Tag Archive for: Charlie Scott


By:  Michael D. McClellan | His professional career was supposed to start here, in Boston, joining Jo Jo White and Dave Cowens as part of Red Auerbach’s post-Russell rebuilding plan. Forget that the ABA’s Virginia Squires also had designs on Charlie Scott’s services, and that it was a foregone conclusion that Scott would follow the money and play in the spunky new league with the red, white and blue basketball. Also forget that, had there been no ABA, Scott would hardly have lasted into the seventh round of the 1970 NBA Draft, where Auerbach rolled the dice to secure his rights. Scott was a big-time player from a big-time program, a two-time All-American who had earned a spot on the 1968 Olympic Team, torched arch rival Duke for 40 points in an ACC tournament game, and propelled the venerable Dean Smith to his first Final Four. Auerbach gambled that Scott would eventually yield dividends for the Boston Celtics, if not from the outset then certainly down the road, trusting that the 6’-6” swingman’s would ultimately play in The Association.  Enter the Phoenix Suns.  Looking to make a run at the NBA Finals, the Suns coveted Scott’s versatility and scoring punch, and knew that the ABA’s scoring leader would be a perfect fit in its backcourt.  The Celtics owned Scott’s draft rights, and Auerbach shrewdly pried Paul Silas away from the Suns. Boston posted a 68-14 season with Silas in the fold, and a year later the Celtics were once again champions of the NBA.

Had the story ended there, Auerbach’s seventh round gamble would have gone down as an unmitigated success.  Scott, however, was still on Red’s radar. He had played well in a Phoenix uniform, churning out three All-Star seasons with the team, but the Suns struggled establish an identity with the talented swingman in the backcourt.  By the summer of 1975, GM Jerry Colangelo made it known that all trade scenarios would be entertained.  Boston, meanwhile, had problems of its own. The team viewed Rick Barry and Golden State as its primary threat, and Auerbach sensed that additional upgrades were needed to ensure another title run.  The emergence of Paul Westphal was certain to draw attention in the free agent market at season’s end, with the Celtics getting nothing in return. Auerbach response:  Orchestrating a deal sending Westphal to Phoenix in exchange for Scott.

“It was a win-win deal for both teams,” says Celtics legend Tommy Heinsohn, who coached both guards.  “Scott immediately helped us win the 1976 NBA Championship, and Westphal blossomed into an All-Star with the Suns.”

~ ~ ~

Born on December 15th, 1948 in Harlem, Scott began playing organized basketball at the age of twelve. He attended New York’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School through ninth grade, when his family moved to tiny Laurinburg, North Carolina, a place Scott describes as “an itty-bitty town in the middle of nowhere.”  Laurinburg Academy boasted a rich basketball tradition – Celtic great Sam Jones played there, as did sweet-shooting guard Jimmy Walker – and Scott quickly carved out a legacy of his own, his scoring average trumped only by his work in the classroom.  Lefty Driesell, then the head coach at Davidson College, hit it off with the slender swingman and appeared to have a lock for Scott’s national letter-of-intent.  An eleventh hour pitch by Dean Smith led to an agonizing decision.

“My mind was made up,” Scott says.  “Davidson was the place for me. But my high school coach talked me into looking at all of my options. He used to take me to watch the Tar Heels play. Deep in his heart, I think he wanted me to go to the University of North Carolina, so he was very persistent in making sure that I kept an open mind. I visited the campus and knew that I wanted to go to UNC, but it was hard to break my verbal commitment with Lefty. He was the first college coach who really recognized my talent.”

Scott became the first African-American scholarship athlete in the school’s history, paving the way for future basketball greats Phil Ford and Michael Jordan. In addition to becoming a two-time All-American, Scott led the Tar Heels to back-to-back ACC championships and Final Four berths in 1968 and 1969. Ironically, Scott and Driesell would cross paths once more, this during 1969 East Regional final. With a trip to the Final Four at stake, Scott connected on 10 of 14 field- goal attempts in the second half, including a 20-footer with three seconds left to eliminate Davidson from the tournament.

Following graduation, Scott was selected by both the Virginia Squires and the Boston Celtics. He signed with the upstart Squires, averaging 27.1 points, 5.6 assists, and 5.2 rebounds on his way to being named the 1971 ABA Rookie of the Year.  A year later he teamed with a young Julius Erving, leading the league in scoring with a 33.4 PPG average. He was named as an ABA All-Star both seasons, but his dissatisfaction with the league led him to sign with Phoenix.  He finished his first season as a Sun by posting averages of 25.3 points, 6.1 assists, and 4.2 rebounds, numbers that validated his talent and proved he could excel against the world’s best.

