Boston sports legend left mark in Hartford, too

The first time John Gallagher met K.C. Jones, Jones walked up to Gallagher, then an assistant for the Hartford men’s basketball team, and introduced himself.

“He said, ‘Hey, how you doing? I’m K.C. Jones,’ ” Gallagher, now the head coach at Hartford, recalled Thursday.

He was still incredulous, after all these years.

“First off — everybody knows K.C. Jones,” Gallagher said. “If you’re a basketball fan and you grew up in the ‘70s, you know he’s the greatest winner — him and [Bill] Russell are the greatest winners of all time.

“I said to [then head coach] Dan Leibovitz, I said, ‘Dan. The guy introduced himself to me like he was the mailman.’ The humility. The grace. The dignity. What we need in our society today is more K.C. Joneses.”

Much has been written about Jones, who died on Christmas Day at age 88, and his impact with the Celtics as a player and a coach, his 12 NBA titles, two NCAA titles and Olympic gold medal.

But Jones also spent many years in the Hartford area, especially later in his life, and had an impact on the sports community here. After he retired from playing with the Celtics, he played for the Hartford Capitols, a team in the Eastern Professional Basketball League. After his NBA coaching career, he coached UConn stars Jen Rizzotti, Kara Wolters and Carla Berube for the New England Blizzard of the American Basketball League until the league folded due to bankruptcy in 1998.

A few years later, he worked in the University of Hartford athletic department, assisting