CELTIC-NATION
Like many of your Boston Celtic teammates, you were born during the decade of The Great Depression.  Please share some of the memories from your childhood, and also some of the events in your life that led you to the basketball court.

ARNIE RISEN
I grew up in the country, in a small town called Williamstown, which holds the county seat in Grant County, Kentucky.  The town is situated between Lexington and Cincinnati.  It was a very small town, very rural, and I spent a large part of my childhood working and playing outside.  I didn’t have a real basketball growing up – I would use makeshift balls out of whatever I could find, and shoot them at a bottomless can nailed to the side of the family house.  I was raised in the country.  I knew nothing about basketball, and nothing about professional sports.  I didn’t know there was a pro basketball team until I was approached to play for the Indianapolis Kautskys.  I was very naive.  I don’t think I had goals, especially when compared to the guys playing basketball today.  The guys today start so early.  And their parents, they start dreaming of them being the next LeBron James, or the next Bill Russell, or what have you.  I didn’t have those aspirations.  The goal back then was purely day-to-day.

CELTIC-NATION
You played your high school ball at Williamstown High School in Kentucky.  Please tell me about this period in your life.

ARNIE RISEN
I didn’t begin playing organized basketball until I was a sophomore in high school.  I played three full seasons for Williamstown.  I was a tall, lanky boy, and I didn’t have much meat on my bones.  The coaches took an interest in me, so I started playing for the high school team, and they really worked with me to develop my game.  Back then, basketball was just something to do – you really didn’t think about it as a career .  At some point you might think of it as a way to get a college education, but that was really about it.  World War II was going on then, and that  was on everybody’s mind at the time.  A lot of good college and professional athletes ended up serving in the military, and a lot of them saw combat duty.  By the time I was drafted, I was 6’9” and deemed too tall to serve in the army.

CELTIC-NATION
Your first stop in college was in Richmond, Kentucky, where you attended Eastern Kentucky State.  How did you end up there, and how did you later end up at Ohio State University?

ARNIE RISEN
The school was close to home, so it made sense for me to go there.  I played one season before the school dropped the basketball program.  Someone talked me into visiting the Ohio State campus, and after that trip I decided to enroll.  I am proud to be a part of the Ohio State basketball program.  The school reached three consecutive Final Fours, two while I was there and one after I left.  And back then only 16 teams in tournament.  Today, how many teams qualify?

CELTIC-NATION
You led Ohio State into the 1944 NCAA Basketball Tournament, defeating Temple in the Regional Semifinals.  Please take me back to that 10-point win, and also to the battle against Dartmouth in the Regional Finals.
 
ARNIE RISEN
I don’t remember a lot of the details, but we were excited to get that far.  Had we beaten Dartmouth, I think we would have played Utah for the championship.  Dartmouth had Dick McGuire on that team, who is in the Hall of Fame.  He had started the season at St. John’s, which won the NIT, but then a war commitment forced him to transfer.  The rest is hazy – that was a long time ago [laughs].

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