RIP! I know this man, and he wasn’t a Knick! Always seemed like a nice, smart person.
No one said he was a Knick, or did I miss something?
I was on the freshman team that played against Russel and his USF teammates. (Freshmen were then not allowed to play varsity sports.) We lost by a point, and USF won thanks to the play of a 5’11” guard. Russel was a presence around the basket, as he was when he played ball at Maclymonds High in Oakland. Never much of a shooter, he made his rep when the next year he outplayed Cal-Berkeley center Bob McKean who was then being prepped for All-American. He finally came to the attention of eastern reporters when he played in Madison Square Garden in what I believe was then called the Winter Festival. He and KC Jones starred, and Tommy Heinsohn, who was then the East Coast star, was shaded by the USF team which went on to win the NCAA championship. Ironically, Russel, Jones and Heinsohn went on to star with the great Boston Celtics teams.