What follows is a sampling of what people—players, writers, coaches, and teammates—have to say about Lew Alcindor.
Tag Archives: Red Auerbach
The Flops of the Game, 1976
No longer will a particularly ruthless assault on the basketball court be known as “a flagrant foul.” Henceforth it shall be known as a “Cowens.”
Red Auerbach: The Aborted Interview, 1978
oday, people are playing ball with one eye looking up at dollar signs. They figure they cannot make it by playing defense and by being a sacrificing team player.
Farewell to Bob Cousy, 1963
A couple of players were in one corner, autographing basketballs. Auerbach was sitting alone, reading mail. We shook hands, and I said, “What about Cousy?”
“What can you say when you know you’re going to lose the greatest backcourtman who ever lived?” Red said. “Nobody will ever take his place. There’s only one Cousy.”
Bob Cousy Day: Take Two, 1963
There were no stoics at the Garden. Men and women wept without shame and with pride and love. It was like that folk song line, “The tears flowed like wine.”
Three-Point Shot: Pro Basketball’s Big Bomb? 1971
Imagine the excitement in Madison Square Garden if one of the Knicks sank a three-point play in the closing minutes of a stretch-run game. It would be pandemonium.
They Laughed When Tom Heinsohn Sat Down to Coach, 1975
Heinsohn absorbed his knowledge of coaching from Red Auerbach. His insights into people, he acquired from personal, and sometimes painful, experience.
Bill Bradley: The Reeducation of Princeton Bill, 1970
Bradley himself doesn’t think this game is much work. He thinks it’s fun, and older men will tell you those who feel that way about it—and who have the necessary and special talent—get to be the great ones.
The $10 Million Gamble to Save Pro Basketball: Bill Walton and Larry Bird, 1980
The Clippers and Celtics paid a fortune to get them. Now, they and the rest of the league can only hope Walton and Bird get back the fans and make pro basketball “The Sport of the 1980s.”
Goliath Comes to Tinseltown, 1968-1969
Contrary to popular opinion, the Lakers and their opponents, though agreeing that Los Angeles would be formidable, had reservations about the Super-team label and scoffed at the thought that the Lakers had anything locked up.
From Way Downtown 