The Tom Heinsohn Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Friday, August 3rd,
2006
Brawls were commonplace in the early days of the NBA. One such dust-up occurred
between yourself and Wilt Chamberlain. Please take me back to some of those
battles, such as your encounter with Wilt, and please tell me a little about
Boston’s original tough men, Bob Brannum and Jim Loscutoff.
I
never played with Brannum, but I certainly saw him play. I did play with
Loscutoff, and Loscutoff was a tough guy. He was
more-or-less the intimidator
of our team. Wilt was a force to be reckoned with, and he took an immediate
dislike to me during his rookie year in the league. He ripped off my jersey
during one game in which we had a little altercation. We had a little play that
we used to help us beat Philadelphia all the time, because Wilt got a little
lazy at times. They would shoot a free throw, and make it, and Russell would
run down the floor. Cousy would inbound the ball real fast, and Russell would
outrun Wilt easily, and Russell would get a layup. So we were getting three or
four baskets a game off of that. By the time we get to the series with the Sixers that year, Wilt has caught on. So before the series starts, Red said,
‘The play with Wilt is not working anymore, so we’re going to change it a little
bit. We’re going to have somebody step in and block out the shooter once the
ball goes through, go pick off Wilt Chamberlain, so Russell can get the step on
him and beat him down the floor.’ So that sounded pretty good to me, because I
was never the guy blocking out the shooter. I was always on the line,
rebounding. So, for five games, I’ve gotta go and get in front of Wilt
Chamberlain on every free throw. Finally, he gets wise to what I’m doing. And
he says, ‘You do that one more time and I’m going to knock you on your ass.’
So, you know, you never back down. I looked him in the eye and I said, ‘Bring
your lunch.’ So, they made the free throw, and I went over there, blocked him…I
set a pick on him…and sure enough he knocked me on my ass. I went all the way
out to half court. Whereupon he comes running down the floor, winds up, and
he’s punching me as I’m getting up to my knee. And I’m looking at this fist
coming at me, and all of a sudden Tom Gola walks in between us. And he hits
Gola off of the back of the head – and Wilt breaks his hand! So I jump up
immediately and start peppering him with rights and lefts. He doesn’t even know
I’m hitting him.
So anyway, he plays the next game. It’s up in Boston. And what we would do with Wilt was use up all of our fouls when he had the ball. Exactly what they do today with the Hack-a-Shaq routine on Shaquille O’Neal. That started with Wilt. Russell would try to pressure the pass and make Wilt go out and get it. And Russell would three-quarter him, and if he could he’d pick it off. And if he didn’t get it, and Wilt was going to wheel to the basket, the weak side forward would come over and foul him. Well, we had a whole bunch of forwards, so we had a lot of fouls to give on Wilt [laughs].
In this particular game, after he breaks his hand, the ball gets by Russell and Wilt turns to the basket. I’m the guy coming over to help. I try to punch the ball out of his hand. Instead, I punch him on the broken hand. He looks at me, and he’s going to kill me. And I said to myself, ‘If I play chicken with this guy right now, he’s going to own me.’ So he got to the foul line, and he kept looking at me. He was giving me a stare down. I kept looking him right in the eye. I put my hands on my hips and I just kept staring at him [laughs]. Finally, he said out loud to himself, ‘This guy’s crazy.’ And he took the free throws and I never had another moment of trouble with Wilt [laughs]. It was the ultimate stare-down at the O.K. Corral [laughs].
Game 7 in the '62 Finals went into overtime, and Bill Russell responded with
a 30-point, 40-rebound performance that ranks as one of the NBA’s
best-ever. Please take me back to that series in general, and to Russell’s
performance in particular.
I
don’t remember this game, because this was when I was sick as a dog. I had
the flu three times in the course of about six weeks. I kept coming back,
and I lost a whole bunch of weight, and I was weak and everything else. I
fouled out of this game in fifteen minutes. Cousy would throw me the ball
and I couldn’t catch it. I was out of it.
Kevin McHale was famous for his practical jokes, many of which helped
diffuse the tension prior to big games, but the Celtics original jester may
have been Tom Heinsohn. Please tell me about the exploding cigar prank that
you once played on Red Auerbach.
I
call it my worst day, because that morning I woke up – I was in the
insurance business, and I would look at the mail with breakfast, and I’d
just lost a big, half-million dollar insurance case. I went to my car, and
drove down to the radio station in Worcester to do my radio show. I came
out afterwards and had a parking ticket. I was a little bit late. I hopped
in the car to go to practice, and ended up getting a speeding ticket. Got
to practice, and was late because of the ticket, and I got fined by Red. So
I go to practice, and I don’t particularly have a good practice. I go
downstairs afterwards to get dressed, and I reach into my pocket and
somebody had stolen my wallet. My credit cards are gone, and my draft card
is gone – which was pretty important in those days – and I’m sitting there
very despondent, of course, and Red says, ‘What’s the matter?’ So I tell
him about the worst day I’ve ever had, and he says, ‘You know, Tommy, when
things aren’t going well, I always like to have a cigar. Just sit back and
smoke a cigar.’ He reaches into his pocket and says, ‘On the way home,
here, take this cigar and smoke it. You’ll feel better.’ I said, ‘Red, I’m
not a cigar smoker.’ He said, ‘Take it anyway and try it.’ So I’m driving
home, and about halfway I say to myself, ‘What a nice gesture on Red’s part
to give me the cigar and calm me down a little bit.’ So I unwrap the cigar
and I put it in my mouth. I get the cigarette lighter going, I take two
puffs, and the damned thing explodes in my face [laughs]. So the great,
consoling Red Auerbach fed me a cigar.
So the next day he says to me, ‘Tommy, did you smoke the cigar?’ Well I wasn’t going to let him know that I smoked the cigar. I said, ‘No, you know that I don’t smoke cigars. I had to go speak at a thing last night, and I gave it to the monsignor.’ He said, ‘You gave it to the monsignor?’ And I said, ‘Yes I did.’ Well he looked at me dumbfounded, but he didn’t say anything.
So, every couple of weeks I’d give him a cigar. I’d say something like, ‘Red, I was just at this thing, and they gave me a couple of cigars. Here. You have them.’ And I’d buy the cigars. I’d feed him the cigars like that, every couple of weeks. The first few, he kept looking at them to see if they were loaded. He’d inspect either end. Finally, I’d given him so many cigars, that he stops looking to see if they’re loaded. Now we’re going into the playoffs. We had practice, and I give him this loaded cigar. All of the newspaper guys are standing around, waiting to hear his pearls of wisdom. He used to sit there, at the bench, and unwrap a cigar, light it up and talk to the press. On this particular occasion he didn’t have a match. I had a cigarette lighter, so I went over and I lit it for him. And he took two puffs, right in front of the press, and it exploded right in his face [laughs]. Let me tell you – he literally chased me out of that place…up the stairs, on the court, everywhere [laughs].
