They All Boo When Red Sits Down

This year Red Auerbach was one of 10 recipients of the Boston Medal for Distinguished Achievement; the other medals were awarded to six Nobel Prizewinners, Richard Rodgers, Arthur Fiedler and Charles A. Coolidge, an attorney. Auerbach ranks this award as one of the chief "thrills" of his life. Among the others are the publication of his first article, Indoor Obstacle Courses, which appeared in the May 1943 issue of The Journal of Health and Physical Education; the night the St. Louis Hawks gave him a tea set to commemorate the thousandth game he coached ("They had always booed me resoundingly in St. Louis," says Auerbach with feeling); and the day in 1960 when a stranger approached him and said he had always remembered the lecture on The Potential Limit Auerbach delivered at Roosevelt High School in Washington in 1941. "He was Lee Pogostin, the TV writer," Auerbach says. "A C student, a very obscure-type kid at the time."

After Auerbach received the Boston Medal, he said, "I don't know where they got my name. They must be giving it to me because I can go to my left. I certainly can't do anything else." Auerbach is not only without rival as a basketball coach; no one in any of the other major team sports has ever come close to matching his remarkable record. The only NBA marks left for Auerbach to break are those held by Auerbach This year, for example, the Celtics won 62 games out of 80, to surpass the record of 60 set by the Celtics in 1961-62. In 1946 the Capitols won 17 games in a row, a feat duplicated by the Celtics in 1959-60. Auerbach's teams have won seven world championships, nine divisional titles and failed to make the playoffs only once. At the beginning of the current season Auerbach had a career record of 822 wins and 435 losses; the overall total for the eight other NBA coaches was 820 and 851. He has coached the East team in the annual NBA All-Star Game for nine years, but until this year had never been voted Coach of the Year. Last season Auerbach was tied for third with Charley Wolf, who formerly coached Detroit, which is certainly a record for infantilism on the part of the sportswriters who did the selecting.

Auerbach's preeminence as a coach has been attributed to many factors, but Loscutoff and Heinsohn single out his relationship—or, rather, the deliberate lack of it—with his players' wives. "His whole theory behind basketball is never get too close to the wives," Loscutoff says. "It's the smartest move the man ever made," says Heinsohn. "Nothing can ruin a team more than 10 wives who love their husbands and think they're the greatest." Says Auerbach, "I'm on a hello basis with the wives. I never go to anyone's house for dinner. You can't become emotionally involved and then be impartial. It breeds discontent, jealousy, and who needs it?"

Auerbach has often said that he runs the Celtics like a dictatorship. "It's a dictatorship with compassion," he explains. "I don't think I'm a dictator to the extent that I'm never wrong. The thing I've got to watch is being carried away with my own importance. You're dealing with a game where everybody wants to be heard, to go down in history. A man thinks he's infallible, he's ridiculous. I admit it if I've had a bad day on the bench. You let them know you're human, too, that you can't be up for 80 games. Otherwise how can you keep patting them on the behind?

"But I don't believe in electing a team captain, for instance. I appoint one. I don't take any chances. And I'm not having a group discussion when I get a point across. I'm not really interested in gripes, either. This isn't a union. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not explosive with my players. I concede that a lot of the rookies are awed by me. I watch it. Every once in a while I bring them inside and talk to them, but you can overtalk just like you can overcoach.

"A lot of coaches have to prove they're the boss. They get their teams so emotionally hopped up that, while they'll hustle and fight off the boards, they won't take the shot and they'll throw the ball away. They keep looking at the coach! I can't stand a ballplayer who plays in fear. Any fellow who has a good shot has got to take it and keep taking it. So he misses. So what."

"You can make a thousand mistakes as long as you hustle," says Heinsohn. "The guys know they're not going to be rushed out the door when they make a mistake. The reason Red's been so successful is that he's always the boss. But he's not a know-it-all and he's always open to suggestions. You've got to earn his friendship. He doesn't get friendly with a guy until the guy knows Red's the boss. Red's got a heart as big as a grapefruit. All this Leo Durocher stuff. Baloney! He's soft."

"He's a man hardened by his environment," says Mel Counts, the Celtics' rookie forward, "but he also has a lot of heart. He likes to feel he's the boss, that he's important, but Red'll surprise you sometimes. He'll be generous, helpful, not gruff like a bear. He's not consistent. He's complimented me on the fine games I've had but, of course, they were quite obvious. He's kind of like the captain of a ship. You can't get too close to the captain, yet you can ask questions, but you feel uneasy. Sometimes he'll say things to see how you'll react, like it's a game. He's sarcastic. Sometimes he offends my intelligence. You have a little pride, a little dignity yourself. I don't think man was put on the earth to be abused. There's a time to stand on your own two feet. I like Red, but I don't understand him."

"As soon as I retire, I said to myself, I'm going to belt Red," Jim Loscutoff, who now coaches at Boston State, said one day last month, "but I admired the guy, I respected the guy. He's a fantastic guy. I learned a lot about psychology from Red. He knows exactly what to say to each ballplayer. He knows you can't say anything derogatory to Russell because he'll pout. You couldn't criticize Cousy or Ramsey, either. We could be losing a game by eight points and nobody would be doing anything wrong but Heinsohn and Loscutoff. Auerbach and Russell get along because each knows just what kind of a guy the other is. Russell knows Auerbach isn't a person who would appreciate being stepped on. I learned a lot from him. I find myself using a lot of his terminology."

"Poor kids," said Loscutoff's wife.