Hall of Fame Boston Celtics coach and executive Red Auerbach was brilliant at a lot of things, but when it came to driving, he preferred to have his public relations team handle the chore at times. And there may have been more than just a distracted mind focused on how to help the Celtics win behind the impetus to legendary Boston PR master Jeff Twiss take the wheel.
“God bless Red, I love him dearly,” said Twiss in an interview with the Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach, “but he was a brutal driver.” Twiss actually got his job offer to join the team in a permanent role he still holds today (albeit more in public relations than in the administrative assistant role he began in) while driving Auerbach home from a preseason game in Providence, Rhode Island. Later, when discussing the offer’s details in Red’s office, the Celtics exec floated “Two tickets, company car, $10,500 (a year), take it or leave it.”
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Twiss, of course, took it, and a few years into the job, learned why Red had him drive him so much. “Do you know why (you drive me)?, he asked, and Twiss of course said no.
Morgan Wootten (R), who has been named Washington, DC, high school Basketball Coach of the Year ten times, is congratulated by former Boston Celtic’s coach Red Auerbach (L) and Dave Gavit chairman of the board of the Basketball Hall of Fame (C) after Wootten was inducted into the 2000 Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, Civic Center 13, October, 2000. Wootten is the high school coach with the most wins 1,213. (FILM) AFP PHOTO JOHN MOTTERN (Photo by JOHN MOTTERN / AFP) (Photo by JOHN MOTTERN/AFP via Getty Images)
“First of all, you’re a pretty good kid,” said Auerbach. “But second of all, I hate taxis. Getting into the back of a taxi, Christ, I feel like a sardine. Plus, you’re easier to talk to than a cab driver. They always chew my ear off.”
To be fair to taxi drivers, if it were not for the taxi driver who talked so much he talked Red out of flying to New York to interview for a job with the New York Knicks, that conversation might never have happened in the first place.
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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Why Celtics icon Red Auerbach hated taxis