Red Auerbach

• 1. Introduction

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  Red Auerbach lit a cigar on the bench while the game was still being played. It was his signal to the opposing team, to the crowd, to anyone watching: this one is over. The habit became so iconic that Boston restaurants in the 1960s posted signs reading, "No cigar or pipe smoking, except for Red Auerbach." It captured everything about the man: a confidence bordering on arrogance, a flair for psychological warfare, and an almost supernatural ability to be right.

  Born Arnold Jacob Auerbach on the 20th of September 1917 in Brooklyn, New York, he would go on to win a combined 16 NBA titles with the Boston Celtics, the most of any individual in the history of the sport. He coached eight consecutive championships, a streak that remains the longest in North American professional sports. And when he stopped coaching, he kept building, assembling the teams that would win in the decades that followed.

  But the wins only tell part of the story. Auerbach drafted the NBA's first African-American player, fielded the first all-Black starting five, and hired the first Black head coach in the league's history. He invented the role player, championed team defense over individual statistics, and left behind a philosophy of basketball that his players would carry into their own coaching careers. How a kid from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, came to reshape an entire sport is a story worth following from the beginning.

• 2. Brooklyn to the Hardwood

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  Hyman Auerbach arrived in the United States from Minsk at the age of thirteen. He was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who eventually settled in Brooklyn, married an American-born woman named Marie, and opened a delicatessen before moving into the dry-cleaning business. Their son Arnold grew up in the Williamsburg neighborhood, playing basketball in the streets, and earned the nickname "Red" for his flaming hair and matching temper.

  During the Great Depression, Red played as a guard at P.S. 122 and then Eastern District High School, where he was named Second Team All-Brooklyn by the World-Telegram in his senior year. After a season at Seth Low Junior College, he received an athletic scholarship to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He became a three-time letterman, captained the team, and led it in scoring in 1940. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Education that year, followed by a Master of Education in 1941.

  Those college years planted the seed for something that would define his coaching career. Auerbach began developing the technique known as the fast break, a style of play that prizes speed and transition over set offenses. By the time he was coaching others, the fast break would be his calling card. He married Dorothy Lewis in the spring of 1941, and the couple would go on to have two daughters, Nancy and Randy.

• 3. Learning to Win

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  Auerbach's first coaching post came in 1941 at the St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., where he also taught. He then moved to Roosevelt High School, coaching both basketball and baseball for two years before enlisting in the U.S. Navy in June 1943. He served for three years as a Rehabilitation and Physical Training officer, working primarily in a medical capacity at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He also coached at the Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, and was released from active duty as a Lieutenant (junior grade) in October 1946.

  His naval service brought an unexpected opportunity. Washington millionaire Mike Uline noticed Auerbach during that period and hired him to coach the Washington Capitols in the newly founded Basketball Association of America, a predecessor to the NBA. In the 1946-47 BAA season, Auerbach built a fast-break team around former Navy players and early BAA star Bones McKinney. The Capitols posted a 49-11 record, including a 17-game winning streak that stood as the single-season league record until 1969. The playoffs ended early, with a loss to the Chicago Stags in six games.

  The Capitols reached the BAA Finals two seasons later but were beaten by the Minneapolis Lakers, led by Hall of Famer George Mikan. When the BAA and the National Basketball League merged to form the NBA, Auerbach proposed rebuilding the squad. Owner Uline declined. Auerbach resigned. He briefly joined Duke as an assistant coach, working alongside future All-American Dick Groat, though the circumstances were uncomfortable: he was effectively waiting for head coach Gerry Gerard, who was battling cancer, to step aside. Auerbach later wrote that he "felt pretty bad waiting for Gerard to die" and that it was "no way to get a job."

• 4. Building the Celtics

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  Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Celtics, was desperate. His franchise had just posted a 22-46 record and was in financial distress. He hired Auerbach before the 1950-51 season, and the new coach immediately made a move that raised eyebrows. Using the Celtics' second-round pick in the 1950 NBA draft, Auerbach selected Chuck Cooper, the first Black player to be drafted into the NBA. With his first pick, he famously bypassed local favorite Bob Cousy, dismissing him as a "local yokel" who lacked the necessary poise.

  Cousy ended up on the Celtics anyway through a dispersal draft, and Auerbach, to his credit, worked to develop the young guard into one of the game's great playmakers. In the 1951-52 season, the Celtics acquired guard Bill Sharman, and Auerbach had the core he wanted: the high-scoring Ed Macauley, the elite passer Cousy, and the sharpshooting Sharman. Forwards Frank Ramsey and Jim Loscutoff joined in the following seasons. The team reached the playoffs every year from 1951 through 1956 but never won a title, going 10-17 in the postseason. As Cousy put it: "we would get tired in the end and couldn't get the ball."

  The missing piece arrived on the day of the 1956 NBA draft. Auerbach acquired Bill Russell, a defensive rebounding center, via a trade with the rival St. Louis Hawks. On the same day, he also selected forward Tom Heinsohn and guard K.C. Jones, two future Hall of Famers. The formula that followed was built on defense and conditioning. Forward Tom Sanders recalled, "defense and conditioning were the best parts of those teams." Russell forced opponents into low-percentage shots from distance, generating the fast-break opportunities Auerbach had been building toward his entire career.

