William Felton Russell, February 12, 1934-July 31, 2022, widely considered the greatest of all time. The American basketball player and civil rights activist was the first outstanding defensive centre in the history of the NBA and one of the sport’s greatest icons. He won 11 NBA titles in the 13 seasons that he played with the Boston Celtics, and became the first African American coach of a modern major professional sports team in the US when he was named the player-coach of the Celtics in 1966.