This would have been Final Four weekend for the men’s NCAA tournament.
Any other year, we would have been highly anticipating Monday night’s championship game, but this has not been any other year and we all know why.
With no live sporting events to air, sports networks have resorted to broadcasting memorable moments.
Bill Russell has some of his own, first as a player who made it to the NCAA tournament, and for more than 50 years as a basketball fan.
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The gifted athlete from Columbus helped the Indiana Hoosiers gain a share of the Big Ten regular-season championship in 1967 and the team’s first NCAA tournament appearance in nine years.
Such a storyline would have never played out had Russell — now 74 — not been such an outstanding prep player.
The six-foot Russell set the scoring record for Columbus/Columbus North High School with 1,272 points as a four-year starting guard. His senior year, the 1963 Bull Dogs went undefeated during the regular season before losing to eventual state champion Muncie Central, finishing 25- 1.
Russell’s Bull Dogs scoring record held for 52 years until eclipsed in 2015 by another great Columbus player, 6-7 forward Josh Speidel, who scored 1,512.
After high school, Russell took his skills to Bloomington.
“My sophomore year, we had a tremendous team at IU. We had the Van Arsdale twins (Dick and Tom); we had Jon McGlocklin,” Russell said of three future NBA all-stars. “We were loaded.”
In Branch McCracken’s last year as coach, six seniors made up the full rotation.
“The rest of us had really good seats,” Russell recalled of the 1965 campaign, when IU finished fourth.
Assistant Lou Watson took over Russell’s junior year, a rebuilding season.
“We took our lumps,” Russell said, including a 91-56 drubbing at rival Kentucky.
But by the time they were seniors, the IU players had gained floor experience and an understanding of how to play as a team.
The 1967 regular season ended with a home game against rival Purdue with the winner earning a Big Ten crown.
“It would have been a big game for us if we were fighting for last place,” Russell said, which was exactly what they were doing a year earlier.
But in 1967, Indiana leaped from Big Ten worst to first with a 95-82 win over the Boilers. The Hoosiers made the NCAA 23-team field by finishing the conference season with a 10-4 record, sharing the title with Michigan State.
With one NCAA bid available per conference, Indiana held the tiebreaker.
“When we won the Big Ten, that was the pinnacle of what we were shooting for,” said Russell, who shared playing time at guard that season with Erv Inniger.
But when Inniger fell during practice and broke his arm, Russell started the final nine games.
Although his full-season scoring average was 8.8, Russell was putting up double-digit points down the stretch with increased playing time.
Indiana was favored against Virginia Tech in the Mideast Region, but made just 14 of 29 free throws in a 79-70 loss. The defeat sent Indiana to the third-place consolation game, which it won 51-44 against Tennessee.
With consolation games a thing of the past, few players on good teams win their final collegiate game — unless it’s the national championship.
“You have to have your good games at the right time and your bad games at the right time,” Russell said of the Virginia Tech tournament loss. “We were not overwhelmed, but we certainly were disappointed.”
That 1967 tournament cemented a realization for these IU players that their college basketball career was over.
Much has changed since Russell’s playing days ended 53 years ago, when there was no shot clock, no three-point line and no dunking. Additionally, today’s players are much more athletic.
“They can run faster, jump higher. We never thought about lifting weights and developing arm strength,” Russell said of player preparation during his era. “It’s terrific to watch how athletic these kids are.”
It provides great joy for this IU season ticket holder, especially when March and April weekends fill the television broadcasting slots.
“Do I watch a lot? More than my wife would like me to do,” he joked.
Any other year, that is.
Two events in particular highlighted the final weeks of this regular college basketball season for Russell.
One occurred when Bob Knight returned Feb. 8 to Assembly Hall for the first time since his firing 20 years earlier. It was for a reunion of the coach’s 1980 Hoosiers’ conference champions.
“To have Knight finally return and receive the heart-felt reception by not just the players but all the fans and media was really a great experience,” Russell said.
The second special moment came during the March 4 Senior Day at the University of Vermont, when Speidel — the athlete who broke Russell’s high school scoring mark — made his team’s first basket in a pre-arranged play.
It was Speidel’s first playing time since a traumatic brain injury from a 2015 traffic accident cut short his senior year at Columbus North and nearly took his life. Video of the moment went viral nationally.
“He was a super player,” Russell said. “He still is a super guy. How happy we can be the way he ended his college career, being able to start the game.”
Russell had a chance to continue his basketball career professionally with the upstart Indiana Pacers, but felt it would be smarter to start a career in business instead.
Russell landed a job Chicago working for a business machines supplier.
Soon after, he was recruited by Arvin Industries to return to Columbus, working in the company’s consumer products division. And for the past 48 years, Russell has focused on marketing and distribution with the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Columbus, owned by his wife Nan and her brother, Hutch Schumaker.
“Columbus has been a great community for Nan and for me and our children. Having grown up with an education and to participate athletically in Columbus, nothing could be better,” Russell said.
For college basketball fans and players whose 2020 season ended short of fulfilling their dreams, there is always next year. That’s when Indianapolis hosts the Final Four for the eighth time.
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Bill Russell
Age: 74
Family: Married since 1966 to Nan Russell; son Brian Russell of Columbus; daughters Amy Arterburn of Birmingham, Alabama, and Allison Stitle of Indianapolis.
Education: IU bachelor’s degree in marketing, 1967.
Military: Enlisted for six-year hitch in the U.S. Air Force.
Business: Semi-retired with 48 years at Coca-Cola, serving as vice president of marketing.
Basketball honors: Indiana High School All-Star, 1963; Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame Silver Anniversary Team, 1988; Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, 2014.
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Retired editor Tom Jekel writes a weekly column that appears each Sunday on The Republic’s Opinion page. Contact him by email through [email protected]