• 5. Eight in a Row

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  From 1957 to 1966, the Celtics won nine of ten NBA championships. Eight came consecutively, the longest championship streak in North American professional sports history. Six of those finals victories came against the Los Angeles Lakers, whose roster included Hall of Famers Elgin Baylor and Jerry West. Wilt Chamberlain, perennial scoring and rebounding champion, could not claim a title during Auerbach's coaching reign.

  Auerbach's system depended on role players as much as stars. Frank Ramsey and John Havlicek were among the first legitimate sixth men in NBA history, a role later filled by Don Nelson. Auerbach quoted his own philosophy bluntly: "Individual honors are nice, but no Celtic has ever gone out of his way achieving them. We have never had the league's top scorer. We won seven league championships without placing even one among the league's top 10 scorers. Our pride was never rooted in statistics."

  Before the 1965-66 season, Auerbach announced publicly that it would be his last year coaching, telling the rest of the league: "This is your chance to take your last shot at me." After losing Game 1 of the Finals to the Lakers in overtime, he named his successor: Bill Russell, his own center. The Celtics won the series in seven games. Thirteen players who played for Auerbach were eventually inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, including Macauley, Cousy, Sharman, Heinsohn, Russell, K.C. Jones, Havlicek, and Sam Jones.

• 6. Breaking Racial Barriers

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  In 1950, drafting Chuck Cooper was not simply a basketball decision. Professional basketball had an unwritten color barrier, and Auerbach's selection effectively ended it. Cooper became the first Black player drafted into the NBA, and Auerbach made the pick in the second round without fanfare, treating it as a basketball call.

  In 1964, Auerbach sent out the first all-African-American starting five in NBA history. The five players were Bill Russell, Willie Naulls, Tom Sanders, Sam Jones, and K.C. Jones. It was a statement made in action rather than in press releases. Earl Lloyd, the first Black player to actually appear in an NBA game, captured the atmosphere Auerbach created: "Red Auerbach convinced his players that he loved them, so all they wanted to do was please him."

  For the 1966-67 NBA season, Auerbach appointed Bill Russell as head coach, making Russell the first African-American head coach in the four major North American professional team sports. Russell took over as a player-coach and won two additional titles, in 1968 and 1969. These decisions were not celebrated as progressive gestures at the time so much as they were treated as basketball logic by Auerbach: he selected and promoted the best people for the job, regardless of race, in an era when that was far from standard practice across the league.

• 7. The Executive Years

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  Auerbach's second act as an executive proved nearly as successful as his coaching career. After stepping off the bench in 1966, he rebuilt the Celtics through shrewd draft work, selecting future Hall of Famers Dave Cowens and Jo Jo White, along with Paul Westphal and Don Chaney. With Tom Heinsohn coaching and John Havlicek leading the team on the floor, the Celtics won the NBA title in 1974 and 1976.

  In the summer of 1978, facing his worst stretch of clashes with ownership since Walter Brown's death in 1964, Auerbach nearly left Boston for a lucrative offer from Knicks owner Sonny Werblin. He had hailed a cab to Logan Airport when the driver talked him out of it, urging him to stay. At a press conference soon after, Auerbach puffed on his cigar and announced: "I'm not going anywhere. We're going to sign Larry Bird and we're going to be on top again." He had already drafted Bird as a junior eligible in the 1978 NBA draft, knowing Bird had a year of college eligibility remaining at Indiana State. He waited. Bird signed for $650,000 per year as a rookie, the highest-paid Celtic at the time.

  In 1980, Auerbach pulled off what became known as the Steal of the Century. He persuaded the Golden State Warriors to trade him the third overall pick and center Robert Parish in exchange for the first and thirteenth picks. With the third pick, he selected Kevin McHale. The Parish-McHale-Bird frontcourt became one of the greatest in NBA history, and the Celtics won titles in 1981, 1984, and 1986. In 1986, Auerbach used a draft pick acquired from Seattle to select Len Bias, a college prodigy from Maryland, with the second overall pick. It was arguably the most ambitious single selection of his career. Two days later, Bias died of a cocaine overdose. The Celtics never appeared in the Finals again during Auerbach's lifetime.

• 8. Legacy and Lasting Mark

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  Auerbach died of a heart attack on the 28th of October 2006, at the age of 89. NBA commissioner David Stern said, "The void caused by his death will never be filled." Larry Bird, who had arrived as Auerbach's prize recruit, said: "Red shared our passion for the game, our commitment to excellence, and our desire to do whatever it takes to win."

  The tributes took concrete form. Boston Celtics parquet floor at their arena was officially named the Red Auerbach Parquet Floor, with his signature placed near center court. In 1985, a statue of Auerbach was unveiled outside Quincy Market in Downtown Boston. In 2018, the Celtics opened the Red Auerbach Center as the team's new practice facility and headquarters. The NBA's Coach of the Year Award carries his name.

  Auerbach wrote seven books in total. His first, Basketball for the Player, the Fan and Coach, was translated into seven languages and became the best-selling basketball book in print. His final book, Let Me Tell You a Story, was co-authored with sports journalist John Feinstein and published in October 2004. His brother Zang, a cartoonist and portraitist at the Washington Star, had helped create the iconic Boston Celtics leprechaun logo years earlier, a quiet piece of family legacy embedded in the franchise's identity. Many of Auerbach's former players went on to become head coaches themselves, including Bill Russell and Don Nelson, carrying his philosophy into a generation of basketball that extended well beyond his own career.