Product Description

Red Auerbach is the architect and mastermind behind one of the most dominant franchises in professional sports history, the Boston Celtics. The cigar-chomping Auerbach wasn't a passive bench coach, but an aggressive, demanding and often volatile mentor who coached 11 Hall of Famers and led Boston to 10 Eastern Division titles in 16 years. Auerbach's passionate style reaped large rewards. From 1959-1966, the Celtics won 8 straight NBA championships, a streak unmatched in sports history. His career coaching record currently ranks fifth all-time in NBA history. Auerbach led Boston to 99 playoff victories, third all-time behind Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. He showcased his coaching prowess in 11 straight All-Star games, was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1965 and, in 1970, was selected as the NBA's 25th Anniversary All-Time Team coach. Auerbach began his coaching career in 1946 in the BAA with the Washington Capitals and led them to the 1947 and 1949 division titles. In 1950, Auerbach became head coach of the Boston Celtics. After coaching, Auerbach joined the Celtics front office full-time and in 1980 was named NBA Executive of the Year.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179280 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Every Tuesday for four years, Feinstein, the author of two of the bestselling sports books of all time, A Good Walk Spoiled and A Season on the Brink, played story collector, gathering tales for this, his 16th offering. During those four years, Feinstein lived for the Monday-night phone call that delivered five words to him every week: "Tuesday. Eleven o’clock. China Doll." Those words invited him to the most exclusive lunch club in sports, led by legendary Boston Celtics coach Auerbach and frequented by coaches, secret service agents, close friends and Auerbach relatives, as well as by anyone in D.C. lucky enough to receive an invitation. Between bites of Mu-Shu pork and chicken-fried rice, Auerbach and his crew chewed on subjects from politics to women’s basketball to today’s coaches, and Feinstein jotted it all down. The Feinstein-Auerbach collaboration brings together two of the most sought-after storytellers in sports and gives readers their own invitation into the China Doll club. In more than 50 years with the green and gold, Auerbach collected countless friends, admirers and stories. Now 86, he’s forgotten nothing and has an opinion on everything. "I ever tell you how I got to know Joe Dimaggio?" begins chapter three. "I ever tell you how I got thrown out of the all-star game in 1967? About the time I met Clinton and Gore?" These great storytellers make this book so effortless to read that you can almost hear Red reciting each line and smell him lighting up that famous cigar. Tuesday. Eleven o’clock. Don’t be late. And never, under any circumstances, offer to pick up the check. 8 pages of b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Every Tuesday morning at 11, basketball legend Red Auerbach holds court with a dozen or so cronies at the China Doll restaurant on H Street in Washington. For the past four years, bestselling author John Feinstein has joined them.

Auerbach orders chow mein. Feinstein orders schmaltz and spreads it thick in his 16th book, Let Me Tell You A Story -- equal parts anecdote, Auerbach biography and misty memoir of the midday meals. Feinstein is so sodden with sentiment that he awarded Auerbach a co-author credit, which is kind of like Boswell playing share-a-byline with Johnson.

This book will work best for those who think that last reference was to Thomas Boswell and Magic Johnson.

The published record is already larded with testimony to Auerbach's greatness. Two autobiographies, a handful of bios and a business how-to called Management by Auerbach (MBA, get it?) attest to his unsurpassed success -- nine National Basketball Association titles as coach of the Boston Celtics and another seven as the team's front-office brainiac. What Let Me Tell You a Story adds to the pile is Feinstein. A former Washington Post reporter who still contributes to the paper, he could probably turn a grocery list into gripping theater. It doesn't matter how many times these stories have been told (and some are shopworn); Feinstein's version is consistently the one suitable for etching in stone.

In previous books, Feinstein has done groundbreaking journalism. He shone a cold spotlight on Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers in A Season on the Brink, wormed his way into pro golfers' psyches in A Good Walk Spoiled and plumbed the heartbreak reverberating from a 1977 NBA fistfight in The Punch.

But Let Me Tell You a Story isn't journalism so much as hagiography. Any criticism of Auerbach makes Feinstein go nuclear; he's cast himself as Smithers to Auerbach's Mr. Burns.

Among Auerbach's virtues: He's gracious in victory, has an amazing memory, has an equally amazing feel for people, shows a gruff exterior but is really compassionate and loyal, hates to see potential squandered, absolutely adores kids, almost never says no to another coach and eats his Chinese food steamed so it doesn't sit heavily in his stomach.

Feinstein's idol worship certainly has its justifications. Among the book's twice-told tales are Red's bamboozling of the rest of the NBA to draft his biggest star, Bill Russell, in a deal that included, of all things, the promise of an Ice Capades swing through Rochester, N.Y. There's Red outraging New England by declaring the rookie Bob Cousy no better than a "local yokel," then molding him into a Hall of Famer. And there's Red tormenting the perennially second-best Los Angeles Lakers during Boston's remarkable run from 1957 to 1966.

