Arguably the greatest U.S. champion of all time.
Original Post
William Felton Russell (February 12, 1934 - July 31, 2022) was an American former professional basketball player who played as a center for the Boston Celticsof the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. A five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and a 12-time NBA All-Star, he was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won eleven NBA championships during his 13-year career.[2]Russell and Henri Richard of the National Hockey League are tied for the record of the most championships won by an athlete in a North American sports league.[3] He led the San Francisco Dons to two consecutive NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956,[4] and he captained the gold-medal winning U.S. national basketball team at the 1956 Summer Olympics.[5]
Although Russell never averaged more than 19.0 points per game in any season, many regard him to be among the greatest basketball players of all time for his dominating defensive play.[6][7][8] Standing at 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) tall, with a 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) arm span,[9][10] his shot-blocking and man-to-man defense were major reasons for the Celtics' domination of the NBA during his career. Russell was equally notable for his rebounding abilities, and he led the NBA in rebounds four times, had a dozen consecutive seasons of 1,000 or more rebounds,[11] and remains second all-time in both total rebounds and rebounds per game. He is one of just two NBA players (the other being prominent rival Wilt Chamberlain) to have grabbed more than 50 rebounds in a game.[12]
Russell played in the wake of black pioneers Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper, and Sweetwater Clifton, and he was the first black player to achieve superstar status in the NBA. He also served a three-season (1966–69) stint as player-coach for the Celtics, becoming the first black coach in North American professional sports and the first to win a championship.[13] Russell was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975, was one of the founding inductees into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, and was enshrined in the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007. He was selected into the NBA 25th Anniversary Team in 1971 and the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1980, named as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996,[5] one of only four players to receive all three honors, and selected into the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. In 2009, the NBA renamed in his honor the NBA Finals' Most Valuable Player trophy to the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award. In 2011, Barack Obama awarded Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his accomplishments on the court and in the civil rights movement.[14][15] In 2021, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame a second time for his coaching career.[16]