On this day in Boston Celtics history, the Celtics’ first coach, Alvin “Doggie” Julian, was born in 1901 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Before landing the job as head coach of the nascent Celtics franchise, Julian would play football, baseball, and basketball at Bucknell, having a four-year pro career playing baseball for various teams between 1922 and 1926.
At various points in his life, he’d coach all three sports at the collegiate and high school levels but began coaching basketball at Muhlenberg College in 1936. In 1945, Julian started coaching at Holy Cross, winning an NCAA Championship there with future Celtic Bob Cousy, who would later join him on the Celtics in 1950.
The Reading native would of course leave Holy Cross for Boston in 1948 and would leave the pro ranks at the end of Cousy’s rookie season.
It is the birthday of former Celtic center George Nostrand, who played for the team under Julian in 1949.
Nostrand was born in Uniondale, New York in 1924, and would play two seasons for Boston after his college ball at High Point and Wyoming, and several professional teams afterward.
In those two seasons with the Celtics, Nostrand averaged 8.3 points and 1.2 assists plus an unknown number of rebounds per game — they had not yet begun tracking the statistic.
Spoiler Alert. To celebrate KG's induction into the HOF, today at Honest Larry is going to be Kevin Garnett Day. Hooray Kevin Garnett! So who better to give a birthday shoutout to than the cousin of the Big Ticket himself. Happy birthday Shammond Williams! #Celtics pic.twitter.com/GZOrdgt2uw
— Honest☘️Larry (@HonestLarry1) April 5, 2020
It is also the birthday of ex-Boston guard Shammond Williams, who was born on this day in 1975 in the Bronx. He happens to be the cousin of Hall of Fame forward Kevin Garnett and played his collegiate basketball for the UNC Tarheels.
After being drafted 34th overall by the Chicago Bulls in the 1998 NBA Draft and traded the same night to the Atlanta Hawks, Williams would play for the Seattle Supersonics.
He would come to Boston as part of the trade sending Vin Baker to Boston in exchange for Kenny Anderson, Joseph Forte, and Vitaly Potapenko in the summer of 2002.
Williams would play less than a full season before being traded again, this time to the Denver Nuggets for Mark Blount and Mark Bryant, and averaged 7.3 points, 2.2 boards, and 2.5 assists in his sole season as a Celtic.
