Tuesday marks the two-year anniversary of Red Auerbach’s death. I only met him once, at a book signing at our shared alma mater, George Washington University, but I’ll always remember it. This was back in 2004. He had just turned 87, but was still sharp as a Ginzu.
GW athletic director Jack Kvancz, Red’s long-time friend (and a co-star in John Feinstein’s “Let me Tell You a Story”) remembers that night. A few hours before the book signing event, which was held in a curtained off portion of GW’s gym (the court is named in Red’s honor), Red was tired and not exactly in the mood to entertain a handful of donors.
Never much of a B.S. artist, he stayed quiet. Kvancz, one of the most gregarious and helpful people I met in college, knew what to do.
“Why don’t you tell some Togo Palazzi stories?”
In case you were wondering, Palazzi is a Worcester basketball legend. He was a star at Holy Cross in the ’50s and went on to play two-plus seasons for the Celtics. Was he well known outside New England? No. Was he a superstar NBA player? No.
But Red loved talking about him. Just like that, at 87 years old, he rattled off four or five Palazzi stories. Kvancz got Red going, which I’m thankful for. If he wasn’t in a good mood, I probably wouldn’t have been able to meet him that night.
Kvancz, who played hoops at Boston College in the mid-1960s for then coach Bob Cousy, misses his friend, especially his stories.
“You just wound him up,” he said, “and let him go.”
Expect the Celtics to acknowledge him in some way Tuesday night.
“I think about Red all the time,” Paul Pierce said at practice today. “…I was used to him being there, handing me a cigar before the game. He’s definitely in my thoughts.”