During his coaching career, Auerbach amassed such a vast admiration society that, years later, an invitation to spend Tuesdays with Red made otherwise sophisticated men stammer in grateful incredulity.

Since Feinstein joined the crew, Auerbach lost his wife and brother, and Feinstein touchingly describes the love that friends show for the old coach. There's fresh dish, too -- such as Auerbach's prediction that Michael Jordan would make a lousy executive for the Washington Wizards. ("Red's instincts were proven correct pretty quickly," writes Feinstein.) And there's a discussion of Auerbach's quiet deference in 1997 as newly recruited Celtics coach and general manager Rick Pitino insisted on usurping Auerbach's title as president, then ran Red's beloved franchise into the hardwood. Ever loyal to the team whose reputation he built, Auerbach spoke up only after Pitino left town, and then only blandly: "He just fell into the same trap that so many guys fall into nowadays: he wanted everything." Luckily, the Redhead has Feinstein watching his back. "Not trusting Red Auerbach on the subject of basketball," he writes, "is a little bit like not trusting Mozart or Beethoven on the subject of great music. When a master speaks, the wise listen."

Auerbach cheerfully feeds the myth. He turned 87 in September and still functions as the Celtics' Yoda. He was there at the league's postwar beginnings, and he stomped his competition without the help of assistant coaches or scouts. Last spring, the Lakers' Phil Jackson came within three games of beating Auerbach's record of coaching nine NBA champions. But nobody would dare chisel Jackson's mug next to Auerbach's on a roundball Rushmore. The NBA record book is not the sole source of the Auerbach mystique. There's also the singular symbol of arrogance and domination that he wielded without shame: the cigar.

Auerbach was famous for lighting up on the sideline once a Celtics victory was secure. After Red quit coaching in 1966, Feinstein writes, stogies were banned in Boston. Considered from a Freudian perspective, it's no wonder that today's players are able to run coaches out of town.

Red took his cigar with him to the Tuesday lunches. Raised in Brooklyn, famous as a Bostonian, Auerbach nevertheless has kept a residence in Washington dating from his schooldays at George Washington University in the 1930s. Red's lunch companions include members of Washington's sports intelligentsia, such as retired DeMatha High School coach Morgan Wootten, plus some country-club buddies, a couple of Secret Service agents, an old pal from Brooklyn and Auerbach's sons-in-law. This no-girls-allowed club pays Auerbach every obeisance short of bowing at his feet and wailing, "We're not worthy." All arguments are settled by Red. He's the one who picks up the tab. He's the one with the cigar.

Still, there's one question Feinstein's co-author never answers: Why does he start lunch at 11 a.m.? Maybe a better question would be: If Red is so often right, why don't we?

Reviewed by Bob Ivry
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
After meeting Red Auerbach, the legendary Boston Celtic coach and de facto father of the modern NBA, a few years ago, Feinstein wangled an invitation to a regular Tuesday lunch in Washington, D.C., where Auerbach and various of his cronies trade stories. Feinstein became a regular, which led to this anecdotal autobiography of a genuine sports icon. Auerbach won nine NBA titles as the Celtics' coach, and he added another seven as the team's general manager. Naturally, he has lots of opinions about the game of basketball, as it's played today and as it was played in his prime. He also has plenty to say about both Bill Russell, the key player on all of his championship teams, and Wilt Chamberlain, Russell's nemesis, and he discusses his Depression-era youth and early years as an itinerant coach. Many of Red's stories are familiar, but hearing the first-person versions is a treat. Auerbach's life and memories form the plot of Feinstein's book, but a strong subtext is the friendship among the dozen or so regulars who make it to the restaurant each week. In fact, the book is as much about the lunches as it is about Auerbach. We watch as a group of older men pass their wisdom on to those they have come to view as worthy successors. A fascinating life story, a terrific basketball book, and a compelling look at generations communicating around a modern-day campfire. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

One Of The Fastest Reads You'll Have - A Fun Book
One thing about Red Auerbach: love him or hate him, he's always interesting to hear. The "hear" translates to "read," as noted author John Feinstein gives us an ear to Red and his weekly group of guys who met at a Chinese restaurant and shot the bull about various topics over the years. Feinstein sat in for four of those years and relays some of the conversation.

This is an extremely fast read. It's so entertaining that you'll zip through it, laughing in many spots. It is biased: oh, yeah.....so Celtic fans will love this book more than others but everyone should enjoy it. Basketball in the "early" days, with Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and other big stars are always fun to hear about and nobody had more opinions and/or "hot air" than Red! He is a great storyteller, as this book testifies.

I hate the Celtics
but I loved reading this book. So much info in there about the history of the game and the Boston Celtics. We'll miss ya Red!

terrific
great book awesome stories. i actual went by the restaurant wherte they eat. The game lost an amazing lifer.