Russell joined the team in December, 1956, following the Olympics.

These days I smile benignly at the fights that I see in NBA games. There aren't any broken noses or black eyes, which happened quite often when I played.

We played every night. Sometimes we'd stay overnight after a game, but we'd usually drive on to our next destination.

That seemed to be the case with most of the teams based in the smaller towns - the fans were more rabid, and they wanted to literally kill the opposition.

Do your best when no one is looking. If you do that, then you can be successful at anything you put your mind to

I won the city scoring championship as a senior.

We lived in Yorkville, which is located on the East End of Manhattan. It's further east than Hell's Kitchen, and back then it was the kind of place where the roaches and cockroaches were big enough to carry away small children.