Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Remembers NBA Legend Bill Russell

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Well, this week, the sporting world lost a hero. Bill Russell, the legendary basketball player, and civil rights activist, passed away at the age of 88. Including fellow basketball champ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Walter Isaacson spoke to him about the man he called a friend, mentor, and role model.

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WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Thank you, Bianna. And Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, welcome to the show.

KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR, NBA LEGEND AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR: Thank you. Nice to be with you.

ISAACSON: You know, you’re one of the greatest basketball players of all time. But you say that Bill Russell, who we lost this week was you’re here. Tell me how you first met him.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, jeez, I first met him when the Boston Celtics were practicing at my high school. I was in the ninth grade, just 14 years old. And I went to practice and there were the Celtics practicing in our gym. Amazing. And I was told that — jeez, that by my high school coach (INAUDIBLE), I want you to meet some of the players. And Mr. Auerbach, the coach, wanted to introduce me to Bill Russell. He said, Bill, come here. I want you to meet this young man. And Bill said, I’m not standing up to come meet some kid. And from that point on he called me kid. And —

ISAACSON: But you were like seven feet tall when that happen right?

ABDUL-JABBAR: I was taller than he was at that point but he still called me kid just to put everything in the correct perspective.

ISAACSON: You know, you wrote a wonderful, wonderful reminiscent about him on your Substack page. And you said, Bill Russell was the quintessential big man. Not because of his height, but because of the size of his heart. Tell me what you meant by that.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, just the fact that Bill had the courage and the vision to do some of the things that he did to promote the whole aspect of civil rights.

ISAACSON: Did he convince you to become an activist?

ABDUL-JABBAR: I — jeez, I think I probably was convinced to be an activist before I was aware of Bill Russell. But he helped move me along quite quickly. And certainly, when I was invited to go to the Cleveland Summit, the fact that bill was participating, to me meant it meant that it was valid and I should be involved.

ISAACSON: You know, that Cleveland Summit involved, of course, Muhammad Ali. And not going into the army. Tell me about that story.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, you know, we were asked to come to Cleveland and just to assess whether or not we should back Muhammad Ali in his attempts to avoid service in the army because of his conscientious objection. And you know, we got there and we talked to Ali and, you know, Ali was very capable and eloquent in explaining his viewpoint. And I think Bill Russell was that said that, you know, I don’t feel sorry for Ali. I feel sorry for the rest of the discourse. You know, we had some confusion about the right stance to take. But Ali was right on it. You know, with his questioning are — you know, valid — rather invalid involvement in the war in Vietnam. And he refused to serve. And he was upheld by the Supreme Court, eventually.

ISAACSON: Do you think that summit with Muhammad Ali there, you there, Bill Russell, sitting there in Cleveland, did that help, sort of, change the nature of what athletes, pro-athletes did when it came to public policy?

ABDUL-JABBAR: I think it certainly contributed toward giving athletes a more better idea of how to use their platform. Because we all have a platform, especially successful athletes, it’s been said that successful athletes are really the only persons that teenage kids go to for guidance and, you know, take their styles from. The only person stronger than that are their parents. So, you know, athletes that used their platforms to communicate the right things to young people who might be confused about what the right thing to do is. Athletes have a great opportunity to explain things and be listened to. And I think that that’s certainly something that has helped a lot of, you know, athletes in our country.

ISAACSON: Today NBA and WNBA players often take the lead in social justice movements. Especially following the killing of Trayvon Martin. How did Bill Russell help set the stage for that?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, you know, when Bill was playing, he led his teammates in a boycott of a game because some of the players couldn’t get served in the coffee shops. And that was an important issue to him. And he set a precedent. And people listened to the NBA players that made a statement like that. I think of Bill’s leadership and example were key to all that.

ISAACSON: And you’ve said that Bill Russell taught you how to be bigger, both as a player and as a man. Let’s start with the player part. What did you learn from him? You both played center. You both can anticipate the moves of the other team. But tell me how you learned and what you learned from him.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, what I learned from Bill was that you could dominate the game from the defensive end if you are a very effective rebounder and sharp blocker. So, I strove with all I had to try to emulate Bill on the court, you know, to block shots, and help my teammates who might get beaten. Cut the basket off so that there were no easy shots available. And by cutting down the — your opponent’s high percentage shots, you really increase your chances to win by a very large number. And, you know, that’s what I learned from watching Bill Russell and the Celtics team. You know, they all went into that tactic and it paid dividends for them for a very long time.

ISAACSON: You know, Bill Russell was called the smartest player by Bill Bradley. And he said because he studied angles. He studied the way balls have a trajectory. He did it almost in an analytic fashion. And you once said that you studied Bill Russell the way J. Robert Oppenheimer studied Albert Einstein.

ABDUL-JABBAR: I did.

ISAACSON: So, tell me about that intellectual study. I mean, not just looking at him on the court, but understanding intellectually what he was doing.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, you know, on the court, there’s only so many plays that you can make. So, you have to make the choice to which play is the most effective at enabling your team to win. So, the blocked shot and the rebound were two things that Bill understood. If he could get the lion’s share of those two elements of the game, his team would have a decided advantage. And, you know, eight world championships in a row is definitely someone executing a decided advantage.

ISAACSON: You said that sometimes you made it your mission to make him laugh. Tell me about his laugh.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, it was a very high-pitched giggle. You know, it was — and it was something you wouldn’t expect from someone like him. It’s a high-pitched giggle and cackle. And he was always trying to be a comedian. And he was always talking about his golf game, how good his golf game was and, you know, that definitely was fiction.

