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inside This Issue
Page 1
On the Ice With Bob Thomas
Page 2
Unique Job Ideas for Teens
2 Hidden Benefits of Sports Physical Therapy
Page 3
Physical Therapy Is More Than a Physical Journey Father’s Day Chili Lime Chicken Wings
Page 4
Mass Sports Hall of Fame No. 2: Bill Russell
Mass Sports Hall of Fame No. 2: Bill Russell
A Legend On and Off the Court
efore the 1950s, basketball was a ground-based game. There were no otherworldly liftoffs from the hardwood, no shots dramatically slapped from the air, and no rim- rattling slam dunks blasted into the hoop by players seemingly unbound by the laws of gravity. The game was dominated by shortish men who were quick
family’s poverty and the loss of Russell’s mother to disease when he was only 12, his father refused to buckle beneath the weight of discrimination, instilling in Bill and his brother Charlie a firm work ethic and passionate ambition. In junior high and high school, Russell didn’t find much luck in the sport that would make him famous. It wasn’t until the University of San Francisco offered Russell a basketball scholarship that he really got a chance to explore his potential. There, he grew to a towering 6 foot 10 and perfected his then-unorthodox style of play, leaping into the air to viciously block shots, psyche out his opponents, and snatch rebounds with uncanny consistency. Alongside fellow players K.C. Jones and Hal Perry — the first trio of black starters ever in college basketball — he led the team to the 1955 and ’56 NCAA titles.
pages, from his Olympic gold medal to his Medal of Freedom awarded by Barack Obama in 2011. But Russell would rather his fans focus on him as a person rather than his athletic accomplishments.
“We foolishly lionize athletes and make them heroes because they can hit a ball or catch one,” he once said. “The
only athletes we should bother with attaching any particular importance to are those ... whom we can admire for themselves and not their incidental athletic abilities.” There’s no doubt that Russell is a member of that hallowed pantheon.
on their feet. Almost all of them were white, a product of the pervasive racism of the 20th century — that is, until Bill Russell came along and upended the paradigm, redrawing the boundaries of possibility not only in basketball, but in the lives of black people across the country. Long before Bill Russell led the Boston Celtics to 11 NBA championships, he was a gangly little kid growing up in Monroe, Louisiana, and later Oakland, California, steeped in the daily racial injustices of his environment. Despite the
Soon, Red Auerbach drafted him to the Boston Celtics, and Russell got to work. His list of accolades could stretch many
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