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

The most astonishing winning streak in the history of sports, belonged to the Boston Celtics. They won eleven championships between 1957 and 1969, eight of those in a row. And the player at the center of those wins - was Bill Russell, who died this week at the age of 88. 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 of any major sport in the U.S. In this episode, which first ran in 2017, Russell talks about his life in basketball, and he describes how he was shaped by the racism he confronted, on and off the court. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2017-2022

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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