Russell coaching while still being a top player was no accident.
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Russell becoming the first black coach in American professional sports was no accident. Russell winning eleven titles was no accident. The only years Russell and the Celtics didn’t win titles were 19. They’d win 10 more titles before Russell’s retirement after the 1969 season. Behind Russell’s defensive mastery, the Celtics won the NBA title his rookie season. His impact on the Celtics and the professional game was immediate.
Russell took that new philosophy to the Boston Celtics in 1956. We attacked the offense and made it react to the defense.” “I think you can even say we developed a whole new philosophy of basketball. “We changed the game,” Russell told Sports Illustrated of his time at USF. Bill Russell of the University of San Francisco holds his Most Valuable Player trophies at Madison Square Garden in New York, March 31, 1956. It all worked around Russell - the 19 UPI College Player of the Year - who was the first player in NCAA history to average 20 points and 20 rebounds per game.
The Dons won 60 consecutive games over that two-year span, becoming the first undefeated championship team in Division 1 men’s basketball history in the process. Jones, led USF to back-to-back NCAA national championships. Russell and a fellow son of the Bay, K.C. That path, it turned out, was lined with titles.