Red all over

Celtics celebrate 50 years of Auerbach's unique leadership

November 03, 1999|John Powers, Globe Staff

He remembers when Sheboygan was in the league and blacks weren't. He remembers when there was no 24-second clock, when Eddie Gottlieb scribbled the schedule on scraps of paper, when the playoffs ended in April and players sold insurance during the summer.

"When you get to be my age, you can't remember what you had for breakfast," Red Auerbach says. "But I could tell you stories from 50 years ago."

It has been half a century since the man with the Brooklyn accent and the argyle socks came to Causeway Street and took over a wobbly basketball team that was losing games and money at a dizzying pace.

The Celtics were a shamrock on a shirt in 1950. By 1966, Auerbach had made them into a dynasty, winning nine NBA titles in 10 years before moving to the front office, where he won another seven.

He is 82 now and still the club's vice chairman, still puffing on his trademark cigar, still the symbol of the game's most storied franchise.

"He's the Godfather of the Celtics," says John Havlicek.

A bronze statue of Auerbach has been in Quincy Market since 1985, the same year his mythical number (2) was hoisted to the rafters of Boston Garden. He was voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame more than three decades ago. And while the hat he wears now may be largely ceremonial, the Celtics without Auerbach are unimaginable.

"There was only one guy who was with one organization as long as Red has been," says Tom Heinsohn, who will emcee tonight's tribute to Auerbach at the Celtics' home opener against Washington at the FleetCenter. "That was Connie Mack with the Philadelphia Athletics - and he owned the team."

Auerbach never owned the Celtics (though he did get a 10 percent stake after Walter Brown died), but for more than a decade he was the Celtics. He was general manager, coach, traveling secretary, scout, marketing director - all without a contract.

Auerbach signed one with Brown ("Because I didn't know him") for $10,000 and a piece of the nonexistent profits. The rest was all done on a nod and a handshake.

"There were always people in Walter's office, so we'd go in the men's room to talk," Auerbach recalls. "He'd say, `What do you want?' I'd say, `Am I working next year?' `Of course you're working next year,' he'd say. `Why, do you want a raise?' Sometimes, I'd say, `Yeah, I do want a raise.' Other times, when we didn't make any money, I wouldn't ask for anything more."

In the early '50s, the Celtics were a fragile franchise in a dance-hall league. Seven of the NBA's 17 franchises folded before the end of 1950-51 season. Only three of the remaining 10 (Boston, New York, and Philadelphia) had been around since the league began in 1946, and the Celtics had lost nearly half a million dollars in four years.