“I was a confident player with a short memory,” he says, smiling.  “I always thought my next shot was going in.”

Despite the addition of Scott, the Suns struggled to a 38-44 record and missed the playoffs.  Things were worse a year later, as the team went 30-52 in John MacLeod’s first season as head coach. Scott averaged 25.4 points, 5.2 assists and 4.3 rebounds, but he could have cared less.

“I wanted to win.  I’d won a gold medal in the Olympics.  I’d been to two Final Fours.  I wasn’t concerned about putting up big individual numbers.  I wanted a chance to compete for a championship.”

Scott’s third and final season as a Sun provided more of the same – impressive personal numbers (24.3 points, 4.5 assists, 4.0 rebounds) but little in the way of team success. And then, on May 23, 1975, Boston traded Westphal and two draft picks to Phoenix for the rights to Scott. The Celtics went 54-28, with Scott the third leading scorer on one of the most balanced teams in franchise history.

“Dave Cowens averaged 19 points that season.  Jo Jo White averaged 18.9.  I averaged 17.6.  John Havlicek averaged 17.  Paul Silas averaged 10.7.  There aren’t many teams that can boast that kind of balance.”

The Celtics beat a stubborn Buffalo Braves team, 4-2, in Scott’s first-ever playoff appearance. A six game dispatching of the Cleveland Cavaliers put the Celtics back on the championship stage, pitting them against the most unlikely of opponents – the Phoenix Suns.

“It’s funny how that worked out,” Scott said, well aware of the irony involving the ’76 Finals matchup, “but we were very confident about our chances of winning the series.”

The series, of course, remains best known for Game 5 in the Boston Garden, the NBA’s self-proclaimed “Greatest Game Ever Played.” The Celtics prevailed in that pivotal triple-overtime gem to take a 3-2 series lead. Lost in the excitement was the series clincher back in Phoenix, one in which Scott played his best with the most on the line. His 25-point, 11-rebound, 5-steal, three assist performance propelled Boston to its 13th NBA Championship.

The 1976 NBA Finals would be the pinnacle of Scott’s professional basketball career. He would go on to play four more seasons, including a brief stint with the Los Angeles Lakers, before retiring as a Denver Nugget. Still, he considers Boston his NBA home. He feels that it was his destiny to win a championship there, even if road was far more arduous that he ever thought possible.

“I think my time spent with the Suns really helped me to appreciate what it was like to win a championship,” Scott said without hesitation. “I was more mature by the time I arrived in Boston, and I had just endured three frustrating seasons in Phoenix. I was ready to come home and help the Celtics win a championship. And that’s exactly what I did.”

Take me back to your childhood.  What stands out?

I grew up in Harlem, and I didn’t have much hope of going to college.  I started playing basketball when I was twelve years old, when I took an interest in it.  I played bitty-ball and AAU ball.  I enjoyed playing, and I got better at it.  At the age of fourteen I went away to Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and they didn’t allow me to play on the basketball team.  Academically, it was a high standards school, and they were very strict about who could play and who couldn’t.  It actually turned out to be a positive for me, because I learned how to study and how to prepare myself for tests, and without basketball I spent a lot of time doing both.  I transferred to Laurinburg High School, which is in North Carolina, following my tenth grade year.  That’s when I started playing high school basketball.  It was there that I was able to get a scholarship to go to the University of North Carolina.  So that’s basically a thumbnail sketch of how I got from Harlem to North Carolina.

 

Laurinburg has a rich basketball tradition.  Chris Washburn, Charlie Scott, Sam Jones, Jimmy Walker.

In fact, I ended up at Laurinburg because of Jimmy Walker.  I had some friends who were a few years older than myself, and they had played basketball with Jimmy – a guy named Dexter Westbrook, who went on to Providence college with Jimmy, and James Barlow, who went to Kentucky State, where he was killed in a car accident.  These were guys that were older than me, and had played at Laurinburg.  Dexter and James were the ones that had really told me about Laurinburg High School.  They also told several of their other friends.  That’s how a group of us ended up in Laurinburg, North Carolina.

 

Jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie played the trumpet at Laurinburg before dropping out in 1935.

