’s Kentucky drawl.

“I’d say, ‘Frank, that’s not really a subject I’d feel comfortable discussing,’” he continued. “He said, ‘Well, it’s a reality for us,’ in that accent of his.

“We were trying to go down the list, and he said Big Gene (Conley) just died, and we talked about the guys who might be next. One thing he said was, well Cooze is the oldest. I was like, ‘Well, yeah, but we’re all getting up there.'”


“Well how old are you?”

“I just reached 80.”

“Hell, you’re a kid.”

Ramsey, though, was next.

He died at home of complications from Parkinson’s Disease two-and-a-half months later, five days shy of his 87th birthday.

Sanders sighed.

“We used to have those conversations — the kind of conversation many older people have, as they recognize that there may be a time limit,” he said. “And then suddenly, two-and-a-half months later, he was the one that was tagged.

“One thing is certain: We’re no different from anyone else reaching their seventies and eighties, or whatever — nineties — when you start saying, ‘I wonder how much time I have left. I wonder how much time he has left.’”


BOSTON MA. – MAY 23: Former Boston Celtic Bob Cousy leaves at the funeral for Boston Celtic great John Havlicek at Trinity Church on May 23, 2019 in Boston, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)



Dwelling on mortality

The Celtics’ greatest generation assembled, even more of them than usual, for another memorial service on May 23.

John Havlicek, who succumbed at 79 after a three-year battle with Parkinson’s, was about to be eulogized in an ornate old Boston landmark that was worthy of the occasion. Trinity Church lent a royal touch to the event and, roughly five minutes before the service began, a king arrived.

Bill Russell was helped down the center aisle by his wife, Jeannine. Most were surprised that Russell made the trip from his home in Mercer Island, just outside Seattle. At 85, with Jeannine’s constant assistance, Russell still makes many appearances on behalf of the NBA.



BOSTON MA. – MAY 23: Former Boston Celtic Bill Russell arrives at the funeral for Boston Celtic great John Havlicek at Trinity Church on May 23, 2019 in Boston, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)


But Boston has never been an easy place for Russell to visit — with geographical concerns the least of it — stemming from his troubled relationship with the city and its racially-torn history.

“It shows how important John was to him,” said Cousy, who as one of six eulogizers was at the front of the church when Russell arrived.

He had put a lot of time into his eulogy, but nearly scrapped the presentation, nearly winged it.

“I was going to give Russell his due, even if it was in an Episcopal church. I thought we should acknowledge the only man on the planet who had to grow an extra finger to accommodate his 11 rings,” said Cousy. “I was going to say, ‘Russ, I know you have 11. Satch, how many?’ Satch would have said eight. Tommy (Heinsohn)? He had 10, two as a coach.

“I was going to go to Chris Havlicek and say, ‘Chris, how many flags did your father pull up to the rafters?’ And he would have said eight. So I’m the piker, because I’ve got six. Even when I stood up, I still was going to do it, but this was John’s finale — would this deter at all?

“But it would have been a nice sight for the people who were there.”

Cousy is frank in his worry that as old teammates continue to pass, the relevance of what the old Celtics accomplished will be lost on the young, including today’s NBA players. He laughs at Golden State hype, including attention paid to the Warriors’ trip to five straight Finals.

“We won it 11 times in 13 freaking years,” he said.

Havlicek’s death forced Cousy to look deeper, to something more personal.

“Every night a pain develops somewhere,” said Cousy. “Oh, this is it, the big one. You become aware of your mortality. I went to four funerals in the last two weeks including John’s. It’s morbid. I can’t do wakes anymore. Can’t stand it. So normally I go to church services. Sit in the back, pay my respects and then hobble off. I don’t dwell on my mortality, but it’s just human nature.”

This past July, though, just over two months after Havlicek’s death, Cousy couldn’t help it.

