Sports Announcer: [00:00:00] K.C. Jones of San Francisco's Dons. K.C. Jones set the example for the league as the backcourt defensive specialist. K.C. Jones might be the unsung hero of the Boston Celtics' success over the past three or four years.
Jared Panson: [00:00:14] K.C. Jones was a Hall of Famer, with one of the most decorated playing careers in basketball history. He won an Olympic gold medal, two college titles and eight NBA championships with the Boston Celtics. He did all this under the intense scrutiny of being a black athlete in the 1960s in America. In 1967, he retired as a player, and four years later, he returned to the spotlight of the NBA, this time as a coach. But those years in between, while less publicized, may have been more groundbreaking than any others. This is that story.
Stu Weisberg: [00:00:52] He really was a pioneer, when you look back at what the situation was...
Jared Panson: [00:01:01] Before his final season in Celtic Green, K.C. agreed to become the next head coach at Brandeis University, a small liberal arts college located 15 miles outside Boston. Brandeis was less than 20 years removed from its founding, and it was far from a basketball powerhouse. When K.C. arrived, the team had a combined 8-31 record in its previous two seasons.
Tom Haggerty: [00:01:25] Ok, I'll give you a little give you a little history...
Jared Panson: [00:01:28] This is Tom Haggerty, former Brandeis basketball standout. He spent his final two seasons playing for K.C., but his 1966 freshman season before KC had arrived was a difficult one.
Tom Haggerty: [00:01:40] Yeah, we got we got our ass kicked, you know, quite a bit. I don't know. You know, it was it was a long season. It was a long season, really.
Jared Panson: [00:01:49] Losing had become the norm, then in the fall of 1967, K.C. Jones arrived on campus.
Tom Haggerty: [00:01:58] The anticipation was amazing, not just for me, but for the whole school. The whole school was looking forward to this
Jared Panson: [00:02:05] For his first home game that season. The excitement was palpable, in Shapiro Gymnasium.
Tom Haggerty: [00:02:10] The gym was packed. The gym was packed, I mean it was standing room, not just for the Brandeis students, but the whole community welcoming K.C., to, you know, to Brandeis.
Jared Panson: [00:02:22] Haggerty's teammate, Bruce Singal, class of 1970, had similar memories of that night.
Bruce Singal: [00:02:27] The place was just completely jammed in a way that no other game in four years ever was.
Jared Panson: [00:02:34] The team did better that year, finishing the season with a record over .500. I wondered what should have been attributed most to the team's improvement?
Tom Haggerty: [00:02:42] I think the big thing was, you know, playing for K.C. Jones, and I think that was the main thing that, you know, that really that really kept us going. Really.
Jared Panson: [00:02:51] There was one other perk to being coached by an NBA legend. K.C. often brought his friends along to help out during practice.
Tom Haggerty: [00:02:57] Yeah, it's not too often you get to get private tutoring from Hall of Fame basketball games.
Jared Panson: [00:03:07] K.C.'s players talk about that first game in 1967 fondly, but it wasn't as though all their games that season were must see. Back to Haggerty's teammate, Singal, I wanted to know how significant K.C.'s arrival on campus really was.
Bruce Singal: [00:03:22] Well, it was a big deal. I mean, modified big deal. You know, we were in the middle of the Vietnam War and Brandeis was a very activist school.
Stu Weisberg: [00:03:33] It was an interesting time to go to to go to college with all that was happening...
Bruce Singal: [00:03:38] You know, there was interest and it was a significant deal, but it wasn't like, you know, the campus was riveted over it, the campus, was more riveted over the Vietnam War and all that stuff that was going on there.
Jared Panson: [00:03:51] To get a better sense of K.C.'s impact at Brandeis, I needed to know what the school was really like in the late 1960s. Singal had strong memories of his time at Brandeis off the basketball floor.
Bruce Singal: [00:04:06] It was a true hotbed of student activism and radicalism. I mean, I entered as a freshman and, you know, I was a jock and suddenly surrounded by, you know, all these, you know, kind of hippie, freaky looking people, not that everybody was like that, but I realized it was such a fertile environment to learn and ultimately to participate in the political process.