It’s interesting that you mention Dizzy Gillespie.  He’s one of those who had attended Laurinburg, but very few people know where he went to high school.  Unless you’re from that area, or maybe a jazz buff, that piece of history is lost when his name comes up.  He was a great musician.

 

Lefty Driesell recruited you hard, but you changed your mind and played for the Tar Heels.

Lefty was the first person who really gave me notoriety as an athlete at that point in my life.  I had gone to Lefty’s basketball camp as a junior in high school, and at that time he offered me a scholarship.  He was the one who really told the world about me.  Before then I was playing basketball at Laurinburg, and I really hadn’t heard that much from colleges.  But once I went to Lefty’s camp, it was really the beginning of a tremendous recruiting circumstance.  After Lefty starting recruiting me, I was recruited by all of the other North Carolina schools – Wake Forest, Duke, North Carolina State, and the University of North Carolina.  My high school coach, who probably had a lot more insight than I did at that time, made me keep my mind open and visit other schools.

 

Was it hard changing your mind?

Incredibly hard.  I had made an early decision to go to Davidson, and I was really planning on going to school there.  But I wanted to go to the University of North Carolina, and I had to do what was right for me.  I have to thank Lefty for starting my career.  He was the first person to really take notice of me.

 

You were the first black scholarship athlete at the University of North Carolina.  How did Dean Smith and others sell you on playing for the Tar Heels?

It was the first time that people expressed to me the enjoyment of the university experience, rather than the enjoyment of just the basketball team.  In other words, most schools sold me on their basketball programs, whereas North Carolina really sold me on North Carolina.  The basketball team was a big part of it, but the big selling point was that I would have to go to school there.  I was going to be there for four years, and I was going to spend more time away from the basketball court than I was going to spend on it.  So I think that that was the thing that Coach Smith and everyone else really sold me on.  They were all concerned with my college education, and it impressed me a great deal.

 

You were interested in pre-med.  Any truth to the rumor that the school let you perform an appendectomy to get you to sign?

Well, they didn’t actually let me perform and appendectomy [laughs].  But they did let me in the operating room while an appendectomy was being performed.  They let me look in it as it was being done, so that was true.  And they took me in and let me watch the students working with the cadavers – I watched them open up the chest cavity and remove the various organs.  Honestly, I found it fascinating at that point, but after I got to college I realized my fear of needles was going to hold me back in the medical field [laughs].

 

What do you consider your biggest thrill while playing for the Tar Heels?

Winning is a big part of playing basketball, and I could think of a lot of games where we were able to walk away victorious.  Some of them, like the time I scored 40 points in that championship game against Duke – what more could you ask for if you’re a Tar Heel – are much bigger than others.  Also hitting that game-winning shot against Davidson was big, with an even bigger twist of irony.  But the biggest thrill that I really had, and I think that anybody who has ever played for the Tar Heels would agree, is the camaraderie that comes from being there and being a part of the team.  The relationships that get built because of being a Tar Heel is unlike anything that I’ve ever experienced.  It’s a big thrill to be a part of the tradition that is North Carolina.  It means a whole lot.  I think it’s more important than any one game that we may have played, or any one truly great moment that can be pointed to historically.

 

You were a two-time All-American.  What was it like to be recognized as one of top players in college basketball?

That’s an honor that you can’t foresee.  All you can do is go out there and to play.  My thing was that I always tried to do the best that I could do, and that I tried to let everything flow and then fall into place.  I played to gain the respect of the other players on the court, and I feel proud knowing that I can look back, knowing that I played as hard as I possibly could.  I may not have always played as well as I could have, but I always played hard and I did the best that I could at that moment.  To be recognized as one of the nation’s top players for that is a real thrill.  You can’t want anything more.  The most important thing is that those North Carolina teams were winning teams.  That really made it worthwhile.  It meant that my play was doing something productive, and that it was moving the team forward in terms of winning.  It was proof that I wasn’t playing selfishly.  I was a part of a winning formula, and part of what started that winning tradition at North Carolina.

 

You were also a member of the 1968 men’s Olympic basketball team.