“I hope I’m wrong, but I think in three months I’m going to be vertical — only because of this stenosis,” he said. “Just keeps creeping up your back, and 90 percent of the time I sit and read or watch the tube, whatever.”

https://www.bostonherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CousyBlueChips.mp4?_=1


In the public eye

Politically conservative, Cousy likes Fox News, is friends with analysts Juan Williams and Ed Henry, and shortly after turning 91 on Aug. 1, he was summoned to the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Donald Trump. Cousy, through the lobbying of a determined group of local friends, originally thought he was in line for the honor from President Barack Obama, who instead honored Russell, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 2011. But Cousy’s friends struck gold once Trump took office, successfully lobbying for the honor with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin as the campaign spearhead.


President Barack Obama reaches up to present a 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom to basketball hall of fame member, former Boston Celtics coach and captain Bill Russell, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington.(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)


Cousy accepted the medal during an Aug. 22 ceremony in the Oval Office. Effusive and visibly moved, Cousy pledged his support for Trump in 2020, admitting that he voted for someone else, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, in 2016.

Russell’s medal, meanwhile, came from the other end of the political spectrum, and it didn’t take much for this old civil rights activist to take a knee along with Colin Kaepernick. In response to a Trump diatribe about NFL players and their support of the exiled quarterback in 2017, Russell put his medal to use. He looped it over his shoulders, took one knee and glowered into the camera. He posted the photo on Twitter with the following caption:


President Donald Trump listens during a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony for former NBA basketball player and coach Bob Cousy, of the Boston Celtics, in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“Proud to take a knee, and to stand tall against social injustice. #takeaknee #medaloffreedom #NFL #BillRussell #MSNBC”

It’s been remarkable, in a way, how active Russell has become with the aid of social media. Cousy, like the rest of Russell’s former teammates, is impressed by the big man’s digital age resilience.

He also remains troubled by his own relationship with Russell, as detailed in the book “The Last Pass” by Gary Pomerantz. Cousy cooperated in part with the hope he could overcome old resentments and slights and mend this frayed connection with Russell, who didn’t talk to Pomerantz.

Cousy still had those doubts as he approached Russell in Trinity Church.

“I went over to him, shook his hand, and said, ‘Big guy, how you doing? Thank you for coming.’ And he looked at me blankly,” said Cousy. “At that point, I couldn’t stay, so I kept moving to my seat behind them. Ten years ago I was with him at a golf event, and his hearing was gone then. He refuses to wear hearing aids. Two or three times during the ceremony (Jeannine) would lean into his right ear and he would nod.”

But the quiet nature of his public appearances aside, Russell continues to set a public standard for his teammates, proof that this greatest Celtics generation still has some life.

“In my mind, he has no choice but to keep being the role model he is,” said Sanders. “It works for me – well, perhaps at 98 or 100 you’ll see him slow down. But if Russ can do it, I can certainly follow along. I wish for him the best he can possibly have in his life at this point.

“Russ has always been, quote unquote, that kind of guy,” he said. “He had thoughts or something to say, and you were able to get him to talk, he had plenty to say and plenty of opinions. The strength in those thoughts and opinions also. I would expect him to speak out on those issues. He has always stepped up, not nervous about it at all.”

Sanders saw that same towering will at work in Trinity Church.

“When the audience was requested to stand he managed to stand a couple of times. I was saying to myself, I don’t know why he feels it necessary to struggle up, because he’s a man of years but also relatively poor health,” said Sanders. “There is nothing to prove, but Russell is not the kind of guy to try and prove anything. That’s just his nature, what he was about. It was the tribute and the feeling he had about John that brought him there.”

Though a man of few words these days, Russell is worried about his teammates, too. K.C. Jones, for instance, hasn’t appeared in public for many years, and is under the care of his wife, Ellen, at their home near Hartford.

“Few years ago I saw Russell at an autograph thing up at the Shriner’s, and I asked how K.C. was doing,” said Dave Cowens. “He said, ‘I called, wanted to talk to him, and his wife wouldn’t let him talk to me. I just wanted to talk to my friend.’ She’s very protective of K.C., and I think that upset Russell.”


John Havlicek (17) of the Boston Celtics drives against the Los Angeles Lakers. Boston Herald file photo


The Heartbeat

Cowens left Trinity Church with one particularly delightful image — that of a smiling, chatty Russell, surrounded by Havlicek’s seven mostly blond grandchildren, during a post-service reception held in the basement.

