NBA Legend Bill Russell honored with his famed number 6 being retired from All NBA Teams

 

Champion Bill Russell won Eleven NBA Championships, Two National College Basketball Championships, and Two California State High School Championships

The NBA and the NBA Players Association voted to retire the number 6 - that Bill Russell made famous when he dominated the NBA in the late 1950's and 1960's - from every NBA team. Those current NBA players that wear #6 will be allowed to finish their careers (if they choose to) wearing the number 6. 

Bill Russell was much more than a basketball player. Russell proved to the world that Blacks can both play at a dominant Professional Championship Level; Lead as a Stellar Head Coach; and champion causes, especially during one of the United States of America's most transitional and turbulent periods of the 1950's and 1960's. 

Some of Bill Russell's Champion Accomplishments included: 

1. Bill Russell refused to play a NBA Pre-Season game against the St. Louis Hawks due to the mal-treatment of fellow Black Celtics players Sam Jones and Satch Sanders not being served at the Lexington, Ky. Hotel the Celtics stayed at. All the Black players from the Celtics and two from the St. Louis Hawks did not play with the Celtics Blacks leaving the city before the game. 

Read more:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/08/27/bill-russell-nba-boycott/

2. Bill Russell Won Back-To-Back NBA Championships as the Boston Celtics' Head Coach in 1968 and 1969.

3. Shortly after the death of one of the countries leading NAACP advocates Medgar Evers, the NAACP and Bill Russell started an Integrated Basketball Camp in the still-segregated State of Mississippi in June of 1963. The camp was a request of Medgar's oldest brother Charles Evers, following a call that came directly from then Five Time NBA Champion Bill Russell asking Charles Evers what he could do to help. Throughout his trip to Jackson, Ms., the NAACP had to hire "The Deacons of Defense" to provide Russell Security. And in-fact, Charles Evers had to sit in Russell's Motel Room with a shotgun while Bill Russell slept. The Death Threats poured in and the KKK were constantly across the street during the duration of the New "Integrated" Basketball Camp. Bill Russell was the most celebrated Black Professional Athlete in America, having just won four consecutive NBA Championships. The risk was great and the action was well-publicized by the media, and also harshly scrutinized from Segregationists to include death threats.  

Read more: https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/medgar-evers-assassination-in-1963-inspired-bill-russell-to-offer-help-in-mississippi/ 

4. Russell Publicly stood up for Muhammad Ali who refused to go to the Vietnam War, based on his Religious Beliefs.

5. Bill Russell has NBA Playoff records in Rebounding.

6. Russell is still the 2nd best NBA rebounder of all time behind Wilt Chamberlain. 

7. Russell was undefeated in game clinching NBA Championship games. 

8. Bill Russell won 11 NBA Championships in his 13 year playing career. 

9. Bill Russell won a U.S. Professional Sports record of Eight Consecutive Championships from 1958 to 1966.

10. Russell won two College Championships at the University of San Francisco along side of KC Jones.

11. Russell won two High School State Championships at McClymonds High School. Hall of Fame Baseball legend Frank Robinson was his High School teammate. 

12. Bill Russell was ranked #7 in the world at High Jumping, by Track and Field News in 1956 at the University of San Francisco. In that same year, Russell tied the eventual 1956 Olympics High Jump Champion Charlie Dumas, at the West Coast Relays with a jump of 6 feet 9 1/4 inches.

13. Russell ran the 400 meter dash in 49.6 seconds while at USF.

14. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded a well-deserved Bill Russell with the "The Presidential Medal of Freedom." The First Black Championship Head Coach in a Major Sport received the Medal, from the Country’s First Black President

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NBA Players Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller, and many wealthy former and current players, proudly and respectfully stated that it was because of the struggles Bill Russell faced in Boston (Russell called Boston a "flea market for Racism"), and travelling with the Celtics throughout the country, in an openly segregated society, that they were able to flourish as highly paid NBA legends. 

The NBA players that currently wear number six should change it, as Russell laid his life on the line literally, with death threats in Boston and throughout the United States. Russell was the first Black sports star in Boston entering the NBA in 1956, when just 5 Black players played in the NBA, just nine short years after Jackie Robinson was the first Major League Black Baseball Player to integrate the previous segregated Professional Sports.