| Interment Location | Visited | Sequence in Graves I Have Visited |
|---|---|---|
| Falls Church, VA | March 8, 2024 | 7th Basketball Hall Enshrinee visited |
When the 75th Anniversary Team of the National Basketball Association was selected in 2021, the list contained 15 coaches. Of course it had to include the coach with the second most championship wins, the cigar-smoking Arnold Jacob “Red” Auerbach. Though affiliated with the Boston Celtics for over half a century, his ties to Washington, D.C. went back longer. It was there that he graduated with a master of arts degree in 1941, earned from George Washington University. That same year he wed fellow GW student Dorothy Lewis, a native Washingtonian. Mrs. Auerbach raised their family in the district while Red coached in the north. And it was in D.C. that the famed basketball figure died in 2006 at the age of 89. Red is buried beside Dorothy in her parents’ plot in Falls Church, Virginia, a few miles west of their longtime home.
Auerbach’s prestigious coaching career began at St. Albans School in Washington in 1940. He followed that up with coaching jobs at Theodore Roosevelt High School in the capital’s Petworth neighborhood and then in Norfolk, Virginia, during World War II. In 1946, Dutch-born businessman Mike Uline hired 29-year-old Auerbach to lead the Washington Capitols of the upstart Basketball Association of America. After three seasons with the Capitols, the BAA became the NBA and Auerbach left to work as an assistant coach at Duke University. Brief stints followed with the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in Moline, Illinois, and as athletic director at a hotel in the Catskills that hosted a summertime basketball league.
Auerbach stopped job-hopping in 1950 when Boston Celtics owner Walter A. Brown solicited the advice of a gaggle of sportswriters and hired the Washingtonian to lead his flagging franchise. Also imbued with general manager powers, Auerbach’s first moves included drafting Chuck Cooper, the first Black player drafted in the NBA. During his 16-season coaching tenure, the Celtics acquired the talents of point guard Bob Cousy, center Bill Russell, and guard-forward John Havlicek, among others destined for hall of fame careers or retired jersey numbers. After six seasons of promising playoff runs that fell short, Auerbach led his squad to its first NBA Finals victory in April 1957 — fittingly over his former employer, by then called the St. Louis Hawks. That 1956-1957 season marked the first of nine consecutive seasons that Auerbach’s Celtics would finish first in the Eastern Conference, and the first of nine championships in a ten-year span. Auerbach stepped away from coaching after the triumphant 1965-1966 season, but remained with Boston as an executive for the next four decades, presiding over their next seven championships.
Though I am not a basketball fan, I have friends who are. While at Auerbach’s gravesite, I was inspired to text a photo of his marker to Boston sports writer Steve Buckley of The Athletic. Steve immediately replied that he attended the Celtics coach’s funeral in 2006. He also conveyed that he and the other mourners were invited to drop a handful of dirt onto Red’s coffin after it was lowered into the earth. This is a common practice at Jewish funerals.
Fast Facts
Born: September 20, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York, New York
Spouse: Dorothy Lewis Auerbach (m. 1941-2000)
Military Branch: U.S. Navy
Primary Team: Boston Celtics (1950-2006)
Basketball Hall of Fame: Class of 1969
Died: October 28, 2006 in Washington, D.C.
Cause of Death: Heart Attack
Age: 89
Interment: King David Memorial Garden, Falls Church, Virginia
"Players are people, not horses. You don't handle them. You work with them, you coach them, you teach them, and, maybe most important, you listen to them. The best players are smart people and a good coach will learn from them. Sometimes when guys came to me with ideas, I knew they couldn't possibly work. But I didn't just say no, because they would see that as a sign that I didn't respect them."
- Red Auerbach
in his 2004 book Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game, co-written by John Feinstein
Red Auerbach coached the Washington Capitols of the Basketball Association of America for three seasons, starting in 1946. Home court was at the Uline Arena on 3rd Street NE, pictured here. Auerbach later said club owner Mike Uline “didn’t know the difference between a basketball and a hockey puck.” As the Capitols coach, Auerbach compiled a record of 115 wins and 53 losses, advancing to the BAA semifinals in his first season and the finals in his last. Washington lost the 1948-1949 championship four games to two against the Minneapolis Lakers.
As I researched Auerbach for this website entry, I made a fun discovery: the hall of famer once lived in the building across the street from my apartment. According to a March 1984 article in the Washington Post, Auerbach then resided in “an elegant apartment in The Foxhall on upper Massachusetts Avenue NW.” This is a photograph I snapped of The Foxhall from my window at the end of a journey of eleven feet that began from my bed.
Sources Consulted and Further Reading
Auerbach, Red and John Feinstein. Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2004.
Remnick, David. “Auerbach: Forever Red, With a Touch of Brass.” Washington Post. March 14, 1984. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1984/03/15/auerbach-forever-red-with-a-touch-of-brass/f3d6d940-b792-4c99-8fb5-22ea1a97e842/.
