Tuesday was going great until mid-afternoon. The temperature was climbing to the low 70s and a fifth consecutive record high for Rhode Island. The Patriots were celebrating their Monday night victory over the Jets and the snapping a four-game losing streak. Alex Cora was back as manager of the Red Sox and holding his first press conference at Fenway Park. And Joe Biden was working hard to assemble the team that will help him clean up the mess in Washington after he is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States on Jan. 20, 2021.
Then the Boston Celtics announced that Tommy Heinsohn had died. Tommy Heinsohn, after Red Auerbach, Bob Cousy and Bill Russell the greatest Celtic of all time. Tommy Heinsohn, hero of the first Celtics championship in 1957. Tommy Heinsohn, winner of eight NBA championships in nine seasons as a player and two titles in seven years as a coach. Tommy Heinsohn, Mike Gorman’s partner on Celtics telecasts for close to 40 years. Tommy Heinsohn, Hall of Famer, dead at 86.
I grew up during the Celtics dynasty of the late ’50 and 60s, when they won 11 titles in 13 years. Those were the teams of Russell, Cousy, Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, John Havlicek, Tom Sanders and Heinsohn. I was a young newspaper guy when Heinsohn coached the Celtics to the 1974 and 1976 championships with Havlicek, Dave Cowens, and JoJo White. And I saw Heinsohn frequently when I covered the Celtics for The Providence Journal from 1985 to 2001 and he was Gorman’s sidekick on Boston television.
I’ll always remember Heinsohn working the 1985 NBA Finals between the Celtics and Lakers for CBS. When the series shifted to Los Angeles I flew out there, as did writers from the Boston papers and smaller dailies from Quincy, Brockton, Worcester, Lowell, and Hartford. After an off-day practice, we gathered in the hall outside one of the locker rooms — I can’t recall if it was the Celtics or the Lakers — waiting for our chance to interview players and coaches. Standing with us was Tom Heinsohn, just another TV guy with a cameraman. When it was time for questions, he waited for an opening and then asked his question or two. There was no condescension. No air of superiority. On this day Tom Heinsohn was one of us, newspaper, radio and TV guys and gals just trying to find a good story to tell the folks back home.
Heisnohn was a big man — 6-foot-7 snd 220 pounds during his playing career — and with his booming, raspy voice backing his credentials, he could dominate a room. He walked with purpose, head always cocked to one side, the Leaning Tower of Causeway Street. As a player he was famous for drilling, not lofting, shots from outside. In the 1957 Game 7 double-overtime thriller against the St. Louis Hawks at the old Boston Garden, he scored 37 points. As a broadcaster, he was famous for favoring the Celtics. He was not as fervent a homer as the legendary Johnny Most, but there was a no doubt as to his allegiance. And his popularity. Boston fans loved him.
Tommy Heinsohn was also an accomplished painter, his work featured in several exhibitions over the years. He arrived in Boston in the fall of 1956, a crew-cut kid, after a record-setting career at Holy Cross. He never really left, his life linked with the Celtics for 64 years.