Jared Panson: [00:04:39] The occupation of Ford Hall in January 1969 best exemplifies the true political hotbed that Brandeis was at this time. On a cold, snowy day in Waltham, 70 African-American students took control of Ford Hall and presented the administration with a list of 10 demands for better minority representation on campus. It wasn't until 11 days later that the Brandeis students left the building after the administration had agreed to some of the demands. I was so curious, how did this partnership between Brandeis and K.C. come to be? K.C.'s players all remember slightly different versions of how it happened.
Stu Weisberg: [00:05:25] He wasn't thinking about going into coaching and then Brandeis made an offer to him.
Tom Haggerty: [00:05:32] The president of the university, Dr. Sachar, was a very persuasive guy. And I think I think when he wanted something, he usually got it. I think he went after K.C. and K.C. just said sure.
Bruce Singal: [00:05:48] I think it was through Irv Olin, O L I N, who was the athletic director at the time. I think that Irv had some connection of some sort with the Celtics.
Jared Panson: [00:06:00] So we're not quite sure how K.C. got to Brandeis. The transition from professional to college basketball was already difficult for K.C.
Stu Weisberg: [00:06:13] It took them a while to get acclimated, one after playing professional basketball for all the seasons, and you then find yourself on it, working on a college campus and trying to become part of the community.
Jared Panson: [00:06:28] Never mind having to fit into this type of campus.
Bruce Singal: [00:06:31] And then suddenly you have this little academic, radical academic school. I can't imagine. I can't imagine it was a comfortable fit for.
Jared Panson: [00:06:45] So why did K.C. choose Brandeis?
Tom Haggerty: [00:06:47] No, no, no idea. You know, I couldn't tell you. I never, I never even inquired.
Jared Panson: [00:06:56] But this was K.C. Jones we're talking about. It may have seemed like a strange fit for any NBA celebrity to coach at this type of school. But if it had to be someone, it seemed like K.C. would be the man for the job. The guy that had been a trailblazer his entire adult life. Could there be a better fit? K.C. coached at Brandeis for three seasons, accumulating a record of 34-32.
Tom Haggerty: [00:07:29] He uplifted the program. There's no question about that. I think K.C. was the seed, shall we say, for the basketball, you know, getting the basketball program going again.
Jared Panson: [00:07:44] It was clear what K.C.'s impact was on the court, but off of it? Singal doesn't remember nearly as much.
Bruce Singal: [00:07:51] I mean, I don't know how much time he spent on campus. You know, besides practice, and then at the gym. You know, he went around and met with some student groups, but I mean, I think it was like a foreign environment to him.
Jared Panson: [00:08:06] Well, Brandeis surely wanted to see their basketball program improved, the allure of K.C. was bigger than that. With his appointment in 1967, Brandeis added a feather in its cap, whether it knew it or not. It had just hired the first black coach in college basketball history. Not everyone involved knew this much, and some still don't.
Bruce Singal: [00:08:36] The first black coach, you mean, at Brandeis?
Jared Panson: [00:08:39] No, he's unofficially the first black coach in all of college basketball
Bruce Singal: [00:08:44] Is that... The first black head coach in all of college basketball? All divisions?
Jared Panson: [00:08:49] Yep.
Bruce Singal: [00:08:50] Wow. I never knew that. And I'm actually amazed. That's umm I, I hadn't really thought of that.
Jared Panson: [00:09:05] His players, therefore, didn't really see K.C.'s hiring as a racial statement.
Tom Haggerty: [00:09:09] You know, we never thought about K.C., a black basketball coach at a Jewish university. You know, we never we never thought about it.
Bruce Singal: [00:09:18] To me, it was such a natural thing to do.
Barry Zimmerman: [00:09:22] He was a natural to me. You know, he played in Boston. They loved him in Boston. I thought it was a cou to get to get K.C. Jones...
Bruce Singal: [00:09:31] To get somebody of his prestige and his visibility and renown as a professional player. I never really thought about, well somebody would think twice about that because he was black.
