And, not only did I grow up with the NBA, but I grew up with Jackie MacMullan.
For readers of this blog, it's no secret that I have a fondness for Boston and a great deal of respect for the Boston media. The TV guys, the photographers, the radio guys, the columnists and the writers. The Herald and the Patriot Ledger. The suburban papers and The Globe. Hell, now I even eat up the Bloggers.
Then, there's Jackie.
Right from the start, I had a special relationship with Jackie. It was a relationship born of mutual respect. Contemporaries. She knew the game. Loved it. I thought it was great that Jackie covered the NBA and the Celtics. She was among the small handful of women who covered our league and I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Bring us the people who love and respect the game, I always thought, and the truth will set us free... and get us some damn coverage!
Jackie was cool. Still is and always will be.
She decided to take a buy-out from my beloved hometown paper. And, while it made me so sad to hear that news, so sad to not see her column when we move north in the weeks or months to come, I knew the truth and said, "GOOD FOR YOU!" I was so happy for her and for her family.
Jackie's job had her on the road for a load of weekends, holidays and a bunch of night games. Even for home games, she would work late into the night and we all know it's tough on a family. Now, she is on her own time and can enjoy her family. That's the way it should be. That is the way it will be.
A little side story; When I was leaving the 2007 NBA Finals, knowing I had worked my last NBA game, I circled outside of Cleveland's Gund Arena (The Q, now), lit up a 'victory' cigar, walked by myself toward the hotel. As I came towards the intersection, just around the corner from the arena loading dock, who do you think was there?
Jackie and Ian Thomsen, the former Boston Globewriter, IHT columnist and now with Sports Illustrated. How fitting, I thought. It made that last night so special, just to walk back to the hotel with Ian and Jackie.
So, here's to Jackie, who will be filing from Yankees Stadium tonight. It will be her last official column for The Boston Globe.
Thanks Jackie.
Thanks for sharing the ride. From the the old Boston Garden, covering the '80s Celtics right up until the C's of today. My shoulder still hurts from the time you punched me so damn hard when you had to find out from Clare that we were having our first little girl.
Thanks for working so hard, for competing as a writer and a columnist. Thanks for looking out for the others, like Clare. Thanks for being tough and for knowing when not to be tough and showing us the right path to help pave the way for women in the locker rooms.
Thanks Jackie. Thanks for allowing me to grow up alongside of you, and with you, with Brian and the NBA. You have taught us a lot and I will look forward to many, many years of learning more through a rock solid friendship that started at the Boston Garden and grew from professional respect.
TL
Here's a good one from Jackie, written a day or so after Red's death;
Tough man had a tender side
By Jackie MacMullan, Globe Columnist | October 29, 2006
The first time I met Red Auerbach, I was 22 years old, and I was terrified.
It was January 1983, and I had been working at the Globe as a full-time writer exactly two months. My assignment was the Boston College-St. John's basketball game, which seemed manageable enough until five minutes before tipoff, when this silver-haired gentleman in a blue blazer plopped himself down next to me and lit up a cigar.
Of course. What else would he do?
No one dared to instruct Arnold "Red" Auerbach to extinguish it. We were in Boston Garden -- the house Red built -- and he did whatever he wanted when he roamed that creaky old arena with the hallowed banners hanging from its rafters.
I wanted so desperately to impress him, but I couldn't think of a single intelligent thing to say. Instead, I diligently took notes while Boston College and its waterbug point guard, Michael Adams, wreaked havoc on the heavily favored St. John's team. Red didn't say much to me, other than offering to buy me an ice cream midway through the first half.
At the intermission, as the cheerleaders sprinted to center court to began their spirited, peppy routine, the greatest coach in basketball history gestured toward the parquet -- his parquet -- and asked, "So . . . what do you think?"
It was the moment I had been waiting for. I immediately explained how I thought BC's full-court press was particularly effective, and if St. John's didn't begin to respect the Eagles' perimeter shooter soon, maybe BC could pull off the upset.
"No, no," Auerbach interrupted." I meant the girls. Aren't you the cheerleading coach?"
Well, no. I wasn't. Red would learn that soon enough. Over nearly 24 years, our paths would cross on a regular basis. I was a young reporter trying to capture the Celtics' mystique, and he was the man who invented it. In the beginning, he vociferously objected to everything about me, particularly when I entered his team's locker room.
"You don't belong in there," he'd bark.
"What if you were trying to decide whether to draft a player, and everyone got to talk to him but you?" I'd retort. "Would that be fair?"
"It would never happen!" he'd bellow. "I would already know more about the kid than everyone else anyway!"
This, of course, was true. Back when Auerbach's staff consisted of himself, and, well, himself, he relied on a Rolodex full of numbers for nearly every prominent college coach in the country to glean his scouting reports. He was always one step ahead of the competition. And, when he'd fleece his fellow NBA executives, he did so without a trace of humility.
"If you do something great, kid, then don't apologize to anyone," he told me. "If you're a winner, then act like one."
He called me "kid" right up until yesterday, the day he died of a heart attack. He had battled respiratory problems in recent years, and I suppose none of us should have been shocked that an 89-year-old man's time finally had come.
Still, the news took my breath away. Forgive me. Red was so stubborn, I assumed he would live forever.
Or maybe I just hoped that was true.
I know how people felt about him outside of Boston. They felt he was arrogant, superior. They hated the fact he lit up that cigar in the waning moments of a sure victory. It was showboating, they said, a galling lack of sportsmanship. The book on Red outside of our city was he was a graceless winner and sore loser.
Maybe so. I asked him about it once. He smiled, took a puff, and blew it in my face.
Our relationship was a work in progress, but over time, I grew to love Red Auerbach. We developed a quirky sort of professional friendship that included spirited debates on women's issues, on the merits of different eras, on the best blacktop playgrounds in the country. He grew to appreciate my love of the game, and became one of my most trusted sources.
In the early '90s, he fell ill and almost died. Naturally, the Celtics insulated him, so the public (and most of us in the media) didn't completely grasp how close he came to leaving us. I didn't realize it myself until I went to see him in Washington after he had recovered. I was asking him how Reggie Lewis's shocking death affected him, and, after taking a long draw of his cigar, he admitted he was so sick during that time, he had little or no idea what had happened to the young star.
It was a beautiful spring day in Washington, and he asked me when my flight was leaving. I told him I had some time. We hopped into his Saab convertible (really now, how many senior citizens do you know drive a Saab convertible?), and he took me to the Smithsonian. There was a great Duke Ellington exhibit, he explained, and he felt I should see it before I left.
Who knew? Red loved Chinese food, and owned an eclectic collection of letter openers ("Go to the back of the store," he always insisted. "The best stuff is always in the back."), but until that day, I didn't realize he was tuned into Sir Duke as well.
As we pulled up to the entrance, he parked his car in the little cul de sac in front of the building. A uniformed guard immediately approached us and said, "I'm sorry, sir. There's no parking here."
Red got out of the car, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "That's OK, son."
Then he walked inside. One hour later, we returned to the cul de sac, where his car remained, untouched.
You know most of the facts concerning Red. You know about the championships, his willingness to hire the first African-American coach, his unparalleled tenure as a cunning and ruthless general manager.
I wish he showed his softer side more. It was there, particularly when discussing the two daughters who made him so proud, or his wife, Dorothy, whom he missed terribly after she died in 2000, or when he called to console a young reporter who had experienced her own devastating personal loss, not six months after he had blown smoke in her face.
In recent years, the trip to Boston was increasingly difficult for Red. He walked with a cane, which he hated ("Ask me about it and I'll hit you with it," he groused). He couldn't quite keep up with the team as he once did.
Two years ago, I stood with him in the hallway of the FleetCenter outside the locker room, when one of the young players (who shall remain nameless to save him the embarrassment) came up to the Celtics patriarch.
"Coach Auerbach," he said. "I just want to shake your hand. It is such an honor to meet you."
As the player walked away, Red turned to me and said, "Who the hell was that?"
In his final years, he spent most afternoons at his club in Maryland, where he played cards and held court. He still attended games at his beloved George Washington and took in some of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament last spring.
"If you come down, we'll go together," he told me.
"I should do that," I said.
I didn't. I got busy with my life and my work and my kids. It sounded good at the time, but I couldn't get there.
I talked to Red for the last time about three weeks ago. I had written a story on Doc Rivers and his attempts to balance his job with commuting to Orlando where his family lives. Red had done a similar juggling act when he was coaching the Celtics in Boston, and his family remained in D.C.
"I don't blame Doc," Red told me. "At the end of the day, your family is the only thing that matters."
He told me he was flying up for the season opener, which is Wednesday.
"Are you coming?" he said. "I'll see you there."
I wish.
Jackie MacMullan is a Globe columnist.
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