CELTICS GREEN BLOG by and for boston celtics fans: In the Books

After leaving Duke, Red spent the rest of the season coaching the Tri Cities Black Hawks but disagreements with the owner made that job short lived also. Here is where Red began his long tenure with the Celtics.
When Walter Brown, the owner of the Celtics, called Kerner (owner of the Blackhawks) after the season to see if there was any chance he might be able to hire his coach away, he was surprised to learn that he could. Red had signed a two year contract with Kerner when he had left Duke, but Kerner was more than happy to let him out of the second year of the deal.
And so, for the thrid time in less than a year, Red packed his bags. Before he did that, he and Dorothy sat down to talk. When Red had gone to Tri Cities, Dorothy and Nancy had not followed. Durham had not worked well for Nancy, perhaps because the family had lived in a house out in the country. Taking her to the Midwest smack in the middle of the winter had been out of the question, so mother and daughter had gone back to Washington, a place where Dorothy was comfortable and where her father was right nearby if Nancy needed a doctor.
Now the question became what to do about Boston. Both Dorothy's father and the pediatrician who regularly cared for Nancy did not think that a Boston winter was a great idea for a little girl with serious asthma. Red and Dorothy decided that she and Nancy would stay in Washington. Red would rent an apartment in Boston and get home whenever a break in the schedule allowed him to. The season was much shorter then - the finals were usually over in early April - so it wasn't as daunting a prospect as it might be today. Even so, the decision was very difficult. Red believes that, in the end, it was the right choice.
"For one thing, it was clearly better for Nancy," he said. "It was also easier on Dorothy. She felt more comfortable with her dad close by, and she didn't have to deal with all the pressures of coaching she would have felt in Boston. She always took anything written about me that wasn't very nice very personally. It bothered her. Being in Boston, she would have been exposed to a lot more of it than she was in Washington.
"The other thing was me. I was never easy to be around during the season. I was tired, uptight, nervous all the time. That's one of the reasons why I had to quit coaching at a young age. It was just wearing me out. I'm not so sure how it would have gone for us if my family had to put up with me on a day to day basis during the season. It wasn't always easy, but in the long run, it was the right move."
And so, during the summer of 1950, Red moved Dorothy and Nancy into a house on Legation Street in Northwest Washington. When training camp began, he headed to Boston, where he lived in a suite at the Lenox Hotel during his first few seasons with the Celtics. "I paid one hundred dollars a month the first couple of years," he said. "Then a new manager came in and doubled it to two hundred. No problem. I paid it. Then the next year he doubled it again to four hundred.
"That was enough for me. I walked over to the Prudential Building that day and rented an apartment. When the owner of the Lenox found out I was moving because the guy had upped my rent, he was furious. He offered to take me back for one hundred dollars a month. I said, "Don't bother. I already signed the paperwork."
Red grinned his wicked grin. "I think that manager got fired soon after."

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