Greatest Boston Coaches

[1960Pats]

1. Arnold "Red" Auerbach
2. Bill "Disingenuous Pond Scum"(affectionately) Belichick
3. Art Ross
4. Bill Carrigan
5. Terry Francona
6. Harry Sinden
7. Bill Russell
8. Chuck Fairbanks
9. Tom Heinsohn
10. **** Williams

To this day, it's amazing that Don Cherry literally came one Too-Many-Men-On-The-Ice penalty away from immortality...Houk & Parcells did their best elsewhere...You could say Cronin came one ill-advised decision to play a meaningless exhibition before the '46 Series (when Ted got hurt) away from the top, too.

I like your list. Have we been blessed or what?

I give the edge to Red, just for his dramatics. Not only did his team beat you but he would gloat about it. Lighting up a cigar when he considered the game over was a classic 'in your face' move.

Bill is a close 2nd.

I also liked Russell, but he had the huge advantage of having himself as a player too.

Bill Fitch was one of my personal favorites, but that was mainly due to his insistence that the team play hard right to the last whistle. That won me a few $'s during the last of my betting days.

I think the nickname for BB was duplicitous pond scum.

Speaking of which, here's a very interesting article about BB and his relationship with the media from 2005. It's kind of funny reading about the haters at that moment in time, knowing what the future will bring ...

Bill Belichick and the New England Media

 

[1960Pats]

It's obviously a matter of opinion, and Bill's not done yet.

Doesn't matter if there were 100 teams in the league, Auerbach and Lombardi would still have won.

I'm not sure that it was 11 or 12 teams as was claimed earlier, it was 14. That means that today's NBA is much more watered down with the top players spread out among more than twice as many teams.

 

[Joey007]

I'm inclined to go with BB due to the era he had his success in, but it's hard to ignore, what, nearly 11-12 NBA titles in a row? I can definitely see why some would still pick Auerbach. He's the Godfather of his sport.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

I'm not sure that it was 11 or 12 teams as was claimed earlier, it was 14. That means that today's NBA is much more watered down with the top players spread out among more than twice as many teams.

Celts faced some tremendous competition, from Hawks to Warriors to Lakers to Sixers...Red's bravado rubbed off on the team and helped take some of the pressure off...Nobody has any business winning eight straight but they did it anyway.

 

[zoostation]

Who do y'all think are the greatest Boston coaches ever? I'll take a stab:

1. Hands down Red Auerbach.
2. Bill Belichick.
3. Cherry/ Sinden/ Julien. Can't make up my mind.
4. Terry Francona.

HM: Doc Rivers, KC Jones,

This is of the four major sports.

Doc Rivers?

 

[zoostation]

I'd put Bill Fitch, Tom Heins0hn, Bill Russell and KC Jones all ahead of Rivers as Celtics coaches.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

I like your list. Have we been blessed or what?

I give the edge to Red, just for his dramatics. Not only did his team beat you but he would gloat about it. Lighting up a cigar when he considered the game over was a classic 'in your face' move.

Bill is a close 2nd.

I also liked Russell, but he had the huge advantage of having himself as a player too.

Bill Fitch was one of my personal favorites, but that was mainly due to his insistence that the team play hard right to the last whistle. That won me a few $'s during the last of my betting days.

I think the nickname for BB was duplicitous pond scum.

Speaking of which, here's a very interesting article about BB and his relationship with the media from 2005. It's kind of funny reading about the haters at that moment in time, knowing what the future will bring ...

Bill Belichick and the New England Media

Thanks! Bill Fitch arrived at a crucial time for us, recovering from arguably our lowest point in history (Marvin Barnes doing coke on the bench, John Y. Brown etc.). The '81 title remains one of the sweetest for any sport in Boston.

Russ' teams, especially in '69, were old and hobbling and faced young, angry, talented competition-especially Wilt's teams. The '69 title is the sweetest in our history, for me (those Forum balloons are still sitting up there in the rafters).