That 1968 Olympic team was really the last team to win the gold medal in consecutive order.  The ’72 team lost to Russia.  So in hindsight that team becomes even more special.  I was eighteen at the time, so it was great to be a part of the Olympic team as an eighteen year-old player.  It’s a thrill and an honor that becomes bigger through the years, especially because the television coverage has turned it into such a huge spectacle.  Those things that we earned then have become magnified in terms of significance in today’s society.  It’s a thrill to be an Olympic gold medal winner.  It’s a thrill to be an NBA champion as a member of the Boston Celtics.  It’s a thrill to be a part of the Tar Heel tradition.  I think I had the best of all worlds when it comes to basketball.  I don’t think I can be a person who can moan and groan about my basketball career and who I played for, and the traditions of the teams for whom I played.  And I can’t complain about who I played with, and what we accomplished.  I think it was a blessing.  I have nothing but great respect and honor for my college, Olympic and professional affiliations.  I was lucky in the way that my basketball career evolved.

 

You were drafted by Virginia Squires of the ABA and the Boston Celtics of the NBA.  What factors led you to sign with the fledgling ABA?

At that time I think it had to do with loyalty.  That team was in Washington, and was then known as the Washington Caps.  The next season the team would move to Norfolk, and become known as the Squires.  One of the players on the team was Larry Brown, who was the coach at North Carolina who recruited me.  Basically, it was another recruiting process.  I had familiarity with Larry.  And I was drafted by the Boston Celtics only after I had signed to play basketball for the Virginia Squires.  I don’t think, if I had only intended to play ball in the NBA, that I would have been drafted by the Boston Celtics.  That was the same year that they drafted Dave Cowens.  The Celtics drafted me with the fourth pick in the seventh round, which wouldn’t have been the case had there only been one league.  I would have gone much earlier, in the first round, and the Celtics would probably have had to choose between Dave and myself.  The team needed a big man – Bill Russell had just retired, and Red Auerbach was in a rebuilding mode.  So I think the only way the Celtics would have had the chance to draft me was by me signing with the Virginia Squires.  It was good fortune all the way around.  I ended up in the ABA because of my familiarity with Larry Brown, and the hope that the Squires would emerge very soon.

 

Tell me about your agent, Al Ross.

People called him ‘The Pirate,’ although I’m not sure how he got that nickname.  Al Ross was known as the lawyer who could get you from one league to the other – he was the one who got Spencer Haywood out of the ABA and onto the roster in Seattle – and since I was ready to leave the ABA, my association with him grew out of that.  Al had the wherewithal and the legal staff to make the transition happen, and he had the relationships with the NBA owners who could pass the league rules regarding player movement.  My opportunity to jump leagues arose when the Squires didn’t pay my bonus when it was due, basically breaching the contract.  Al Ross worked his magic, and I ended up in Phoenix.

 

Please tell me about your ABA experience.

My ABA experience was a good one.  At the time, the NBA was a more sophisticated league.  There was more structure.  On the court, you had the pick-and-roll.  You had Oscar Robertson.  You had Wilt Chamberlain.  It was more of a fundamental league.  The ABA was more of a speed league, with a lot of running.  In fact, the ABA is what the NBA is today.  It was really ahead of its time.  It had the open lane, the three-point shot, the open court – things the NBA later incorporated into its rule book.  In the ABA, you had basketball played without the big man.  That was really the biggest difference.  You played a game that was not dominated by the big man.  Since the inception of the NBA, the league had been primarily dominated by the big men in the post.  You had George Mikan, Bill Russell, Wilt.  The ABA, on the other  hand, was a league dominated by the swiftness of the guards and wing players.  That was the style that I played in the ABA, and later – especially in the 1980s with those great Celtics and Lakers teams – it was a style adopted by the NBA.

 

Julius Erving was your teammate that second season.  Please tell me a little about Dr. J.

The first time I saw Julius play was when the team had rookie camp in Hampton, Virginia.  At that time you could tell that he was something special.  Julius had a ferocity for the game from the very beginning.  His style was one of grace and ferocity, and you could see that he was going to be a great ballplayer.  There was never any doubt.  With guys like that, you can tell just by the way they play.  That first time I saw Julius there was no doubt that he was a superstar.  He carried himself like that from Day One.

 

You jumped to the NBA in 1972, and played three All-Star seasons for the Phoenix Suns.  Please tell me about this period in your basketball career.

Jerry Colangelo was the general manger at that time.  He and Al Ross worked that deal.  It was a great experience.  Playing in the NBA was everything that I thought it would be, and everything I wanted my basketball career to be about.  I enjoyed playing in the NBA.  Phoenix was a great place to play, but we didn’t have the talent to compete with players like Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, and Dave DeBusschere.  These players were stars on very strong teams.  We just didn’t have the personnel to win on a consistent basis, at least as consistently as I would have liked.  And I think management felt the same way.  We were in a division where 42 or 43 wins put you in third or fourth place, and at that time only two teams from each division went to the playoffs.  That got us nowhere.  So that was probably the most disheartening thing.

