The Legendary & GOAT Bill Russell
How one man’s life and activism opened doors for many and changed lives with his 11 championships.
Bill Russell was a legend with a conscience and was impactful on and off the basketball court. He was the center for the Celtics and won 11 NBA titles becoming the league’s most valuable player and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1975, the first Black player selected. He did not attend because he felt the city did not embrace him because he wasn’t white and it was a racist institution. Later, he was named to the Hall as a coach, only the fifth person to be duly honored.
He had no problem with the team, his teammates, his coach, and the championship banners but the age-old systematic racism raised its ugly head because he was a phenomenal Black man. Boston gained notoriety because of him and his success with the Celtics. What has skin color got to do with talent and profession?
Russell was the first professional basketball superstar and game-changer who reinvented the center position with the Celtics during the 1950s and 1960s. Prior to him, the basketball players’ feet never left the ground, he changed all that. He orchestrated his plays to success, his way.
Not only was he a trailblazer on the basketball court but off the court, he was a champion of equality…
