As the wonderful agony begins for 1964-65, I sometimes wonder why I do it. I've got an insurance business going on the side, and it is starting to grow nicely. Selling insurance fulfills me, in a way, like basketball. But basketball keeps calling me back. I suppose I'll play until I can't keep up with the kids any longer.
I don't know what it is about me: I am no Rock Hudson, but I absolutely wow all the little old white-haired ladies. They stop me and talk to me all over the country, on the street, in restaurants, in elevators.
I play basketball for love and money, and they come in interchangeable order, depending on how things are going when you ask the question.
Talk radio around Boston is brutal, and I think that's part of what goes on is that people as they're driving to and from work start listening to these jerks, and I say jerks, because I don't think they know what they're talking about and they're just serving some things up as controversy so they can sell the show to sponsors.
About the time you think you are getting to know the moves in this game, someone comes along and does everything but undress you on the basketball floor. Standing there under the basket with your hands cupped - and finding that you don't have the ball in them - is a great little old leveler.
My mother bought me a brand new suit for going away to college. We were poor, but she wanted me to have that. It was a powder blue suit with peg pants - you know, skinny at the bottom. I think I made quite an impression with that.
I think my broadcast partner Mike Gorman said it best. He said there's a generation of fans who know me as a player and there's a generation of fans who know me as a coach and now there's a generation of fans who think I'm Shrek!
