Natural around Monroe, Louisiana and raised in Oakland, California, the 6-foot Nine-inch (Two.08 m) tall Russell played college basketball at the University of San Francisco, which he led to NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956, including an impressive string of 55 sequentially triumph. Russell was besides a captain of the 1956 United States men's Olympic basketball team, which won a gold decoration at a Melbourne Summer Games.

Russell played for the Celtics from either 1956 to 1969, winning the NBA championship every year except 1958 and 1967. Inside 1966, legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach named Russell his successor as head coach; he so became a foremost African-American head coach in Usa major league team sports history. Russell served when player/coach from either 1966 to 1969, winning two NBA championships; he down a road coached the Seattle SuperSonics (1973 to 1977) and Sacramento Kings (1987 to 1988), but did non succeed inside winning a second championship.

Russell has received virtually each NBA honor that lives, & inside 1968, he received Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" award. Within 1980, he was named a greatest streaming video player in the history of the NBA by the Professional Basketball Writers Association of Us. He was exceptionally active in the American Civil Rights Movement. At one point, he refused to play the game after he & his blacken mate were refused service at the local eating place. Around 1968 Russell's front yard was vandalized by bigots, an event that led him to call for the city of Boston a "flea market of racism"[http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=8829].

He was life-womb-to-tomb friends by having a second legend, a late Wilt Chamberlain, who numbers of assume to become a greatest ever offensive player; their on-court battles were perhaps a greatest single competition in the history of the league.

Trivia

At McClymonds High School around Oakland, California, one of Russell's basketball teammates was the first Major League Baseball Hall-of-Famer, Frank Robinson.

The 1958 St. Louis Hawks and 1967 Philadelphia 76ers were the only two teams to prevent Russell from winning an NBA championship; coincidentally, both teams were coached by Alex Hannum.