The Frank Ramsey Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, August 13th, 2002
You
were the NBA’s first great Sixth Man, and such a vital
part of the Boston Celtics’ success. How were
you able to come into a game completely cold and produce
on such a consistent basis?
I
don't know - I have to give a lot of the
credit to Red Auerbach, because he was the
one who set the rotation. When I
joined the team we had two all-star guards
in Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. They were
tremendous players. It was Red who
decided on the substitution pattern from
game-to-game, so my job was to be ready to
play. I watched the flow of the game
and tried to keep myself prepared to
contribute. A lot of times, I would go
in the game for Tom Heinsohn.
In Sam and KC Jones
(no relation), you kept some pretty good company on the
bench. That’s three hall-of-fame players on the
second unit. What can you tell me about Sam and KC?
Okay, let's take them one at a time. I first met
Sam while I was still in the army - it was in Columbia,
South Carolina, and the occasion was a basketball
tournament at the air force base. Sam is an
outstanding individual. I can't say enough about
him. As a player, he practiced to develop that
famous bank shot of his - which he could hit from either
side of the floor. As a teammate he was everything
you could ask for. A true team player. He
was willing to wait his turn to start. Just a
tremendous basketball player.
KC was a student of the game, which helped him later
when took over as coach of the Celtics. He has a
tremendous amount of integrity. We lived close to
each other during those days, and we would carpool to
airport all of the time. Those were good
memories. We would drive to the airport and solve
all of the world's problems along the way.
[Laughs.] I have a lot of respect for KC Jones.
The Celtics won 11 championships in 13 years. I know that a lot of the credit goes to Bill Russell, but there had to be more to it than that. Do you care to share the Boston Celtics' secret recipe for success?
The players that Red surrounded himself with all had a
great deal of class. That was what made the
experience so special for me. And everyone wanted
to win. It wasn't about individual
accomplishments.
I think a lot of that can be traced to how many of us served in the military. Jack Nichols, Jim Loscutoff, KC, Sam, myself - all of us served, so we were used to the discipline that comes with a winning program. We didn't have a problem with Red giving the orders. He was the general and we followed his orders.
I’ve heard that Red
used to take the Celtics on the road for quite a number
of exhibition games. Were you ever a part of those
trips?
Oh yes. In those days we used to tour Vermont, New
Hampshire, Massachusetts - heck, we even went as far up
as Holten, Maine. I remember going on the road and
playing fourteen games in fourteen days. A team
always traveled with us on those exhibitions, so we'd
play the same team at every stop. One year it was
the Minneapolis Lakers, another the Cincinnati Royals,
another the squad from Philadelphia. That meant we
might end up playing the same team twenty-five times or
more during the course of the season.
On one particular trip I remember listening to the World Series as it was being played. We'd get so tired of being around each other, I remember that as well. There would always be a scuffle or two by the end of the trip. You could always count on that.
What were Auerbach’s
practices like?
Once the season started they were short and
intense. We really liked to scrimmage, that was
the thing. Russell didn't scrimmage as much as the
rest of us, because he usually played the entire
game. That's forty-eight minutes of basketball,
which places quite a demand on the body.
Our favorite scrimmages were usually the big guys against the little guys. We would divide the teams up that way for two reasons; because all of the little guys thought that they could play the pivot, and all of the big guys thought that they could bring the ball up the court. [Laughs.] We would also scrimmage five-against-five, eliminating a player from each team along the way, until it was down to one-against-one. It was always a big competition to see who was named champion.
Two
seasons after Auerbach’s trade for Russell, the Boston
Celtics and St. Louis Hawks each had one NBA
Championship. Did you think that the Celtics would
go on to win the next eight consecutive championships,
and ultimately, 11 in 13 years?
No. Our main concern was winning from
year-to-year. Things were a lot different back
then. We won our first championship on April 15th,
1957, and now the games run well into June.
Another big difference was that we all had summer
jobs. We had to, because we were paid only a small
fraction of what the players make today. When the
season was over we all went our separate ways to make a
living. Bob Cousy had his summer camp, Loscy (Jim
Loscutoff) had a camp, Tommy Heinsohn sold insurance.
And you had a
successful construction business back home in
Madisonville.
That's correct. We built a little bit of
everything - homes, buildings, even a nursing home.
