The Dandy Dons: Bill Russell, K. C. Jones, Phil Woolpert, and One of College Basketball's Greatest and Most Innovative Teams

19. Epilogue

“It’s just a shame that we haven’t been close to Bill, or closer to Bill.” —Former usf president John Lo Schiavo It has been said that you can determine how successful a coach has been by looking at what his former players have accomplished five or ten years later. By any stretch of the imagination, Woolpert was an overwhelming success. Here’s a rundown of what happened to his assistant coach, aides, and former players: Ross Guidice Guidice stayed with Woolpert for nine years. He continued to teach high school during those years while serving as Woolpert’s assistant. In addition, in 1954 he opened a San Francisco furniture store with a partner. When Woolpert resigned, Guidice reluctantly agreed to take over as usf’s head coach. “I know most coaches dream of someday becoming top man, but I was satisfied [as an NINETEEN Epilogue 194 Epilogue assistant]. I have a furniture store on the side that takes time, and I really wasn’t looking for a job.” Guidice stepped down in 1960 after a season of 8 wins and 16 losses. “I never wanted to be a head coach,” Guidice said. “Five years before I took over . . . I knew I didn’t want to be a head coach. But I took the job because I considered it my duty as an assistant coach.” Guidice then devoted all his time to his furniture business. He retired in 1995 and lives in San Rafael, California. Bill Russell As a member of the Celtics, Russell played on eleven nba championship teams—two when he was also coach—in thirteen seasons. He was the nba’s mvp for five years, a member of the All-nba first team for three years and the All-nba second team for eight years, a twelve-time nba All-Star game participant, Sports Illustrated ’s Sportsman of the Year in 1968, and the Sporting News Athlete of the Decade in 1970. In 2008 espn named Russell the fourth best player in college basketball history, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, and Bill Walton. Russell holds the nba’s single-game record for most rebounds in a half with 32. He also grabbed a career-high 51 rebounds, making him only one of two nba players to pull down more than 50 rebounds in a game. He has been declared the greatest player in the history of the nba by the Professional Basketball Writers Association of America and named to the nba’s fiftieth anniversary all-time team. He holds Celtic team records that may never be broken. The Celtics retired Russell’s no. 6 jersey. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975. In 2006 he was one of the first five people inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, including John Wooden and Oscar Robertson. Russell set other marks as well; one of the most important Epilogue 195 was his being named head coach of the Celtics, the first African American head coach in U.S. major league team sports history. He coached the Seattle SuperSonics from 1973–77 and the Sacramento Kings from 1987–89 but fell short of any championships, probably because he didn’t have a guy named Russell playing for him. During his years with the Celtics as well as after his retirement he was active in the civil rights movement. He worked as a tv commentator and wrote three books, Go Up for Glory, Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man, and Russell Rules. Russell has distanced himself from usf over the years because of a number of slights on their part, including the university’s failure to pay his tuition when he returned to finish his degree. “I went back to dear old usf to complete my scholarship,” he wrote in his first autobiography. “I planned on waiving the scholarship and paying for the semester as a gesture of goodwill. The gesture was unnecessary. No one offered me the remainder of the scholarship. Dear old usf charged me full retail for my tuition. The scholarship, it turned out, was only good while I was playing basketball.” He felt disrespected by the school after helping it raise the basketball team to a national level. Since those years, he has received numerous honorary degrees, including ones from Georgetown and Princeton. Lo Schiavo said both sides are to blame for...