The word “legend” gets thrown around a lot to describe former athletes. But in the case of Bill Russell, legend is an understatement. Russell, who died yesterday at 88, was as much of an icon off the court as he was on it.

Russell’s basketball achievements are well known: five MVP awards, 12 All-Star selections, a 55-game college winning streak, two NCAA championships and 11 NBA titles. But his efforts to make the world a better place were equally worthy of praise. He was actively involved in the civil rights movement and remained committed to social justice throughout his entire life. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 by Barack Obama and in ’17 posted a photo on Twitter of himself wearing the medal around his neck and kneeling in solidarity with NFL players who were enduring attacks from Republican politicians over their peaceful protests.

Jack McCallum wrote in his obituary of Russell that the Celtics great’s activism was informed by his upbringing. Born in Monroe, La., Russell’s family left the South when he was 9 after being subjected to racist taunts on a routine basis and settled in Oakland:

Russell was just 9 when his parents arrived in Oakland, and so he had only a minor sense of the Jim Crow indignities that his parents had suffered in Louisiana. Charles Russell had a shotgun stuck in his face at a gas station, and Katie was told by a policeman to go home and change because she was wearing “white women’s clothing.” But the son came to know heartache and hard times on his own (his mother died when he was 12), and he would come to know virulent racism, too, especially after he arrived in 1950s Boston, a city that in some ways was not unlike Monroe, La.

Few media members knew Russell better than Frank Deford, who caught up with him for a 1999 SI article. Deford met Russell at his house in Seattle and together they drove 13 hours to visit Russell’s father at a Bay Area nursing home. The resulting story is a fantastic portrait of Russell’s life to that point:

He was that rare star athlete who was also a social presence, a voice to go with the body. Unafraid, he spoke out against all things, great and small, that bothered him. He wouldn’t even show up at the Hall of Fame when he was inducted, because he had concluded it was a racist institution. Now, despite the importunings of his friends, he is the only living selection among ESPN's 50 top athletes of the century who hasn’t agreed to talk to the network. That is partly because one night he heard an ESPN announcer praise the ’64 Celtics as “Bob Cousy’s last team.” Cousy was retired by then.

Russell says, “They go on television, they’re supposed to know.”

Deford’s story also contains a cutting quote from former teammate Tommy Heinsohn:

Look, all I know is, the guy won two NCAA championships, 50-some college games in a row, the [’56] Olympics, then he came to Boston and won 11 championships in 13 years, and they named a f------ tunnel after Ted Williams.

Russell is more than deserving of an honor like that, and maybe now that he’s gone he’ll receive one. It’s just a shame that he won’t be alive to see it.

More on Bill Russell:

Bill Russell’s Off-Court Example Is What Resonates Most, Now and Beyond (Chris Herring)
How the NBA Should Honor Bill Russell’s Iconic Legacy (Chris Mannix)

The news the NFL has been waiting for

An arbitrator has ruled that Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson should serve a six-game suspension for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy following a league investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

The players union has said that it would honor the ruling of former federal judge Sue L. Robinson, while the NFL has three days to appeal the ruling. The league had been seeking an indefinite suspension of at least one year.

I don’t know what the proper punishment is for an NFL player who is the subject of 24 credible allegations of sexual misconduct, but I know a six-game suspension isn’t it. Today’s ruling means that this story is far from over. Albert Breer tweeted that the NFL will be paying attention to public reaction while determining whether to appeal Robinson’s ruling. It’s been only a couple of hours since the news broke, and already I can tell what the prevailing reaction is going to be. I’ve seen nothing but a mix of disgust and dismay at Watson’s relatively lenient punishment.

If the NFL appeals the ruling, it likely means there won’t be a resolution for at least several weeks. Robinson took a month between the end of Watson’s hearing and issuing her ruling. But choosing not to appeal the ruling won’t make the story go away. The uproar over accepting just a six-game suspension would be significant. Either way, this is going to be the dominant story in the NFL for the foreseeable future.

More on Deshaun Watson’s suspension:

Deshaun Watson Suspension Shows Staggering Weakness by Roger Goodell (Conor Orr)
Deshaun Watson Ruling Includes Mandate About Massages, per Report (Mike McDaniel)

The best of Sports Illustrated

With the MLB trade deadline tomorrow, Tom Verducci wrote today’s Daily Cover about the names to watch as the clock starts ticking faster:

The pressure for teams to act at the deadline is intense. The general manager who lets the deadline pass without a deal faces more scrutiny than the one who takes a chance. Expectations rise because of the success of recent deadline trades.

