President Barack Obama awarded former Boston Celtics player and coach Bill Russel with the Medal of Freedom. Russell won 11 NBA championships, was awarded the NBA Most Valuable Player Award five times and became an All-Star for twelve years. These are his athletic accomplishments but what makes him stand out apart from these and his 6.9” height is that he marched with Martin Luther King as well as standing by Muhammad Ali. Russell stood up for black rights, he refused to play when his team was not served at restaurants and he stayed strong through insults and acts of vandalism.
These accomplishments are reasons to realize the long-thought-of plans for the Bill Russell statue in the Boston area. “We started looking at this in the last six months, and we talked to all the right people and so far all the people are very interested and very supportive. It’s been great, and hopefully something will happen very soon,” Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca said. He explained that the organization has already initiated the project of creating and placing the statue. According to him it is just a matter of time when it will be finished and available for placement. “We’ve had preliminary discussions with most of the constituencies, and the mayor wants it to happen, President Obama wants it to happen, and,” Pagliuca stated, “we’re going to really try to help make it happen.”
