K.C. Jones RIP

Won multiple titles with Bill Russell at U San Francisco and the Celtics, then won two titles as Celtics' coach in the '80s. Dead at 88. He was a good guy to cover back then. I guess when you have Bird, McHale and Parish, a coach can afford to be mellow and cheerful.

 

Had a nine year career as an NBA player and won eight titles. That is one hell of a resume.

 

K.C. was an awesome defender. When he retired, Red Auerbach, knowing K.C. wanted to coach, got him the head job at Brandeis in D-3. They came to Wesleyan my freshman year and I went to the game. K.C.'s look of continual bafflement and amazement at D-3 ball after a career with the Celtics was both hilarious and sad all at once.

 

Big part of my coming of age coaching the C's against my Lakers. Always cool calm collected when the camera turned to him.

He also sang.

 

He also was an assistant to Bill Sharman on the 71-72 Lakers, who set the single-season wins record and won the team’s first title in LA.
RIP

 

Didn't the Celts practice at Brandeis? That's where Reggie Lewis died. On another note, Belichick went to Wesleyan.

 

I know. I was a senior when he was a freshman. Let's just say we didn't run in the same social circles, although I did know some of the guys in his frat, the jock house.

 

Reggie died in a pickup game. Celts practiced at Hellenic College, a small Greek Orthodox school located at the top of a hill in Brookline and almost impossible to find in those pre-GPS days.

 

I probably started watching basketball when I was 6-7 and saw the Fo-Fo-Fo Sixers team in 1983. I remember the cultural reputation that the Celtics and Boston sports in general had and it was very surprising as a kid to see they had a black head coach, especially since there weren't very many in pro sports at all. Knowing very little about his history as a player or with the organization it was just cool to see a black head coach of a championship-caliber team much like it was when I first saw John Thompson at Georgetown around the same time, maybe a little earlier.

Imagine how much it made my spin several years later when I found out they were teammates in the mid-60s with the Celtics.

But they were such polar opposites as coaches. Big John projected a strength-by-force personality the way he would walk up and down the bench with that towel over his shoulder and Jones was so calm and stoic.

Man 2020 ain't shit. But tremendous life lived for Jones.

 

KC was the kind of player whose greatness was never fully appreciated because he always seemed to have better players around him.

 

When you're Bill Russell's running mate in college and pros, you're always gonna have at least one player than you around you.
PS: About the Celtics. They were the first NBA team to put five black players on the court and the last to put five white players on the court.
PPS: I grew up in the Philadelphia area and was raised to hate the Celtics. Then by an accident of life I wound up covering them. I could never root for them to win a game, ever. But I respected them as a kid and really enjoyed covering them as a young adult.
PPS: With Heinsohn and now KC gone, I think Russell and Cousy are the last survivors of the NBA's first and still greatest dynastic power, the '50s-'60s Celts.