Green Ghosts

Sports Illustrated APRIL 17, 1995

THE NIGHT PERHAPS BECOMES DARKER. THE RAIN BECOMES A little harder. The streetlights forever are a washed-out yellow, playing against the thick pillars of the elevated trains of the MBTA's Orange Line above Causeway Street, the metal-on-metal screech of the trains becoming louder and louder. The characters become caricatures. � Memory is the editor. Memory is in control. � "Here was the first look I ever had at the Boston Garden," John Havlicek ( Celtics 1962-78) says. "I came to Boston straight from the [college] East-West All-Star Game in Kansas City. I was the Celtics' first-round draft choice, and I was traveling with Jack [the Shot] Foley, who was the second choice, from Holy Cross. We got into Boston around 11 o'clock on one of those dank, dark, dreary New England nights. We went through the tunnel from the airport into the city, and we arrived outside the Garden, with all the trains and the rain and everything. We checked into the hotel next door, the Manger...." � There is no hesitation in the words. Thirty-three years have passed in the 49-year history of the Celtics at the Garden since that March 31 night, in 1962. There has been time to polish the story, to buff away the blemishes, to get everything right. There is almost a script. � "I was hungry, so I went back out to get something to eat," Havlicek continues. "The only place open was the Hayes Bickford cafeteria across the street. I went in, and a couple of guys were sitting by themselves, drinking coffee. Another guy was at a table, his head down, sleeping. The counterman had an apron covered with stains from the day. I ordered a couple of eggs that came back filled with all the cholesterol in the world. I sat by myself and said, What have I gotten myself into?" � The particulars are important. The dirt on the apron. The cholesterol in the eggs. Jack (the Shot) was already in bed. The story has been told so many times now to friends and Rotary clubs and to sponsors and sportscasters that it has become as perfect as a parable, measured out for pauses and appropriate reactions at appropriate places. � "The next day I went to the game," Havlicek says. "They took me to the Celtics' locker room. I was devastated. It was this little room, tucked underneath a stairway. There were no lockers, just nails hammered into these furring strips around the room. The steps cascaded down, so one end of the room had a normal, 15-foot ceiling, but the other end was as low as six feet. The shorter guys dressed at that end. The nails for the clothes, it seemed, were based on seniority. If you were a rookie, you were a one-nail guy. I had just finished my four years at Ohio State, which had the best facilities, and to come to this.... We went from the locker room to watch the game.

"It was the playoffs. The Celtics were playing [the] Philadelphia [ Warriors]. This was the game where Wilt Chamberlain came after Sam Jones [ Celtics, '57-69], and Sam picked up a wooden stool and said, 'Wilt, I'm not going to fight you fair.' Jim Loscutoff [ Celtics, '55-64] chased Guy Rodgers right into the stands. I sat there and said, again, What have I gotten myself into?"

The Celtics will play their final regular-season game at the Garden on Friday night, April 21, 1995, against the New York Knicks, ending a tenancy in the 66-year-old arena that has included 16 world championships and some of the most significant moments in NBA history. The wrecking crews will come, and that will be that. The home of the NBA's most successful franchise, home from the moment the league was formed, will be gone.

Memory will be everything. Memory will be all.

TRADEMARK BLACK SNEAKERS RAN ACROSS a trademark parquet floor. That was what happened at the Boston Garden. The men inside the sneakers were pretty much invincible. Every fall for the longest time there was a ceremony, a ritual, as a banner was raised to the dusty beams of the ceiling of the old building signifying another championship that had been won during the preceding spring. Sixteen banners was the final total, nine of them from the '60s, domination for an entire decade. The black sneakers and the floor and the building were magic. Or was it the men who were the magic?

"There was one game where we wore white sneakers," Bob Brannum ( Celtics 1951-55) says. " Walter Brown, the owner [ Celtics '46-64], tried it as an experiment. The same game, he turned the court sideways. He figured that more seats were in the end zones, so this way there would be more seats on the sides of the court. He let us wear the white sneakers because we all hated the black ones. No one else was wearing them. We played the game, lost, the court was turned back the original way, and we went back to the black sneakers. We never changed again."

Memory.

The seats hung over the court, two balconies creating a vertical intimacy that architects of modern arenas somehow cannot seem to find. The sellout attendance figure for the longest time was 13,909, a number any Boston schoolchild knew as well as any date of any historical happening. A progression of stars came along, from Bill Russell ( Celtics 1956-69) to Dave Cowens ( Celtics '70-80) to Larry Bird ( Celtics '79-92), each starting a new era of success when hope seemed lost. The constants were the building and the presence of Arnold (Red) Auerbach ( Celtics '50-2006), who was coach and general manager and president of the team. As coach and G.M. he was wily and profane, shrewd and outrageous, a picture to see as he argued a point with the veins popping out of his neck or as he lit a cigar when victory was at hand.

"Red was paranoid," Bob Cousy ( Celtics 1950-63 and now one of the team's broadcasters) says. "He always thought everyone was out to get us. Especially the referees. He would start screaming at the referees at the first call, sometimes even if it went for us. He always wanted that edge. He always talked about those s.o.b.'s in New York. That was his thing, that the league wanted New York to win and us to lose. I look at it now, it sounds so silly, but the thing was that when Red was screaming about New York and the referees, we all believed him. Which I suppose is all that mattered."