Andrew Gastelum describes the scene at Wembley where a crowd of 87,192—the largest for a men’s or women’s Euro game—saw host England win its first major women’s soccer trophy. … Justin Barrasso recaps an exciting SummerSlam, which set a promising tone under the new leadership of Paul “Triple H” Levesque. … Lochlahn March has compiled a list of the strangest trades in baseball history. … Even though they’ve thrown on Kyler Murray’s “homework” clause, the Cardinals still have to repair the damage that it caused, Conor Orr writes.

Around the sports world

Deebo Samuel’s standoff with the 49ers ended with the team signing him to a contract extension. … Tony Finau won the Rocket Mortgage Classic to become the first player since Brendon Todd in 2019 to win back-to-back PGA Tour events in the regular season. … Mike Trout provided an update on his recovery from a back injury. … The Mariners put star rookie Julio Rodríguez on the injured list with a wrist issue. … Dodgers rookie James Outman hit a homer in his first big league at bat and the reaction of his family was amazing.

SIQ

On this day in 1957, former Reds and Phillies outfielder Glen Gorbous set a world record by throwing a baseball how far?

428 feet, 3 inches
434 feet, 8 inches
445 feet, 10 inches
461 feet, 4 inches

Friday’s SIQ: How much money did a jury award the USFL when it ruled on July 29, 1986, that the NFL had violated antitrust laws?

Answer: $1. A six-person jury decided unanimously after a 10-week trial that the NFL had violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by having and “willfully acquiring or maintaining a monopoly.” The jury decided to award the USFL just $1 in damages, which, under antitrust law, was automatically tripled to $3. With interest, the NFL owed $3.76. The USFL’s court costs, meanwhile, exceeded $6 million.

The suit was spearheaded by New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump, who convinced the USFL’s other owners to move from a spring schedule to a fall schedule that went head-to-head with the NFL in hopes of forcing a merger between the two leagues. The USFL’s suit sought $1.69 billion in damages from the NFL.

After the USFL’s pyrrhic victory in court, the league was left with no money, no TV deal and no way to play its 1986 fall schedule as planned. Six days after the verdict, the league announced the cancellation of its upcoming season. It folded soon after.

From the Vault: Aug. 1, 1983

Here’s a story that should be familiar to most sports fans, about the Jets trying to find their franchise quarterback.

New York took Richard Todd with the sixth pick in the 1976 draft, intending to have him replace the aging Joe Namath, which he did midway through the season. He had several middling seasons—including a league-high 30 interceptions in ’80—but appeared to have turned a corner in ’81 when he led the Jets to just their third playoff appearance. After he piloted the team all the way to the conference championship game during the strike-shortened ’82 season, expectations were high as the Jets began training camp the following summer.

Comparisons between Todd and Namath were only natural. Not only had Todd replaced Namath with the Jets; they were also both former Alabama quarterbacks. But Todd wasn’t the hard-partying, fur-wearing type like Broadway Joe. The three-word headline on Douglas S. Looney’s article gives you a pretty good idea of Todd’s reputation: “Wall Street Richard.”

Regardless of results, Todd found being Namath’s replacement difficult, Looney wrote:

Because of Namath’s long shadow, Todd has never been able to establish an identity of his own. For his part, Todd—definitely no Broadway Richard, but charming if given a chance—gives the question of image short shrift. “I’m not working on identity,” he says. “I’m just a working guy trying to make it in the big city.”

Be that as it may, Todd has sent out contradictory messages concerning who he is and wants to be. He stopped and changed a tire for a woman on the Grand Central Parkway in New York two years ago, politely declined a $10 tip and drove off. “Ah,” he says with a snort, “we do that kind of thing all the time in the South.” Good guy, that Richard. The same month, he got into a row with a New York Post sportswriter and stuffed him into a locker, a terrible, terrible thing to do to a gentleman of the press. Bad guy, that Richard. Is Todd benevolent or is he a bully? Says Todd, ‘I’ve always been a big, sensitive kid. Often, too sensitive.’” But, says his agent, Gary Wichard, “Richard Todd has finally become a New Yorker. He’s callous.”

Todd’s run of Namath-like performance was brief, and by the time Looney’s article ran there were already signs that it was reaching its conclusion. The Jets took UC Davis quarterback Ken O’Brien with their first-round pick (No. 24) in 1983. That turned out to be Todd’s final year in New York. He again threw more interceptions than touchdowns (26 to 18) and was traded to the Saints after the season.

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.

Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.

Already a member? Sign in here