Changing the Game

The greatest players change the game. 

When I was a student at UCLA back in the fifties, I lived in the cheapest housing available, and so did black athletes. One of my roommates was the starting tailback on the undefeated football team, Sam Brown. He and several friends had grown up in Oakland, and one day Sam insisted that I go with him and the team to a UCLA basketball game against USF. Someone they knew from Oakland played on the USF team, and Sam told me I would see something different. 

Attending a game with Sam and his friends was always different. They would sit together and shout insults at the oppenent like nothing I had ever heard before.

USF had a very tall center (Bill Russell) Sam had grown up with. Russell and a teammate (K. C. Jones) had worked out defensive schemes on their own. Russell took down more than 20 rebounds--he could jump. He defended the rim. UCLA won the game, but USF was undefeated the rest the season and the next season and took two NCAA finals. 

Russell and Jones were drafted by the Celtics, where they won eleven or twelve titles. They changed the game. Russell also marched with MLK and became the first black manager of any major league team. He died this week. Always his own man. Hats off.