When Auerback was named coach sixteen years earlier, The Boston Globe had carried the story on the inside pages, surrounded by racing results and local high school sports scores. But the editors of the New York Times considered Russell’s hiring [in 1966] so momentous that they ran their article on the front pages, next to stories on bombing strikes in Hanoi, proposed peace talks between the United States and Vietnam, and the Ford Motor Company’s recall of thirty thousand vehicles for safety defects.

–John Taylor

The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball

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