Chris Havlicek gave a eulogy about his father that was equal parts emotion and humor, including a list of Havlicek’s nicknames. His children called him Captain. Old friends called him Yunch, though no one could remember why. And then there was Thrifty.

That one made Cowens smile. Thrifty was as much his teammate as Hondo or Captain. Thrifty was the guy who collected unused nip bottles from teammates on flights, back when they still flew commercial.


Captain John Havlicek is mobbed by young autograph hunters. Boston Herald file photo05/07/1969


“We’d fly first class sometimes, and he’d be a pain in the ass. He’d come around and ask, do you want your nips? He’d get these barf bags and fill them up,” said Cowens. “He’d ask, order two Baccardi’s, order two of this or that.”

Havlicek’s hoarding finally made sense a while later, after his retirement following the 1977-78 season.

“So when he has his retirement party, there’s a huge table with all of these nips, hundreds of bottles of nips, all in rows,” said Cowens. “Here’s the bourbon, here’s the gin, here’s the vodka. He didn’t have to buy any liquor, because we’d already been giving it to him over the years. He had this planned out in his mind.

“But that’s how John was. He was so linear about everything, boom, boom, boom. That’s how he behaved.”

This also described the legacy of a great athlete. Havlicek missed only nine games over his last four seasons, and ran opponents ragged to the end. If Russell was the franchise’s backbone, Havlicek was its unrelenting heartbeat.

And as Havlicek and Beth, his wife of 52 years, quietly told friends of his illness, they were dismayed by the decline. Parkinson’s quickly stripped him of his sense of balance. He had to be helped out of chairs, though he still tried to stay active socially. He continued to show up for Cousy’s Thursday night dinner group in West Palm Beach, Fla., making the 24-mile trip from Jupiter. One week not long before his death, Beth called to cancel.


John Havlicek speaks during an event at the Liberty Hotel in April 2016 while celebrating the anniversaries of the Celtics’ 1966, ’76 and ’86 championship teams.


“Three years ago he looked like an Olympic athlete,” said Cousy. “And he told me when I left one night, ‘Oh, I’ve got what you’ve got, a-fib.’ I said ‘John, half the people walking around have a-fib. It’s not life-threatening usually.’ Then eight months later Beth called me and said, ‘Bob, we’ve decided to tell some close friends — it’s not a-fib, it’s Parkinson’s.'”

“I asked, ‘Why are you in the closet about Parkinson’s, what’s so nasty about Parkinson’s?’ I just thanked her.”

Cousy’s view of the disease is far different now, after witnessing Havlicek’s rapid decline. But they were all caught off guard.

“Havlicek’s demise bothered me as much as Wilt Chamberlain’s passing,” said Sanders. “Wilt Chamberlain was a real force, very strong, would live forever, and suddenly he has the nerve to die. I remember someone calling and I said, ‘What could take Wilt out?’

“Look at John. Havlicek was my roommate for maybe five seasons, and I knew he had that great heart situation where he had a very slow beat so he could run forever and hardly perspire.”

That slow heartbeat very much defined the man.

“They didn’t measure it in those days, but later on he became aware and all the rest of us became aware, particularly when John would get angry at some of us who were not running as long and well as he was,” said Sanders. “I said, ‘John, wait a minute, if we had a robot heart like the one you’ve got, we’d be able to run as long and fast as you’re doing, but we don’t have that benefit. We’re just normal guys trying to keep up.’ John was kind of special.”


Fomer Boston Celtic Great Tommy Heinsohn gives the thumbs up to some of the current Celtics as he works the floor for FSN as the Boston Celtics take on the 76er’s at the Garden . (Staff photo by Stuart Cahill)


Still in the game

Tom Heinsohn played with Havlicek for three years and coached him for eight, including during the latter’s peak. Heinsohn’s omnipresent plea — that a team has to run — found no better player at getting down the floor than Havlicek. He may often sound like a voice in the wilderness — “I can tell you within 10 minutes if a team is really going to be a running team” — but he keeps preaching.

