The Larry Siegfried Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, May 16th,
2006
In
Boston, you were reunited with Ohio State teammate John Havlicek. What was it
like for you to win that first NBA championship?
When
I went into Boston, I was going into a situation that had been established over
a period of time. It was basically the situation that I was trying to get
through my head at Ohio State. So when I went to Boston, I was excited about
the way they did things. I was awed at not only the championships, but how they
played together as a team. Again, it was that team concept. I was absolutely
mesmerized, and to this day I hold those Celtic teams up as the prime example of
the team concept. That was what defined them. I tell people that it was the
easiest place in the world to play if you were a team player. If you were
selfish you wouldn’t last five minutes there.
That first championship just extended what the Celtics were all about. It was a great thrill to win the title and to experience what that was all about, but the big thing for me was to be a part of that team and play with a group of guys who always – and I mean always – thought about the team ahead of themselves. I’ve been watching sports for a long time, and there has never been another situation like that. It was truly a special place to play basketball.
Red
Auerbach’s training camps were legendary. What was it like to meet Red for
the first time, and what was that first training camp like for you?
You
know what we did the first day of camp? We pressed, man-to-man, from one
end of the court to the other. That was the whole scrimmage. First day of
practice. What Red wanted to do was find out who was in shape, and who
really wanted to be there. And if someone got sick, that person would come
out and you’d play five-on-four. That was Red’s philosophy. He wanted a
team that was in superior shape. See, he didn’t have to worry about the
team concept stuff, because most of the players that he had up there had
come from championship college teams. They knew how to win. They had the
talent, and they knew how to win. He didn’t have to deal with all of the
other stuff that everybody else in the league had to deal with.
Sam and
KC Jones learned the Celtic Way while playing behind two hall-of-fame
guards, Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. When you arrived, it was the Jones Boys
who helped keep the Celtic Dynasty running. Please tell me a little about
Sam and KC.
You’re
exactly right. First of all, they were both outstanding players. Here
again, I’m talking about the team concept. Personally, I’m not interested
in the All-Star stuff and all of that other garbage. Sam and KC were
outstanding guards. They played well together. KC was an outstanding guard
who probably wasn’t the shooter that Sam was, but he was probably the better
defensive player. He was a winner. Sam was an outstanding player who could
shoot the lights out. He knew how to win. For me, playing behind those two
guys was a thrill because I learned a lot from watching them. Back then,
nobody came in off the street and jumped into the Boston Celtics’ starting
lineup. You sat behind veterans. You sat, you listened, you learned, and
you gradually worked yourself into the rotation. That was the Celtic Way.
Walter
Brown passed away on September 7th, 1964. Please tell me a little about the
late, great Mr. Brown.
I
don’t know a whole lot, other than I knew that he entrusted Red with all of
the details of running the club. It was Red’s baby in terms of the
finances, contracts, things like that. Red negotiated all of the contracts,
and Walter totally entrusted Red with the day-to-day operation of the Boston
Celtics. Aside from that, Walter Brown was an owner who really cared about
his team. They were winning and that didn’t hurt, either. He wanted to go
first class in everything, and it was a first class operation. He was
low-key. He was not around that often, and not one to be seen all of the
time. You knew who he was, and you respected him because he was the owner.
But he wasn’t like some of these guys that you see today, like the owner of
the Dallas Mavericks [Mark Cuban], who is on TV every time you turn on one
of their games. His ego didn’t work that way. In many ways Red was the
face man for the Boston Celtics, and not Walter Brown.
