Best of - Bill Russell: Giant of a Man

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Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

When the NBA playoffs come around each year, it's always worth revisiting the story of Bill Russell. Russell was the force behind the most astonishing winning streak in the history of sports. His team, the Boston Celtics, won eleven NBA championships between 1957 and 1969, eight of those in a row. Russell changed the game of basketball, with his incredible speed, and his ability to block shots as no player had done before. When he took over as coach of the Celtics (while still playing on the team), he became the first African-American coach in the NBA. In this episode, Russell talks about his life in basketball, and he describes how the racism he confronted on and off the court, shaped him as a player, and led him to become a civil rights activist. This episode was originally published in April of 2017. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2017-2021

Transcript

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0:00.0	My life has always been like sitting on the banks of a river and watching the world go by.
0:07.0	Because I was so fortunate that the first thing that I can remember was that my mother and father loved me.
0:14.0	That's Bill Russell, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.
0:20.0	And the one thing that my folks told me,
0:22.9	among all things, do not be afraid.
0:29.3	Every obstacle that you encounter, all it does is present another opportunity.
0:37.5	Like my father told him when I was four years old he said,
0:40.0	say you decide to be a ditch digger.
0:45.0	Most people don't think of that as a noble profession
0:48.3	quite accurately.
0:50.5	But if you decide to be a ditch digger in this small town of Louisiana, I want people
0:58.8	in Miami, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco,
1:04.0	to all say, there's this guy in Louisiana digging ditches.
1:09.0	You have got to go down and see these ditches he's digging.
1:14.0	Well, when Bill Russell grew up, people in Miami, New York, D.C. Chicago, San Francisco, and a whole lot of other places did know his name, and did rush to see him,
1:27.7	not digging ditches of course, but outrunning every man on the basketball court, dunking and blocking shots.
1:36.5	Bill Russell led the Boston Celtics to 11 NBA championships in 13 years, an insane run between 1957 and 1969.
1:48.1	He was voted most valuable player in the league five times. These days in fact the MVP award for the
1:55.6	NBA finals is called the Bill Russell NBA finals most valuable player
2:00.9	award. And here's one more thing you need to know about Russell.
2:04.9	He was the first African American coach in the NBA and the first and professional sports
2:10.8	of any kind, at least in modern times. So more on all that in a moment, but going back to when he was four years old.
	...

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