ISAACSON: Do you think, though, that that humor made him, in some ways, a better team player?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Yes, it made him a better team player and it enabled him to show what it meant to not be arrogant, not — you know, not be self- centered, you know. He did his role and his teammates did their role. And they enjoyed the success of all of their efforts together. I think that was a very important aspect of what their team was all about.

ISAACSON: There’s a quote of Bill Russell that I really love, and it doesn’t just apply to basketball. It applies to life. And the quote is, the most important measure of how good a game I play was how much better I made my teammates play. How did he do that?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, he made it possible for them to be a good defensive team. It was because of Bill Russell they were a great defensive team. And that defense led to the fast break offense that was a Celtic trademark. So, we always — if you don’t have the beginning go right, it won’t end up right. Bill was right there at the start of everything, you know, the tough defense, the effect of rebounding, and made it possible for the Celtics to do what they did.

ISAACSON: You read, I know his amazing book, “Go Up for Glory”, which in some ways is an odd book because it’s brutally honest. What did you take from that book?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, I took just really how can I study what I want to do and have the best goals? So, I had to figure out where I wanted to end up. And that takes some study. That takes some observation of what’s possible. And, you know, what my potential was. And if I apply my potential to what’s possible, I should be able to reach my goals.

ISAACSON: Did he ever talk to you about the racism he faced?

ABDUL-JABBAR: He didn’t talk to me about it personally. I read about it, though, especially the book, “Red and Me” which is a book about his relationship with Coach Auerbach. You know, and just what he had to go through going up initially in Louisiana and, you know, how difficult it was for the various people in his family just to do normal things like go to school and, you know, advance themselves educationally. Finally, his family found the refuge they needed in Oakland, California. You know, there were plenty of jobs in the shipyards there during World War II. And Bill and his family moved there and he was very — he’s very happy to be there. I know his family members were happy to be there because he speaks of one incident where his mother took him to this building and she said, you know, you’re going to be spending a lot of time in this building. You know, he had never seen a building like that. He was, like, wondering what it was. And of course, it was the public library. It was the first time that his family had access to a public library, where they weren’t forbidden from using it because of their race. And, you know, for his family, that was a lot of progress.

ISAACSON: But the big deal is when he moves from Oakland to Boston, he finds Boston to be phenomenally racist. And I think he says that he used the racism of Boston as a fuel. Do you understand what he meant by that?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Yes, I think so. You know, I read an article that his daughter wrote, and that he kind of then describes it as, he played for the Celtics and he separated the Celtics away from Boston. You know, the bias and prejudice of a lot of people in Boston at that time was put off. But the Celtics welcomed him and made him feel that he was wanted. They definitely knew that he was needed. So, you know, there was a way around that. But for his family, you know, especially for his kids, it was pretty tough.

ISAACSON: Yes, I mean, Boston was not very welcoming and they tried to run him out of the neighborhoods, all sorts of things happened.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Exactly. Karen Russell, Bill’s daughter and oldest child, she describes as — what it was like going into school and, you know, having to deal with that. She’s attended Harvard Law School and still is experiencing incidents that are not very pleasant.

ISAACSON: How did Red Auerbach — you know, his coach, cigar-chomping, white guy, how did he help in that struggle that Bill Russell had with the racism?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, Bill Russell knew from the beginning that he was the best player in the NBA. He was the most effective, what he did make his team win. And Red Auerbach told Bill that he, himself — he, Red Auerbach, was aware that Bill was the best player and even though a whole lot of other people didn’t know it, he, Red Auerbach, did know it and he respected the fact that Bill was the best player in the NBA. And he treated him like that, and it really made for a great relationship.

ISAACSON: Well, one of the great things that Red Auerbach does is he makes on the coach after Red Auerbach retires. He becomes a player-coach.

ABDUL-JABBAR: Yes, after Red — makes him the coach and he’s the first black coach to coach any major sport in America. And he won two world championships.

ISAACSON: How important was that?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, that was very important because he had to set a standard. And, you know, we are still, at this point, trying to make that the standard for all of the sports, all of the professional sports in America. And it’s taking time. You see the struggle that they are having in the NFL. I think Major League Baseball has had blacks and Latinos have positions of power within the team, you know, management powers. So, it takes a while for these changes to make themselves manifest. But once they do, the changes are something that benefits all Americans, and that is very important.

ISAACSON: The public at times, it’s hard to believe, but I could remember back when they tried to characterize you as an angry black man. What did you learn from Bill Russell and watching how he handled that?

ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, I learned that unless I allow them to put me in that position, I don’t have to be in that position. I don’t have to be an angry black man. I just have to be a black person that’s trying to do the sensible things that will affect change for myself and for my family.

ISAACSON: There have been some amazing tributes to Bill Russell in the past few days, including the one I urge people to read that you wrote on Substack. But how do you think he would like to be remembered?

ABDUL-JABBAR: I think he would like to be remembered as someone who was just doing what he had to do. You know, he dealt with the issues that crossed his path in the right way and provided an example. And I think that that’s, you know, what he was all about. He had never, ever got to the point where he’d felt that he was this great person that people should follow, he just did the right thing when it crossed his path. And really set a great example in that matter.

ISAACSON: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, thank you so much for joining us.

ABDUL-JABBAR: It was great talking with you. Thank you for having me.