The Mel Counts Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Friday, May 20th, 2005
You
were a two-time All-America selection. How did it feel to be recognized as one
of the greatest players in the country?
Well
again, it was an honor to be recognized in that way, and I attribute a lot of
that to a number of factors; the upbringing that I had, the coaching, the work
ethic, and so on. I looked at it as a collective thing, a team thing, with a
lot of people helping along the way. Yeah, you’d have to do a lot of it on your
own, but I think a lot of times, as individuals playing a team sport, there end
up being a lot of other people involved in your success. For me, part of it was
the coaches that I had – from grade school, into junior high and high school,
and then on into college – they all had an impact, and they all played an
important part in helping to make me successful.
The 1964
Olympic Games were held in Tokyo. As hard as it may be to fathom, the U.S.
men's basketball team was considered something of an underdog going in.
What was it like to represent your country, and what memories stand out in
your mind after all of these years?
The
writers wrote us off. They said that we weren't going to get the job done.
Unlike the 1960 team, we didn't have guys like Jerry West, or Oscar
Robertson, or Jerry Lucas, or Walt Bellamy, or Terry Dischinger, or Bob
Boozer. These guys went on to play pro ball, with three or four of them
becoming superstars in the NBA. We didn't have anybody on our team like
that. But we did have a great coach in Hank Iba, and a great group of
assistant coaches.
We went to Pearl Harbor and worked out for three weeks. We worked out twice a day, for three hours a pop, and when it came game time we were ready. I remember one time, we had a game in the morning, and then we had practice that afternoon to get ready for the next day. We were extremely well-prepared and extremely well-conditioned. I don’t know if you’ve ever been over to Hawaii in the middle of the summer, or know the humidity factor, but it really helps to prepare you for the challenges and pressures of representing your country in Olympic competition – not only physically, but mentally and emotionally.
We went in with confidence, tradition, and the idea that the sports writers had written us off – there’s no doubt that that got in our crawl. We wanted to show them. That was an extremely powerful source of motivation for our team. Our goal was to represent our country to the best of our ability, and that's exactly what we did. We won the gold medal and proved everybody wrong.
The
Boston Celtics selected you in the first round of the 1964 NBA Draft, the
ninth player chosen overall. Please take me back to that first training
camp with the Celtics.
It
was like hell [laughs]. It was like boot camp. The first three days we
didn't shoot the basketball. In fact, back then they didn't know as much
about nutrition as they know now, and about how the body recovers from
exercise. And truthfully, the way we did things back then really wasn’t the
best way to do it. They’ve learned a lot since then. Back then we'd go
full-bore from ten until twelve, and then from two until four, with hardly a
drink of water. There wouldn't be any breaks. Now they practice in the
morning and in the evening, which makes more sense. It gives the body more
time to recover.
The first three days, all we’d do was run and do drills. We didn’t do any shooting. It was total exercise. But the fact that they ran so much in training camp certainly gave the Celtics an edge, and I think that’s why they always got off to a fast start. Having Bill Russell, the greatest defensive player in the history of the game, didn't hurt, either [laughs]. It all played into Red's up-tempo offense, which was predicated on the fast break. But those training camps were quite an experience. They were tough.
Red
Auerbach was notorious for those preseason barnstorming tours that took the
team all over New England. Were you ever a part of these tours and, if so,
do you have a fond memory or an amusing story to share?
I
broke my wrist my during training camp during my first season, so I missed
those, and then the next season was when the player’s union really gained
momentum and the number of preseason games were pared way down. But they
used to play anywhere from sixteen to twenty games during the preseason,
where now they’re down to maybe six or eight. So I really don’t have any
recollection of what those barnstorming tours were like.
But I do recall other stories about Red. He was a tremendous tactician, a tremendous psychiatrist, and a tremendous psychologist. He deserves a lot of credit for treating each player different, which had a lot to do with the team’s exceptional chemistry. He pioneered the idea of the sixth man, bringing a Frank Ramsey or a John Havlicek off the bench to help ignite the offense. Red always had the ability to go to other teams and get players who were on the way out and get another year or two out of them – a prime example of that is when he traded me to the Baltimore Bullets for Bailey Howell, who had been an All-Star forward for much of his career. That was the piece that the Celtics were missing at the time, because I was still young and green, and I still had a lot to learn about the game. Bailey Howell came in and really helped them – I think he was on two of those championship teams with Russell. Red was a smart coach and a shrewd judge of talent.