Red Auerbach (1917-2006)

"After his death on Saturday night, Red Auerbach was remembered as the greatest basketball coach/executive who ever lived. He built 16 championship teams and coached nine of them. He was the first to start five black players at the same time. He invented the victory cigar. He was competitive enough that he announced his coaching retirement before the '65-66 season so every team would have one last crack at him. He drafted Bird, Cowens and Havlicek, traded for Russell, traded for McHale and Parish, lucked into Cousy. He's arguably the most important non-player in NBA history -- really, it's either him or David Stern -- the one person who transcended a franchise and became a one-man Mount Rushmore.

"But it went deeper than that. For every Celtic fan growing up in New England in the '70s and '80s, Red became part of our families, the crusty old grandfather, the patriarch, the guy who made everyone else feel safe. As long as Red was around, the Celts were in good hands. That's just the way it was. He was our ace in the hole. He was Yoda before Yoda was Yoda. He was like a shark at a poker table raking in huge hands every 20 minutes, puffing on that damned cigar, making everyone else feel inferior. He was the ultimate winner. He gave us a competitive advantage. He was smarter than everyone else." [ESPN.com]

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"In two decades of National Basketball Association coaching, Auerbach won 938 games, a record when he retired in 1966, as well as a record nine NBA championship titles, a number he shares with Phil Jackson. In those 20 years, 16 with the Celtics, Auerbach had only one losing season while winning almost two-thirds of his games.

"Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969 and, 11 years later, was recognized as the greatest coach in NBA history by the Professional Basketball Writers Association of America. That same year, 1980, he was inducted a second time into the Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to the game.

"In 1996, he was honored on the 50th anniversary of the NBA as one of its greatest 10 coaches. His coaching achievement is recognized annually with the awarding of the Red Auerbach Trophy to the league's Coach of the Year. Auerbach himself won the award only once, in 1965. The award was named in his honor in 1967." [Boston Globe]

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MP3: Fiona Apple - "Red Red Red"