Still, I have no complaints as far as getting an opportunity to play in the NBA.  It was a big thrill for me.  I was able to compete against all of those great players that I just mentioned, and that allowed me to measure myself against them on a daily basis.  That was the ultimate basketball phenom.  It was all that I could have wished for and more.  But again, my whole basketball career had been defined by winning, and I wasn’t used to coming up short.  It was a humbling experience.  I think it made me more appreciative of the winning.

 

May 23, 1975: Boston trades Paul Westphal and two picks for Charlie Scott.

I remember that date well – I was on my way to Brazil.  In fact, I was standing in line and Paul Westphal was standing right in front of me.  Talk about irony.  We were getting ready to catch a flight, and Larry Fleischer asked me if I had heard the news.  I said, ‘What news?’  He said, ‘You were traded to Boston for him.’  And then he pointed to Paul.  I thought it was a joke.  I said, jokingly, ‘Nah, you know that’s not true.  Phoenix got more than that for me.’

I was always a Celtics fan, and I had always wanted to play for them.  When I went to Lefty Driesell’s camp as a junior in high school, Red Auerbach was one of the guest speakers.  The Celtics played an exhibition game in Charlotte when I was in high school, and my coach took me to the game.  I got to meet the great Sam Jones.  I’ve always loved winning, and the Celtics were an organization that understood how to win.  So being traded to Boston was a thrill.  And like I said, I’m very fortunate when it comes to my basketball pedigree.  Going to Boston was the icing on the cake.  I never worried about fitting in.  I never worried about anything.  I knew that it was going to be a great circumstance, and that it was going to be a positive situation.  I couldn’t wait.

 

Let’s talk about the 1976 NBA Finals.  Game 5 was a classic.  In Game 6, you were dominant with 25 points, 11 rebounds, five steals and three assists.

I’m going to tell you the truth – I told [Boston Globe journalist] Bob Ryan this, and you can ask anybody who was on that team and they’ll tell you the same thing:  We never worried about Phoenix beating us.  We never thought that Phoenix could win that series.  That whole year, Phoenix had never beaten us.  The only thing that made the games tight at that time, is the fact that writers Bob Ryan and Mike Lupica kept writing in the papers about how the Boston Celtics were bullying up on the poor Phoenix Suns.  As a result, that triple-overtime game was a very closely called game, and that’s’ the only thing that made that game tight. One thing people forget about that game is that we were up by twenty-five points at one time. Then, the next thing we knew, the score was tied.  That was our fault – our own nonchalance. Give the Suns credit; they came back, things turned around, and they were able to stay in the game and force it into overtime. But did we ever think we were going to lose to the Phoenix Suns?  Never in our wildest dreams did we think they had the opportunity to beat us.

 

What made you so sure that the Suns couldn’t beat you?

We looked at the player matchups, and we saw no position where we would be outplayed.  That’s how you approach it in the playoffs.  You ask yourself, ‘Okay, where is it that you’re going to be beat?’  That’s what we did:  Paul Westphal versus Jo Jo White?  Jo Jo is going to win that.  Me and Ricky Sobers or whoever they’ve got?  I’m going to win that.  Paul Silas and Garfield Heard?  Paul is gonna win that.  John Havlicek and whoever they put on that other end?  John is gonna win that.  And then we’ve Dave Cowens in the middle, so tell me where the Phoenix Suns had an advantage over us.  That’s how we looked at the game, and the series.  So even though that game was such a great game, we, as a team, didn’t see any way for the Phoenix Suns to beat us.

 

Were there any teams that gave you pause that year?

To be honest, the team that probably would have been our toughest opponent would have been the San Francisco Warriors.  They were the team that had won the title the year before.  They lost to Phoenix in seven games.  That was the Rick Barry team – they had beaten Washington the year before.  And they had the best record in the Western Conference at that time.  Had we played them in the Finals, I’m convinced the outcome would have been the same.

 

Game 6 was played on a Sunday in Phoenix.

It was played at nine o’clock in the morning.  Championship game.  CBS had a golf tournament that they were committed to televising that afternoon, and because CBS hadn’t scheduled that right, we had to go out and play in Phoenix on a Sunday morning.  I’ll never forget it; we had a five o’clock wake-up call for a championship game.  You have to remember, at nine o’clock in Phoenix, it was noon on the east coast. The start time was a small price to play – like I’ve said, I don’t have much bitching to do when it comes to my basketball career.  Things worked out very well for me.  If I had my choice, I would have gone to North Carolina.  I did that.  I would have played for the Boston Celtics and won a world championship.  I did that.  I feel very fortunate to have things play out the way they did.

