Red Auerbach was born on this day in 1917. Red Auerbach won 9 NBA titles as the head coach of the Boston Celtics. He won a then record 938 games as coach. He would go on to win 7 more NBA titles as the General Manager/Team President of the Celtics. In a span of 29 years the Celtics won 16 World Championships. Auerbach retired as head coach before the 1966-67 NBA season.

I believe the greatest trade any team in any sport has ever made was the trade made on draft day 1956. Red wanted Bill Russell the center from the University of San Francisco. He traded Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan to St.Louis for the rights to Bill Russell. Up until this time the Celtics hadn’t won a title. Russell would be the key to winning championships. He is in my opinion the greatest winner in professional sports history{Russell that is} The Celtics would win 11 titles in Russell’s 13 year playing career.

Red also made a great move later on as GM. He took a kid from Indiana State named Larry Bird in the draft. He had the rights to Bird but had to wait a year to sign him out of college. When someone said to Red “Why did you take Bird, you will have to wait a year before he can play for you” Red replied “A year goes by pretty quickly”

Red Auerbach was in a way like Vince Lombardi was to football. His team did the basic things. Nothing fancy, nothing too complicated, just basic basketball.

He would annoy people with the lighting of his cigar. When he thought the game was won, he would light his cigar up.

The Celtics may have won more championships in the 1980’s-1990’s had Len Bias and Reggie Lewis not died.

Red Auerbach died in 2006 at the age of 89.