Red Auerbach's Victory Cigar

The Kansas Jayhawks also find ways to declare victory.

Red Auerbach coached the NBA’s Boston Celtics during the 1950’s and 1960’s, leading them to nine national championships; the Celtics were quite a powerhouse back then. I was reminded of Auerbach’s legacy, with Bill Russell’s death about a week ago. Russell was arguably one of the best NBA players ever, and anchored the teams that won all those championships for the Celtics.

Red developed a quaint tradition, while coaching the Celtics (quaint, as long as you were not responsible for ensuring that the iconic parquet floor housed in Boston Garden, the basketball arena home of the Celtics during that time, wouldn’t catch fire, from, say, cigar ashes), in which he would light a cigar, once he believed that a Celtics win was inevitable. Red would light this cigar while seated on the courtside bench, and the game was still in progress. Times were different back then, no? Although, even back then, NBA honchos advised Auerbach that the cigar thing was a bad look for the league.

Now, you can imagine how this “victory cigar” vignette played with opposing team coaches and players. Exhaustive research by the Rule of Three research team did not reveal a single instance in which the Celtics ended up losing a game, after Red had fired-up his victory cigar, but that doesn’t mean it never happened. Although, if I’m the opposing coach, and Auerbach’s cigar was lit during a game which my team won, I would have alerted the ever-vigilant sports reporters for the Boston Globe, and any other newspaper I could think of (this was before the advent of Twitter), and insisted that they share the news widely. Quite a scoop, indeed!

I was not really a fan of the Celtics. My basketball allegiance hews more finely toward the Kansas Jayhawks. And, that team has demonstrated some basketball excellence of its own over the years. One of the most significant contributions that the Jayhawks have made to the NBA was Wilt Chamberlain, who battled Bill Russell countless times over the years. Chamberlain is considered by many to be the single, most-dominant player ever in the NBA (and, not just by Jayhawks fans), even though he was a member of only two championship teams during his career. I mean, he once scored 100 points in one game! Rules of the game were revised, in order to thwart his dominance. And, I think his claim of having bedded 20,000 women in his lifetime is simply not relevant to this discussion, so I do not plan to feature that statistic here.

Now, the Jayhawks have also developed a few quaint traditions designed to acknowledge an impending basketball victory, and none of them endanger the highly-flammable wood floors installed in Allen Fieldhouse, on KU’s campus, or any of the other basketball arenas in which they conduct their business.

One tradition is quite endearing to KU fans, and quite annoying to opposing fans, I’m sure - Jayhawk fans “wave the wheat” with their hands in the air, once the game appears to be in hand (there’s apparently a significant amount of wheat grown in Kansas, and it “waves” in the wind). It’s their version of “Red Auerbach’s Victory Cigar.” It’s also deployed when an opposing player fouls-out of the game (sort of a goodbye wave), and is also used at football games, to celebrate a Jayhawks touchdown, or even a field goal; sadly, waving the wheat has rarely been used in recent years at KU football games, because, you know, the team has been pretty weak.

Another version of “Red Auerbach’s Victory Cigar” developed by the Jayhawks has been the appearance of Chris Teahan on the basketball court. During his recently-completed five-year basketball career with the Jayhawks, Teahan played a total of 123.8 minutes in sixty different games, scoring a total of 47 points, and grabbing 19 rebounds. I know, that sounds like halftime numbers for one game played by Wilt Chamberlain. But, Teahan was much-beloved by Jayhawk fans, and his entry into a game inevitably resulted in a roar from the crowd, and the ceremonial waving of the wheat, as his appearance off the bench represented a clear indication that the game was in hand. Part of his charm might have been that he was a redhead, rocking a mullet; and, he appeared to be a pretty nice guy. (Ed. note: Rule of Three did not assign the name, “Red Auerbach’s Victory Cigar” to Chris Teahan; nor, likely, did head basketball coach of the Jayhawks, Bill Self. If you’re looking for a scapegoat, I suggest you turn to the evil media - even though Teahan appears to have accepted this moniker with grace, it’s still a pretty hurtful thing to call somebody.)

But, enough about the world-champion Jayhawks. . .

What other expressions of victory can you envision, which might rival “Red Auerbach’s Victory Cigar?” A couple of alternatives occur to me:

• Tom Brady tossing the Super Bowl trophy from one boat to another. I imagine the fact that the Super Bowl-winning team’s star quarterback is dressed in boating attire, and is heaving the championship trophy off the back of a boat, can be considered prima facie evidence of an imminent victory.

  

• Richard Nixon leaving Washington D.C., after resigning as President, a scant twelve years after declaring, “. . .you don’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” Upon reflection, this wasn’t really a declaration of victory, although it certainly appears like it, judging from the photo. I mean, that’s Nixon’s famous “V for Victory” hand gesture, no? Or, did he instead intend to flash the ubiquitous “Peace Sign,” popular with Vietnam War protesters back then? I simply can’t keep them straight. In any event, I’m glad that he didn’t turn his fingers around, with his palms facing himself - that, apparently, is an obscene gesture in certain parts of the world, including the U.K.

• Wilt Chamberlain, assembling a group of women for a post-game celebration. I’ve done the math: Wilt died at the age of sixty-three, which charitably yields 50 years of sexually-active years, or 18,250 days. Now, allowing for the occasional night off, I figure that Wilt would have had to dial-in multiple partners on many occasions. And, that formula doesn’t even allow for repeat business, which is a cornerstone of any successful enterprise. Who needs a “Victory Cigar” when you’ve got “The Big Dipper?” (I went with Wilt’s lesser-known nickname from early in his basketball career, because he apparently disliked other, more familiar nicknames, such as “Wilt the Stilt,” and, even though he’s been dead for quite a while now, I have a healthy fear of reprisal here - I bet Wilt’s estate could kick my ass).

So, feel free to anticipate victory in any manner you like - lighting up a cigar, tossing a trophy, flashing the “V for Victory” sign, or, as Wilt would have done it - because it will make you feel good, and will also anger your opponents - win, win! Just, you know, make sure that victory is indeed at hand, because, if you end up losing, it could be quite awkward - I’m looking at you, Chicago Tribune. . .

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