So the media's hatred of Bill went back to the Cleveland days, but also rember that like Lombardi, Bill was never going to be head coach of the Giants-because they did not like him. Kraft deserves huge kudos for hiring him; but deserves equal ridicule for accepting and tearfully apologizing after the planet ran roughshod over Bill, while barely only today to a minute extent are people considering the possibility of what I knew to be fact immediately at the time in '07: Belichick did not and would never break any rule and jeopardize all the hard work he and his staff put in every year and every game, to succeed. Goodell just decided that camera placement was akin to shooting an entire team with a machine gun in front of the world, in order to try and satisfy the raucous losers in ownership who were sick of the Patriots winning. Like FDR signed Executive Order 9066 to satisfy all the racists. Belichick was never arrogant; he's intelligent. Kraft's obsession with being better than Billy Sullivan has blinded him to the corruption and bias in the league, and entrenched his behaving like he bought an expansion team in 1994, instead of an AFL original.

 

[Froob]

Think we have to give Red #1, might have the two best in the sports in Red and Bill.

 

[Froob]

Belichick.

All due respect to Red, he won double digit titles when the league had what 11-12 teams?

Belichick is the greatest coach this region has ever seen.

Less teams=less watered down league. Every team had multiple hall of famers. League was argumently tougher back then. There were no Brooklyn Nets esque teams.

 

[winged1dur]

I wonder how far down the list before Clive Rush and Bep Guidolin show up?

 

[oldrover]

On the other end of the spectrum:

 

[Simpelton]

Less teams=less watered down league. Every team had multiple hall of famers. League was argumently tougher back then. There were no Brooklyn Nets esque teams.

The NBA is really Exhibit A of what overexpansion can do to kill a league.

 

[pdangle]

I hate pretentious font sizes. Welcome to ignore.

Nooooooooooooooo!!

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

The NBA is really Exhibit A of what overexpansion can do to kill a league.

His biography on the NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time."-Wikipedia

In 1999, he was named the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN-Wikipedia

 

[Pats1989]

On the other end of the spectrum:

Worst:

Pitino
Dave Lewis
Bobby V & Kerrigan
Mostly ( Not all) all Pats coaches before Parcells.

 

[patfanken]

Interesting excercise. I'll try it without cross polinating the sports

Football -

1. Bellichick

2. Fairbanks,

3. Holavak

4. Parcells

5. Ron Meyer

Basketball

1. Red

2. Heinson

3. Russell

4. Fitch

5. Stephens - I really like this kid. He might not be there yet, but he will be.

Baseball

1. **** Williams

2. Francona

And that's about it, and I've beenn watching since the 50's

Hockey -

1. Sinden

2. Claude

And here's another team I've watched as a kid in the 50's and drew a blank on significant HC's during that time.

 

[SilverSeven]

You'd never confuse him for a Belichick or Auerbach but I got to give props for a guy from my hometown in Claude Julien. Rough last couple years (which has more to do with Neely but I digress) but was absolutely frustrating to see my Sens get stonewalled by some of those great Bruins teams of the last 10 years.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Worst:

Pitino
Dave Lewis
Bobby V & Kerrigan
Mostly ( Not all) all Pats coaches before Parcells.

Pitino belongs down there; frustrating because although we all knew Red would have to eventually retire, I never saw any reason whatsoever at all to a) hire the guy or even more b) pay him a gillion dollars. I turned out to be totally right on that one.


Bobby V. had it tough from the second his name was first mentioned; I think things went about as expected, but if it was in the context of ultimately getting Farrell, it worked. I guess I must credit Cherington, because I was a) very impressed with the offseason additions after '12, including Napoli, although I had to sweat practically the whole winter before we finally got him. We needed his bat and his clubhouse leadership badly. Then, I was very confident they could win it all. [I was totally wrong about Stephen Drew, though!] Anyway, Valentine said before, if they played the way they sometimes did that year, they could go all the way, and that's just what happened after he left.

Holovak & Fairbanks were the real deal; Parcells was too: He did (obviously) get totally pissed at Kraft, but thank goodness BB came here after Modell fired him. That was crucial.

Berry was really an excellent coach, with the glaring, fatal exception of his reverence for Eason over vastly superior quarterbacks.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

You'd never confuse him for a Belichick or Auerbach but I got to give props for a guy from my hometown in Claude Julien. Rough last couple years (which has more to do with Neely but I digress) but was absolutely frustrating to see my Sens get stonewalled by some of those great Bruins teams of the last 10 years.

I really like Claude. As despicable as Felger is, some of his criticisms were accurate.

Julien was simply unable to adjust his strategy to suit the kind of players he had.

 

[RobertWeathers]

GoAT coach

Red
BB
Julien
Tito

GoAT GM

Red
BB
Sinden
Theo