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Bob Cousy

The Cousy Legacy



Cousy retired at age thirty-five. The last game ceremony has since become known as "the Boston Tear Party," with a sold out Garden sitting in rapt silence as Cousy spoke his final farewell. In 1960, as Cousy was winding down his career, former Knicks coach Joe Lapchick said Cousy was the best player he'd ever seen. Celtics owner Walter Brown told a Boston Newspaper that "the Celtics wouldn't be here without him. If he had played in New York, he would have been as big as Babe Ruth. I think he is anyway."



He left the team having scored 16,955 points (18.5 points per game), 6,945 assists (7.6 assists per game), and an .803 free-throw percentage in 917 games. In 109 playoff games he averaged 18.5 points and 8.6 assists. In thirteen All-Star Games the two-time game MVP averaged 11.3 points and 6.6 assists. He has since been named to the NBA's 25th, 35th, and 50th Anniversary teams. In 1970 he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Bob Cousy would be the first NBA player to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In 1999, ESPN selected Cousy as #94 on the Sports Century top 100 athletes list.

When he retired from the Celtics in 1963, he was making $30,000 a year. He went out at what appeared to be the top of his game. Fans thought he had many more years left in him, and he probably did. But he told Tom Callahan of Time magazine, "I was very conscious of my skills eroding … The minute there is even a subtle diminishment of legs, you're the first to know. I became aware of when I should stop wanting the ball in key situations. For a couple of years, I decoyed myself at those moments, making

Bob Cousy

sure Sam Jones, Tommy Heinsohn—or whoever—ended up with the shot." Cousy opted to retire when he did because, as a man with a degree in business hanging on his wall, he knew something about marketing himself after basketball, something that agents do for players these days but which Cousy would have to do by himself to earn a living. "I knew I'd be exploiting this notoriety for 20 years," he said. "If it had been $300,000, chances are I would have played until 1969."

Awards and Accomplishments

1951 NBA Rookie of the Year Award
1952-61 All-NBA First Team
1953 Set playoff record for most free throws made (30) and attempted (32)
1953-60 Led NBA in assists
1954, 1957 NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player
1957 NBA Most Valuable Player
1959 Single game record for most assists (19) in one half
1962-63 All-NBA Second Team
1970 Inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame
1974 All-NBA Silver Anniversary Team
1984 All-NBA 35th anniversary team
1999 ESPN selects Cousy as #94 on Sports Century top 100 athletes list
1999 All-NBA 50th anniversary team

Bob Cousy was one of the greatest passers and play-makers in NBA history. A showman with flair and an entertainer as much as a basketball player, Cousy was a renegade in an era of rather conventional league play. He helped to build one of the most revolutionary teams in the history of professional basketball. His contribution is as great as—if not greater than—any other single player who helped the Boston Celtics dominate the 1950s and 1960s. Cousy drew audiences to the arenas where a new and struggling NBA was trying to get off the ground. Watching Cousy was fun, and the fans wanted fun, not fundamentals. He was the catalyst that turned the game into the popular modern spectacle that fans know it as today.

Where Is He Now?

Since retiring from the Celtics and then from head coaching in the seventies, Cousy has very much remained a public figure, and he can still be found doing occasional commentary on basketball or appearing at Celtics events (like the dismantling, in 2001, of the famed parquet floor in Boston Garden). He also appears in the occasional film project, making his debut in the 1994 film Blue Chips, a film about corruption in recruitment of college basketball players. More recently he has appeared in the Bill Russell documentary, Bill Russell: My Life, My Way, and the 2001 film Elvis is Alive.

Additional topics

Famous Sports StarsBasketballBob Cousy - Growing Up, The Incident, The College Years, Chronology, Related Biography: Basketball Player K.c. Jones - CONTACT INFORMATION