Jared Panson: [00:09:45] And more importantly, K.C. didn't arrive at Brandeis for that reason either.
Bruce Singal: [00:09:50] I certainly don't have any sense that he had any involvement or any impact on, you know, racial issues or political issues of any kind. I mean he was, he was there to coach
Stu Weisberg: [00:10:03] His focus was on basketball, winning, and so on and fitting in in the community.
Jared Panson: [00:10:10] Singal remembers a specific time when he learned of K.C.'s political inactivity firsthand.
Bruce Singal: [00:10:16] I do remember trying to solicit K.C. to get involved in the campaign, which is and he you know, he wasn't, you know, terribly interested in. And not because he would he wouldn't want to be helpful to me, but just because he stayed out of politics.
Jared Panson: [00:10:36] But still, K.C. had to have talked politics to his team at some point, right?
Tom Haggerty: [00:10:41] We never talked about it. Never talked about it. Yup, strictly basketball. That's what, that's what he was there for.
Jared Panson: [00:10:53] But as K.C. knew all too well during his lifetime, just because you didn't speak about race doesn't mean it wasn't present in most aspects of life.
Tom Haggerty: [00:11:02] We had we had issues sometimes when we we went to away games, there were some some comments made, you know, by spectators.
Bruce Singal: [00:11:16] I have a very vivid memory of playing at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, during the introduction, I vividly remember somebody yelling the N-word
Jared Panson: [00:11:24] Singal was simply taken aback.
Bruce Singal: [00:11:30] Just the thought that somebody in that sizeable crowd would just have the ignorance and the racism to just yell that out. It just was stunning to me.
Jared Panson: [00:11:44] Other players sense that the racism lingered, but didn't have any specific memories.
Stu Weisberg: [00:11:50] Can I say that there wasn't any discrimination towards him or words spoken? You know, obviously can't do that. But I, for one, didn't see it.
Jared Panson: [00:12:02] To some, K.C. would always be black first and a person second. But to many, his greatness and celebrity always shined through.
Stu Weisberg: [00:12:11] It was whenever we'd play an away game and they introduced the starting line ups. And then it went to 'and the coach, Boston Celtics great, K.C. Jones!' and you got monstrous applause on the road, anywhere in New England that happened.
Bruce Singal: [00:12:26] I remember him being generally accepted positively, you know, when we would go play elsewhere.
Jared Panson: [00:12:36] Regardless of how or why K.C. Arrived at Brandeis, a d no matter how much or how little he impacted Brandeis socially, one aspect of K.C.'s Stint was undeniable: the man was absolutely beloved.
Tom Haggerty: [00:12:50] One of the nicest guys, you'd ever want to meet. He treated everyone the same
Stu Weisberg: [00:12:54] His personality, you know, helped, that he was a very caring person, quiet but very caring person and somebody who almost everybody liked on campus, particularly if they got to know him.
Barry Zimmerman: [00:13:08] You know, he was he was just a real gentleman. I don't think he'd ever say a bad word about anybody.
Tom Haggerty: [00:13:14] My girlfriend met him, you know, she, her eyes just bulged up, her eyes just bulged almost out of her head, you know. He's a very charismatic guy.
Jared Panson: [00:13:29] Singal's major takeaway about his time with K.C. beautifully encapsulates who K.C. was as a person, and the legacy he hoped to leave behind.
Bruce Singal: [00:13:37] I can't say that I learned, you know, things beyond basketball other than, you know, how to treat people, which, you know, for a guy of Casey's visibility and his fame, you know the fact that he was so genuinely nice to people, was certainly a good life lesson on how to treat people.
Jared Panson: [00:14:01] This piece was written, produced and edited by me, Jared Panson. Thanks to all my interviewees who helped me to tell K.C.'s Brandeis Story. I interviewed Barry Zimmerman, Steve Katzmann, Tom Haggerty, Bruce Singal, and Stu Weisberg. Another thanks to Adam Levin at the Brandeis Athletics Department. Source material used includes Brandeis's newspaper, The Justice.