He was having fun not having enough fingers to put on all his NBA championship rings. American basketball and Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell died on Sunday July 31 at the age of 88, his family announced. Eleven times champion of the prestigious American league between 1957 and 1969he also won Olympic gold in 1956 with the selection of the United States.
“Bill Russell, the most prolific winner in American sports history, passed away peacefully (…) with his wife Jeannine at his bedside”said his family on social networks.
An announcement… pic.twitter.com/KMJ7pG4R5Z
— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) July 31, 2022
Pivot, Bill Russell was recognized as an excellent defender. Double national champion with the University of San Francisco in 1955 and 1956, he was drafted with the Boston Celtics in 1956 and spent his entire playing career with this franchise. Eleven-time NBA champion, including twice as a player-coach, he was voted best player in the championship (MVP) five times, just like Michael Jordan. He was the first black American appointed to lead an American professional sports franchise and the first to be crowned, in his second year, in 1967.
The first player to finish a season with an average of more than 20 rebounds, his rivalry with Wilt Chamberlain, also pivot, made the headlines of the time. At the end of his career, his number 6 was retired by the Celtics.
Bill Russell was also decorated by Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, for his entire career and his commitment against racism. Born in 1934 in Louisiana, in a South still living under racial discrimination, Russell was not the first black man to play in the NBA, but he was the first African-American basketball superstar. He used his notoriety to advance the cause of civil rights.
In 1967, he appeared alongside fellow NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, American football star Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali at the “Cleveland Summit” where he supported the boxer, who was being chased by the justice for refusing to join the army.
In 1963, he also participated in Martin Luther King’s March on Washington, while refusing to be promoted. Endowed with a singular character, introvert Russel was sometimes considered inaccessible, even arrogant, in particular because he did not willingly sign autographs.