Heinsohn is about to start his 39th consecutive season as a Celtics analyst, doing home games with longtime partner Mike Gorman and working in the studio for road games. He’s still the voice of outrage whenever calls start going the other way, and the most visible connection to the old guard for today’s Celtics.


NEEDHAM MA. – OCTOBER 8: Boston Celtic legend Tom Heinsohn in his home on October 8, 2019 in Needham, MA. (Staff Photo By Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)


He’s traditionally been the old-timer most likely to approach players and coaches, to whom he’s never been shy with opinions. But as he discovered last December, prior to hospitalization for breathing-related issues, that walk from the elevator to the press room can now take a while.

Heinsohn still shares his thoughts with players whenever possible, though navigating that long players hallway is too much these days. Some want to hear, some politely nod, and a few, like Paul Pierce, have a keen interest in the history that this Hall of Fame player and coach has to impart.

“I tried to help Antoine Walker, told him what I thought the defense was doing to him, and Antoine’s remark to me was, Who are you? What do you know?” Heinsohn said, shaking his head. “Other guys — (Al) Horford came up and wanted to talk to me. I never push myself on any of these guys.

“A lot of these guys — Kevin Garnett — have great deference to the history of the game. Some of them don’t even know what the hell happened,” he said. “But other guys know what transpired. Horford and I talked before the playoffs last year for half an hour on the bench. It was meaningful to me and I think it was meaningful to him. I don’t foist my opinions on them. The guy I used to talk to a lot was (Rajon) Rondo. Rondo was such a misunderstood player.

https://www.bostonherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/TommyRondo.mp4?_=2

“After last season I was walking out after a playoff game and Jaylen Brown was walking towards his car. I said Jaylen, I just want to tell you one thing — all the guys I played with, all the guys I coached would love to be playing with you guys. You’re playing their kind of basketball. I don’t know how he took it. I sincerely meant it. All those attributes were evident on last year’s team.”

He could tell them so much more, though, even as his old teammates and players – Jo Jo White died last year at 71 due to complications from dementia – are passing on.

Like Sanders, Heinsohn talked to Frank Ramsey roughly two months before his death last year.

“How ya doin? How ya’ll doin?” Heinsohn said in his own braying impression of the Kentuckian. “He was a unique individual on our team. He played for Adolph Rupp on a winning program. I’m told the first time he played for the Celtics and they lost a game he went into the locker room and started crying. Ed Macauley said kid, this is the pros, we’re going to lose some games. He wasn’t used to losing.”

The fortunate never get used to it. It grates Heinsohn that any aspect of his life, including his lifelong passion for painting, could be impacted by health and age.

He’d go anywhere to capture a worthy landscape, edging along some rocky bluff in Boothbay Harbor, or lugging his gear through a bursting autumn forest in Vermont. Now, at 85, he hates to admit what he’s become — the type who pulls off to the side of the road and sets up nearby.

“A roadside painter,” is Heinsohn’s description. But he remains engaged. His work was featured in a show in Kittery Point in September. He has more paintings in storage than the Louvre.

He’s been in and out of the hospital for the past five years, mainly with breathing issues after a life of smoking — “two packs a day for 32 years will do it to ya” — and had to be transported down from Maine and hospitalized five years ago. It was a tough 80th birthday present. Heinsohn was in intensive care for four days under the care of Dr. Frederick Basilico, a cardiologist and part of the Celtics’ medical team.

“They weren’t sure I was going to make it,” said Heinsohn. “Now (Basilico has) got me to where if I get a chill I call him up, and he’ll listen to what I say, and I’ll go in and they’ll immediately put me on something, hydrate me, give me an antibiotic and I’m out of there in two days.”

He was diagnosed with sleep apnea last December, but returned to his analyst’s job at NBC Sports Boston in January, and roared back into action.

But even the Celtics’ greatest generation has only so many curtain calls left. Heinsohn was asked if he feels sadness now when he sees them all.

“Yeah, well, you’re going sooner or later,” he sighed. “You’re kind of reminded of your mortality as you go along, and you can’t breathe anymore. But the beautiful part about it is all of us totally enjoyed what we were doing. There’s not an awful lot of people can say that — they enjoyed what they’re doing.”



bob




.