Bill Russell becomes the NBA’s first Black coach

On April 17, 1966, Boston Celtics center Bill Russell is named head coach of the team, becoming the first Black head coach in the history of a major U.S. professional sports league. Already the cornerstone of a Celtics basketball dynasty, Russell would take on the unprecedented role of player-coach—reshaping both the game and its leadership ranks.

Celtics general manager and longtime coach Red Auerbach had announced before the 1966 NBA Finals that he would step down at season’s end, handing the job to Russell, then the team’s star center. Boston went on to win that year’s championship—its eighth straight and ninth overall—capping Auerbach’s coaching career.

Russell continued as player-coach for three seasons, leading the Celtics to two more titles in 1968 and 1969. His success made him the first Black head coach to win a championship in a major North American professional league. And his tenure remains the only time in North American sports history that an organization has ever had a player serve as both starting player and head coach on a title-winning team.

“Bill Russell was a pioneer—as a player, as a champion, as the NBA’s first Black head coach and as an activist,” said NBA great Michael Jordan in 2022, after Russell died. “He paved the way and set an example for every Black player who came into the league after him, including me. ”

By the time he took over as coach, Russell was already one of the game’s most dominant figures. His speed, court savvy and defensive prowess revolutionized the center position, proving that big men could be agile, strategic and transformative on both ends of the court.

Winning had defined Russell’s career even before he made it to the pros. At the University of San Francisco, he led his team to back-to-back NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956. In the latter year, he won a gold medal as captain of the U.S. Olympic team. With the Celtics, he anchored an unprecedented run of eight consecutive NBA titles from 1959 to 1966—the longest championship streak in North American professional sports.

Russell’s appointment marked a turning point in sports history—one that expanded opportunities for Black leadership and left a lasting imprint on the NBA and beyond. Today, the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award (an honor Russell, himself, won 5 times) is named after him.

Off the court, Russell became an outspoken civil rights advocate. He attended the 1963 March on Washington, supported boxer Muhammad Ali’s refusal of the draft and helped run an integrated basketball camp in Mississippi following the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

For his work on and off the court Russell was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame and given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor.