It's never good to see someone die on Christmas Day. As B.J. Hunnicutt (played by Mike Farrell) said on M*A*S*H, people's Christmas wreaths should be green, not black.
K.C. Jones -- as far as both Wikipedia and Basketball-Reference.com know, that was his his full name, named for his father -- was born on May 25, 1932 in Taylor, Texas. When he was 9, his parents split up, and his mother took him his siblings to San Francisco, part of "The Great Migration" of black people out of the South.
His basketball teammate Bill Russell, football star Ollie Matson, and baseball stars Frank Robinson, Willie Stargell and Joe Morgan were all born in the South, but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area as boys. The family of football legend turned criminal O.J. Simpson, before he was born, also did so.
After starring in basketball and football at Commerce High School, he went to the University of San Francisco, a Catholic school, where the guard became teammates with Russell, a center out of McClymonds High School, across the Bay in Oakland.
There, they won the NCAA Tournament in 1955 and 1956, winning 47 straight games, a streak that would reach 60 straight after their graduation. (They would reach what's now known as the Final Four again in 1957.) They would also be teammates on the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
Russell went straight to the NBA's Boston Celtics. Jones spent 2 years in the U.S. Army, and was then drafted by the Celtics in 1958. The Celtics had won their 1st NBA Championship in 1956-57, Russell's 1st season, but lost the Finals in 1958, due to an injury that Russell tried to play through.
With a starting lineup of Russell at center, Bill Sharman and Tommy Heinsohn as forwards, and Cousy and Sam Jones (no relation to K.C.), and with a bench led by K.C., Frank Ramsey and Jim Loscutoff, the Celtics began the greatest run in the history of major league sports in North America. They won the next 8 NBA Championships: They beat the Minneapolis Lakers in the Finals in 1959; the St. Louis Hawks in 1960 and '61; the Los Angeles version of the Lakers in 1962, '63, '65 and '66; and the San Francisco Warriors in 1964.
By the 1961-62 season, Cousy's minutes had begun to decline, and K.C. became a starter. "The Jones Boys" backcourt featured Sam as the offensive guard, and K.C. as the defensive one. In 1965, Russell said, "K.C. Jones does not have a bagful of defensive moves. He has a whole truckload of defensive moves. He will pester a guy so much that the guy will start to look for K.C. even when he's not there."
Red Auerbach left his post as the Celtics' head coach after the 1966 title, but remained the general manager, and appointed Russell as head coach. The 1966-67 season saw the Philadelphia 76ers finally overcome the Celtics, and then beat the Warriors in the Finals.
At age 35, K.C. Jones retired as a player. He is 1 of only 8 players to win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal and an NBA Championship. The others are Russell, Sam Jones, Clyde Lovellette, Jerry Lucas, Quinn Buckner, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Anthony Davis.
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K.C. immediately went into coaching, at Brandeis University outside Boston. He was the head coach there for 3 seasons, and then an assistant at Harvard University, also outside Boston, in 1970-71. He got his 1st NBA coaching job with the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers, under his former Celtic teammate Sharman, and they set a North American major league sports record that still stands with a 33-game winning streak. They won 69 games, a single-season NBA record until 1996, and won the Lakers' 1st title since moving to Los Angeles.
That earned him his 1st pro head coaching job, with the San Diego Conquistadors of the ABA. They only went 30-54, but it was enough to get them into the Playoffs. That earned him his 1st NBA head coaching job, with the Washington Bullets. In 3 seasons, he led them to 1st, 1st and 2nd place in the NBA Central Division, and the 1975 Eastern Conference title. But they lost to the now-Golden State Warriors in one of the biggest upsets in NBA Finals history.
In 1976-77, he was an assistant to former Celtic teammate Wayne Embry on the Milwaukee Bucks. In 1978, he rejoined the Celtics as an assistant coach, earning another NBA Championship ring under Bill Fitch in 1981. He was named head coach for the 1983-84 season, and won the title in his 1st season, with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge beating the Lakers.
He was a player's coach: "I prefer my players come across as geniuses. Mine is a subtle, quiet approach." On another occasion, in a similar vein, he said, "People want to see a coach who has a whip in one hand and a chair in the other. "I don't fit that mold. I prefer not to embarrass my players in front of 15,000 people just to impress the world."
He got the Celtics to the Finals again in 1985, but lost to the Lakers. He got them back in 1986, and beat the Houston Rockets.
Jones, talking to Larry Bird and Scott Wedman
Shortly after the 1986 title, K.C. appeared in a commercial for Jones Sausage, even though he had nothing to do with the company before. Also in the commercial was actress-dancer Janet Jones, then engaged to tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis, but later to call it off, and marry hockey legend Wayne Gretzky.
He got them back to the Finals in 1987, but lost to the Lakers. After a 5th straight Atlantic Division title in 1988, but a loss to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, he retired, becoming the Celtics' vice president for basketball operations.
In 1989, he joined the staff of Bernie Bickerstaff on the SuperSonics, and became their head coach in 1990. He remained head coach through 1992. He later served as an assistant to the Pistons, and back with the Celtics in the 1996-97 season. His last head coaching job was in 1997-98, with the New England Blizzard, the Hartford team in the American Basketball League, a women's league.
Overall, his coaching record was 552-306, for a .643 winning percentage. In 12 seasons as a head coach, he made the Playoffs 11 times, won 7 Division titles, made 5 NBA Finals, and won 2 NBA Championships. Between playing and coaching, he won 12 NBA titles. His uniform number was retired by USF (4) and the Celtics (25). He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1989.
After coaching the Blizzard, he remained in Connecticut, where he died yesterday, Christmas Day, December 25, 2020, at a nursing home, where he had been living with Alzheimer's disease. He was 88 years old. Obituaries made no mention of a wife or children. Tributes, however, have rolled in:
Alex English, Hall-of-Famer: "I remember playing for K.C. Jones when he assisted Don Nelson coaching with Milwaukee Bucks in 1978-79. He was such an easy soul to get along with."
Ted Leonsis, owner of the NBA's Washington Wizards, formerly the Bullets; and also the NHL's Washington Capitals: "True NBA gentlemen-leader and winner passes; league and fans mourn K.C. Jones. K.C. was the Bullets coach while I was in college. I knew him more from his Boston Celtics playing and coaching career. He was a man of great grace -- and skills and talents.
Cedric Maxwell, who played on K.C.'s 1984 title-winning Celtics: "The quiet genius. #RIP my friend."
Red Auerbach died in 2006, but he said, "The biggest thing you can say about K.C. is that he's a winner."
Of that, there is no doubt.
UPDATE: With Tommy Heinsohn also having recently died, the Celtics will be wearing black bands on their left shoulder straps, reading "TOMMY / K.C." The University of San Francisco are wearing "KC 4" patches on their jerseys.
With his death, there are now:
* 3 surviving members of the 1955 and '56 University of San Francisco National Champions: Bill Russell, Mike Farmer and Mike Preaseau.
* 5 surviving members of the 1956 U.S. Olympic team: Russell, Carl Cain, Burdie Haldorson, Ron Tomsic and Chuck Darling.
From the Celtics' title teams on which K.C. played:
* 1959, 3 players: Russell, Bob Cousy and Sam Jones.
* 1960, same 3 players.
* 1961, same 3 players, plus Tom "Satch" Sanders.
* 1962, same 4 players as '61, plus Gary Phillips.
* 1963, 4 players: Cousy, Russell, Sanders and Sam Jones.
* 1964, 3 players: Russell, Sanders and Sam Jones.
* 1965, 5 players: Russell, Sanders, Sam Jones, Gerry Ward and Mel Counts.
* And 1966, 6 players: Russell, Sanders, Sam Jones, Ron Bonham, Ron Watts and Don Nelson.
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