Champions are Born in Monroe

Bill Russell 88, NBA great, Hall of Famer, five-time Most Valuable Player and 12-time All-Star anchored an NBA Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 championships in 13 years, the last two as the first Black head coach in any major U.S. sport, and marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr., died Sunday July 31, 2022. Russell in 1980 was voted the greatest player in the NBA history. Bill Russell, byname of William Felton Russell, was born February 12, 1934, Monroe, Louisiana. When Russell was eight years old, his father moved the family to Oakland, California, where the job prospects were better. Russell was outspoken and relentlessly intelligent when it came to matters of race, was not just the NBA’s first Black superstar. Russell would not stand for racism in sports. During his career, Russell supported the American civil rights movement, spoke out against the Vietnam War, and did much that, had it come from any lesser athlete, would have been cause for immediate controversy. But the Celtics kept winning, and he remained the engine that made them go. His on-court achievements did not give him a platform; instead, they granted him a strange kind of amnesty—the very greatness that should have forced others to listen somehow overshadowed any trouble. But above all else, Russell was basketball’s ultimate winner.