 

Your time in Boston was brief, but we have a saying:  “Once a Celtic, always a Celtic.”  What was it like for you to play for this proud franchise?

Once a Celtic, always a Celtic – Red always said that o me, and I believe it wholeheartedly.  Even when I was traded, Red called me, talked to me, and explained the reasons behind the trade.  He also tried to accommodate me and my needs.  As a player, you can’t ask for anything more under those circumstances.  It was short – I wish it could have been longer – but fate has its reasons.  My departure enabled the team to get another draft choice, which ended up helping them get Larry Bird.  So all of those things have fitting reward to them.  It was short, but college was only four years and it will forever hold a special place of significance in my heart.  The same can be said about my time spent with the Boston Celtics.  I’ll always consider myself a Celtic.

Everyone, it seems, has a favorite Red Auerbach story.

One time we had just lost to the Portland Trailblazers on national TV.  We had Sidney Wicks on our team.  Red had just signed Sidney to a multi-year contract, and Sidney really wasn’t the type of player that Red was used to having.  Not long after that game Red came to practice, and he was giving us a little shakedown on what he thought about our performance, and about what he thought about players giving ‘false hustle.’  And he looked Sidney straight in the eye as he was talking to all of us, and he said, ‘Some of you guys think that you’ve got it on me because you’ve got long-term contracts, but I’ll tell you what; I wish you bad luck for the rest of your life.’  And you know how Red really said it – he said it the nicest way possible, a smile on his face, but deep down you knew he meant it [laughs].

All Red wanted was your very best as a ballplayer.  If you gave that to him, then he never had a problem with you.  He and I never had an argument.  He never had to bitch about me.  I worked hard and did my best, and that’s what he expected.  He appreciated my effort.  And that’s all you ever want from someone, recognition and appreciation.  Red, to me, was the master of understanding what every individual needed in order to become a better player.  He’ll tell you that Walter Brown was the architect of the Celtic Dynasty.  I never had the pleasure of meeting Walter Brown, but in my heart I know Red to be the architect.

 

Cedric Maxwell was a rookie during your last season with the Celtics.

Cornbread!  I’ll tell you what – that was magic upon magic.  Cedric was all arms and legs his rookie year.  He learned how to put all of that together, and some way it was able to come out as some type of fluidity [laughs].  Cedric is a great guy – he was a great guy as a rookie, but he was all arms and legs then [laughs]!

With Cedric, I think he had to figure out how to fit his talent into what the Celtics were trying to do.  Fit those talents into the Celtics style.  And when he did that, then those arms and legs became very much a weapon.  He had to develop that little jump-hook, and he had to learn how to move without the ball.  He wasn’t used to doing those things in college.  Again, Red put together the perfect team.  When you look at Larry, Cedric, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, it was perfect foursome.

 

Of your time spent with the Boston Celtics, do you have a fond memory or an amusing story that stands out most?

Most of the time, the things that are amusing are the things that you can’t talk about [laughs].  That’s the case with my time with the Boston Celtics.  You know, we shared a lot of things together as a team, and a lot of things will just have to stay that way [laughs].

I just enjoyed my time there.  One of my best friends was Jo Jo.  He and his wife Debbie got together with me and my wife as much as possible, so the friendships were the fun things.  I’ve been lucky to go from one family tradition in college to another in the pros.  I remember Howie [McHugh], who used to be the team’s publicity guy.  I remember Randy, who used to be the equipment guy.  Randy was always there for us.  Those are the people that the average fan forgets about, but those are the people that made the Boston Celtics a family.  Those are the things that I remember.

You never forget the sound of the Boston Garden late in a two-point game, especially against Philadelphia, or the Lakers, or against New York.  Those are the times that all made it fun and worthwhile.  And to be on the Celtics side makes it even greater.

 

Final Question:  If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?

That’s hard.  I got a lot of advice from a lot of people.  But I think, above all else, that a person should take responsibility, regardless of failure or success.  I think that when you learn to accept failure, you learn how to appreciate success.  I also think the biggest problem we have now, is that people don’t accept responsibility when something goes wrong – it’s always someone else’s fault.