Both you and Cliff Hagan served time in the military – you after your first season with the Celtics, and Hagan two years immediately following college – before launching Hall-of-Fame careers in the NBA.  How did that year away from basketball help to shape you as a person?
 
I don’t know that it shaped me in any particular way.  Almost everybody at that time served in the military.  In school I joined the ROTC and earned eight credit hours over a two year span.  The one thing that serving taught me was discipline.  That was the big thing that I carried away from that experience.

Cliff served in the military as well, but he went in right after graduation.  I played that first season in Boston and then went into the service.  I was still in the army when we won our first championship in 1957.  [Laughs.]  We played that seventh game against the St. Louis Hawks on a Sunday and I was discharged from the army on the following Tuesday.

As fellow Wildcats, Cliff Hagan’s name is forever linked to your own.  On the professional level, Hagan’s name will forever be linked to one of the biggest trades in NBA history.  What do you remember most about the trade that sent “Easy” Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan to the St. Louis Hawks in exchange for the draft rights to Bill Russell?
 
Ed Macauley was a favorite of Walter Brown, the owner of the Boston Celtics.  Ed could have stopped the trade if he’d wanted to do so – all he had to do was tell Mr. Brown that he wanted to stay in Boston.  But Ed had a sick son, Pat, who lived in St. Louis.  Pat was there so that he could be close to his doctors.  The trade made sense for Ed because he was born and raised in St. Louis, and going back home meant that he could spend more time with Pat.  It was a good trade for everybody, especially when you considered Ed’s family situation.

Red Auerbach is famous for his contract negotiations.  Can you remember your first contract talks with Red?
 
I remember it well.  I was in Boston with a group of college all-stars.  We were playing the Harlem Globetrotters at Fenway Park.  Red stops me in the Red Sox dugout and begins talking contract, and thirty minutes later we’d come to an agreement.  Because of my military responsibilities, I remember requesting a six month deferment as part of that original contract.

The Celtics started the 1956-57 season with 14 consecutive victories.  Which rookie impressed you more that first championship season – Bill Russell or Tommy Heinsohn?
 
The were two entirely different players, and they played two different positions.  Tommy played that whole season, but Bill didn’t join the team until after the Olympics.  Before Bill arrived, we had plenty of scorers but no real defense.  Bill Sharman could should the ball, Bob Cousy could shoot it, Tommy Heinsohn, Jack Nichols.  But we didn’t have anyone to rebound the basketball and block shots.  Bill Russell gave us the defense that we’d been lacking.  With him in the lineup we won in 1957, then again in 1959.  That started a streak of eight consecutive championships.