Basketball cries, the man with more rings than fingers on his hands is gone. Bill Russell, one of the most famous players in basketball history, has died this Sunday at the age of 88. This has been announced by his relatives through the social networks of the former Boston Celtics player, with whom he won 11 NBA rings. No one has won so many titles in the best basketball league on the planet. “Bill Russell, the most prolific winner in American sports history, passed away peacefully today at the age of 88, accompanied by his wife, Jeannine,” the statement read.
Russell was born in Monroe, Louisiana, on February 12, 1934, a time when blacks had virtually no rights in the United States. A hostile environment (his grandfather came to be shot by the Ku Klux Klan) that did not prevent him from standing out in basketball thanks to his gigantic height (2.08 meters), much higher than most players of that time. epoch.
He played at McClymonds High School, where he won two state championships, and then made the leap to the University of San Francisco, one of the few in the country that offered him a scholarship due to racial segregation. With the Californians he again won two NCAA (university league) championships and in 1956, he was selected in the NBA draft by the Boston Celticsthe same summer that he was part of the United States team at the Melbourne Olympics, where they won the gold medal.
If the Massachusetts team is the most successful in NBA history (17 rings along with the Lakers) it is largely due to Bill Russell. The pivot, in 13 seasons with the greens, won an outrage of 11 rings (1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969), eight consecutively and the last two as a player -coach, which allowed him to achieve the achievement of being the first black coach to win one of the major sports leagues in the United States. In addition, he was named the best player in the NBA 5 times. After such a career, the NBA decided to name him the best player award in the NBA Finals (MVP).
In addition to his sporting successes, Russell has achieved legendary status for his involvement in the fight for the rights of African-Americans. In 1961, with the Celtics, he and several teammates boycotted a friendly game in Lexington, Kentucky, because he and other black players were denied service at one of the local bars. An unprecedented event until 2020, when the Milwaukke Bucks refused to play during the 2020 playoffs after the murder of Jacob Blake in the Bucks estate, Wisconsin, at the hands of the police. His fight continued until the end, being one of the great emblems of the modern NBA, as committed to social causes as he is to basketball.
