Zach Lowe Talks Bill Russell & Red

Posted by Brian Robb on May 5, 2009 20211 commenthttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2009%2F05%2F05%2Fzach-lowe-talks-bill-russell-red%2FZach+Lowe+Talks+Bill+Russell+%26+Red2009-05-05+16%3A57%3A08Brian+Robbhttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D2021

Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub has just completed a superb book review of “Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend,” a book authored by Bill Russell that discusses his relationship with the patriarch of the Celtic franchise, Red Auerbach. Here is an excerpt of the review which can be found in its entirety at Truehoop.

One of the most examined relationships in basketball is the one that resulted in the sport’s greatest dynasty — that between Red Auerbach and Bill Russell. Bill Russell just published a book describing that relationship from the inside, remembering his days with Auerbach, who died in 2006. This review is by Zach Lowe of CelticsHub.

The paradox of Bill Russell’s tender little book “Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend” (written with Alan Steinberg) about his 50-year friendship with Red Auerbach is that you don’t learn many new facts about either man. There’s a chance that Russell doesn’t know very many details of Auerbach’s life that aren’t already in the public domain. And in a way, that’s one reason the two men were able to be friends for so long. In their time together, they were both stubborn men who cherished their privacy, and so they each respected the other’s right to be stubborn and private. As Russell puts it: “We didn’t know much about each other’s private life. Neither of us knew if the other was a Republican or a Democrat. I didn’t know if he went to synagogue, and he didn’t know if I went to church. To most people, that might sound strange, but for us, it was routine. That was how we were, and we liked it that way.”

For the full book review by Lowe click here