Hall of Famer Rick Weitzman
By Marvin Pave
The toughest, most grueling, game of basketball New England Basketball Hall of Famer Rick Weitzman ever played wasn’t for Brookline High or Northeastern University.
Nor was it in a regular season or playoff game for the Boston Celtics during the 1967–68 season for the team’s 10th round draft pick.
Rather, it was a two-on-two competition on the final day of Celtics training camp that season pitting the four rookies on the roster against each other.
There was a lot at stake for the foursome — Weitzman, Mal Graham, Johnny Jones and Neville Shedd — because the roster would be cut from 13 to 12 players.
``I know who looked the worst was probably going to be cut, and what ensued was the most physically and emotionally draining basketball I had ever played,’’ Weitzman recalled in his self-published autobiography `On the Road Once Again,’ available through Amazon.
``I had come this far,’’ he wrote, ``and if I was going, I was going to give it everything I had. The game ended when Shedd’s knee crumpled, and he was carried off the court. He was done and later got released.’’
Weitzman, whose own professional career was shortened by knee problems, didn’t know he had made the team until the opening game when his uniform number 26 was hanging in the locker at Boston Garden.
It had been a roller coaster ride for the Northeastern University captain since the day he was drafted — surviving both the rookie and free agent and then the veteran’s training camps.
Unlike today’s well-publicized and hyped NBA draft, Weitzman heard the news while listening on his car radio, He was driving from his co-op job back to the Northeastern campus when WBZ sports reporter Gil Santos announced that Weitzman was drafted 110th overall by Celtics general manager Red Auerbach.
Weitzman, who had felt being an NBA draft pick was a remote possibility, ``almost went off the road.’’
Northeastern head coach Dick Dukeshire was on the telephone with Auerbach when Weitzman arrived.
Dukeshire handed the phone to Weitzman who was told by Auerbach when and where to report to rookie and free agent camp in Marshfield, MA and then hung up.
The Celtics, as his employer, agreed his time with the team would apply to his final semester as a Northeastern co-op student, so he received school credit as a Celtics player.
It was literally another banner year for the Celtics, who under player-coach Bill Russell won the franchise’s 10th (of 17) NBA championships, coming back from a 3–1 deficit to Philadelphia in the conference finals, and then defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the league final.
Boston won game six at the Los Angeles Forum, 124–109, and Weitzman, a 6-foot-2 guard, scored the game’s final basket, then raced off the court with Russell’s arm around him.
That photograph is featured in the Northeastern men’s basketball media guide.
``As the clock ran down, Mal Graham passed me the ball, on the left side of the court, about 18 feet from the basket,’’ Weitzman recalled of the memory of a lifetime. ``As the years went by, my retelling of the shot stretched from an 18-footer to a 25-footer.’’
That memory, and many others, including time as head boys’ basketball coach at Peabody MA High School, Head Scout for the Celtics, a radio and TV commentator, and a tour guide at Fenway Park, are included in his book, which is subtitled `Stories of a former NBA Player and Scout.’’
A favorite anecdote involved legendary Celtics radio voice Johnny Most when Weitzman was his color commentator.
``One of my duties was to interview an opposing player before the game and to be aired at halftime,’’ wrote Weitzman. ``The Celts were to play the Washington Bullets and they had Jeff Ruland and Ricky Mahorn who were called McFilthy and McNasty on the air by Johnny.’’
Weitzman intended to interview Ruland, who asked if he worked with Most.
``I said yes and he got angry with me and told me his mother lived in upstate New York and she thought we were bleep bleep bleep,’’ said Weitzman, who interviewed Mahorn instead.
Weitzman told an irritated Most what happened and Most began his broadcast with the remark, `Oh, and Mrs. Ruland, if you are listening, you’d better turn off your radio because you’re not going to like what you’re going to hear.’
``I had been telling these kinds of stories for years to friends and family, and during the Pandemic my wife, Carol, suggested I write them down as a legacy for our two daughters, Alyssa and Jennifer,’’ said Weitzman, also an inductee to the Northeastern, Peabody High and Brookline High athletic halls of fame.
``As I got into it, it got to be a lot of fun reliving those times,’’ he added. ``My son-in-law recently wrote a book which self-published through Amazon and I asked him to walk me through the same process.’’
His wife is a former book editor and Weitzman was an English major in college and had taught English at Peabody High, skills that proved valuable during his year-long venture.
``There was no time pressure to get it done, but there was definitely a sense of accomplishment,’’ said Weitzman, 75, the first Northeastern player to be drafted by an NBA team.
``Everything was brand new to me then. We first trained at Red’s basketball camp for rookies and free agents at Camp Millbrook,’’ he recalled in our interview. ``We played twice a day and then we had to referee the campers’ games.’’
At Peabody High, utilizing the best of what his high school, college, and professional coaches taught him, Weitzman’s teams posted a 135–67 record and won several league titles.
After radio and TV stints for Celtics broadcasts, he was a Celtics scout for 15 years and had recommended the team draft Reggie Lewis, Rick Fox and Dee Brown. He subsequently scouted for several NBA teams and for Marty Blake’s NBA scouting service, sometimes enduring snowstorms while driving or on airplanes en route to college, NBA and minor pro basketball venues.
``Looking back, playing for the Celtics just that one season gave me confidence, I became more mature, and it sure got me used to traveling,’’ said Weitzman, who displays the photo of him and Russell taking their victory lap at the LA Forum in his office.
``I look at it every day,’’ he said, ``and it brings back a flood of memories.’’
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A longtime award-winning writer at the Boston Globe, Marvin Pave resides in Newton, Mass.
