The Robert Parish Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Wednesday, May 11th, 2005
Woodlawn reached the state finals two straight years with you in the paint,
garnering a state championship along the way. In 1972, you were named Player of
the Year in the State of Louisiana. What memories from this period stand out in
your mind after all these years, and, with nearly 400 scholarship offers to
choose from, what led you to play collegiate basketball at tiny Centenary
College?
It’s
very interesting, because I never dreamed that I would be the player that I was
at that particular time. Like I said earlier, I didn’t show promise initially.
The process was a lot easier on me because of my parents. The gathered all of
the information together, made a list of the pros and cons of each college, and
helped me to make a sound decision about where I wanted to go. The reason I
went to a small college – Centenary College – is because I didn’t want to be
compared to other greats that had played before me. If I had gone to UCLA, for
example, I would have faced constant comparisons to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. If I
had chosen Kansas, I would have played in the shadow of Wilt Chamberlain. So
one of the big reasons I chose Centenary was because I wanted to carve out my
own identity, and not get caught up in that comparison thing.
Also, I liked the coaches at that time – Larry Little and Rodney Wallace. They put a lot of emphasis on education first, and athletics second – and not the other way around. That impressed me a great deal, but it really impressed my parents. It was important for them to hear that education was the number one priority, because I was the first one in my family to get a college education.
Centenary
was placed on probation for various rules violations, where it would remain
during your entire four years at the school. With all basketball players
free to transfer elsewhere, you decided to remain a student-athlete at
Centenary. Please tell me a little about your decision to stay in
Shreveport.
There
were several factors. One, I was a father in college. I wanted my child to
be close to family, and the college was very close to home. Two, it was
group decision made by those of us who had the opportunity to leave. There
were six or seven of us that could have transferred. We all decided to
stay, so it was a group decision to stay on at Centenary College.
You
averaged 21.6 points and 16.9 rebounds at Centenary, being named to The
Sporting News All-America first team as a senior. The Golden State Warriors
wasted little time snapping you up with the 8th overall pick in the 1976
Draft. Please tell me a little about your four seasons as a Warrior.
It
was a good time for me. It was a learning experience. I was fortunate to
have a mentor in Clifford Ray, who took me under his wings and taught me all
about being a professional athlete. He stressed the importance of things
like work ethic, nutrition, and fitness – both mentally and physically.
That really made a big difference in me, because the only thing I had to do
was concentrate on basketball.
With Red
Auerbach holding the top overall pick in the 1980 NBA Draft, it appeared to
many that he would select Purdue's Joe Barry Carroll. But by trading down
to Number 3, he was able to acquire two of the greatest players in NBA
history. What was that first Celtics training camp like, and how long did
it take for you to realize that the Big Three of Robert Parish, Kevin McHale
and Larry Bird was destined for greatness?
The
first day of training camp was very intense, very focused. There was
complete dedication on the part of everyone. It was like a playoff-type
atmosphere in terms of intensity. All of the practices, in fact, felt like
playoff-type games. Just from seeing that, and being exposed to that, I
knew very quickly that we could be very special.
Initially, I didn’t realize that myself, Larry and Kevin was going to turn out to be such a respected front line. It didn’t really sink in until after Dave Cowens retired. I had all intentions of going into it as being a backup to Dave. I had no idea that Dave was going to step down so abruptly. And then, once we started playing together on a consistent basis, I realized that we had the capacity to be something special.
For me personally, I was finally surrounded by the talent that I played with in college. I mean that in relative terms, of course. In other words, in college we had a front line that was very dominant at that level, and we played very well together. Everyone understood their role, and they went out and did their job. It was the same with the three of us in Boston. We all understood what our roles were going to be, and we understood this from a very early point in time. There was no jealousy. We fit together very well, and complimented each other perfectly.
