Bill Russell, the greatest of all Boston Celtics, bent forward to unveil a bronze statue of himself on wind-blown City Hall Plaza Friday. A slight tug on a green rope, a step back as a green covering fell, and Russell paused to look at a larger-than-life rendering in sculpted bronze.
A champion known for fierce competitiveness, Russell gazed almost sheepishly at this tribute from a city that never fully embraced him as he and the Celtics delivered 11 basketball titles in 13 seasons.
But outside a tent that protected Russell and the statue from the nasty weather, about 200 people, many of them startled passersby, started to cheer.
“Long overdue!” one man yelled. “Thanks for the championships,” cried another. “We love you, Bill,” added a third.
The basketball legend who had long distanced himself from a city that he once considered bigoted, walked a few steps to a metal barrier that separated him from the small crowd. Russell did not say a word, but he smiled and slowly waved his hand. As the cheers grew louder, Russell’s smile grew wider.
The interaction was brief, but the emotions seemed heartfelt as the city finally, formally, unveiled a statue to Russell: 600 pounds of bronze that show the former Celtics captain with a basketball grasped in his hands, his legs coiled, and his head cocked upward.
Russell said sculptor Ann Hirsch of Somerville had fashioned a statue of “true genius,” considering “what she had to work with.”
But what Russell was lauded for, both at the unveiling and at a celebrity-studded ceremony afterward, was more than the statistics that made him a towering sports figure. Instead, he was honored primarily for his keen activism.
Since Russell arrived in Boston in the mid-1950s, Governor Deval Patrick told a packed function room atop 60 State Street, “he stood up for civil and human rights. And every time he did that, it made America and my life better.”
Russell, sitting on a dais behind the podium, barely moved as tribute after tribute followed — for his feats on the basketball court, for his humility, and for his lasting commitment to be a voice for the powerless....
The audience was a diverse mix of greats and former teammates from the National Basketball Association, politicians and philanthropists, and figures from academia and the business world....
In other words, people of power.
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Looks to me like Russell $old out.
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I'm going to move beyond this right now.
