Let Me Tell You a Story

Let Me Tell You a Story by Red Auerbach & John Feinstein. Pretty fitting that I'm doing this review while sitting here watching the 2005 NBA draft. Once again, if you're not a sports fan, forget it. If you are, Red Auerbach is one of the legends. Red is the Boston Celtics. He spent a lot of years a coach winning the NBA championship almost every year. Since retiring many years ago, he has been either President of Vice Chairman of the Celtics organization. He's responsible for recruiting and coaching amazing professional basketball players like Cousy, Russell, Havlichek, both Joneses (K.C. and Sam), Bird, Parish and a lot of others.

This book is essentially Feinstein making notes as, over a period of years, Auerbach pours out story after story. Because of that, it doesn't have the quality of a typical Feinstein book (see my previous entry about Army vs. Navy). In spite of that, its a lot of fun to read. In my years in Boston, I spent a lot of great nights at Boston Garden watching the Celtics. Even though it was during the time after Red retired, it was still the glory years. I could only afford seats in the rafters, but there's nothing like the Garden on Celtic nights. Unfortunately, the Celts don't play in the Garden any more.

The "hook" that the authors use to organize the book is the Tuesday lunches at Washington's China Doll restaurant that revolve around Red. Its an eclectic group with a lot of basketball types including Morgan Wootten (coach at DeMatha High School - probably the best high school coach ever), Lefty Driessel (former coach at Maryland and other places), the AD at George Washington and others; some friends and family, including Red's brother; some journalists including Feinstein and Chris Wallace and, for some reason, several secret service agents. The lunches are essentially Red holding court and telling stories.

If you love basketball, read this one.

(BTW, Red probably didn't approve of today's draft with the Celtics taking a high school kid out of Houston).