Good guy Jo Jo White dies
Ex-teammates remember Hall of Famer
Tommy Heinsohn heard about it on the radio as he drove home sick before last night’s game. Jo Jo White, a Celtics legend whom Heinsohn coached to NBA championships in 1974 and ‘76, passed away yesterday at 71 after a long battle with cancer.
The news was traveling quickly before the Celts’ overtime loss to New Orleans, though not as quickly as Jo Jo advanced the ball in the old barn that used to stand next door. Dave Cowens called and immediately went to the dressing room to inform PR man Jeff Twiss. The next thought was Heinsohn, and now I wished I’d let him know before putting it out on Twitter as I walked.
“He had a tumor on the brain, and he was losing weight,” Tommy told the Herald when reached by phone. “He had trouble moving around. It’s too bad. I never had much of a chance to talk to him after it happened.”
But that’s not how Heinsohn will choose to recall the Hall of Famer, seventime All-Star and MVP of the 1976 Finals.
“I remember Jo Jo in the triple overtime (against Phoenix), when he carried the team and played all of those minutes,” Heinsohn said of the storied 128-126 Game 6 triumph and White’s 33 points while playing 60 of the 63 minutes. “After it was over, he just sat on the floor and couldn’t get up.”
Given the news just before tipoff, Cedric Maxwell leaned against a table outside the press room.
“My heart right now is very heavy thinking about him and his family and his wife, Debbie,” said Max, who was going on the air as the Celts radio color commentator. “My rookie year, Jo Jo was in his ninth or 10th year in the league. I remember just looking over and going, ‘That’s Jo Jo White.’ It’s like, wow. And to hear that he’s passed away now is just really a . . . it’s going to be a tough day. It’s going to be tough to do this game tonight.”
As it turned out, he left during the first quarter.
“Jo Jo was my friend and a colleague, and I had so many laughs with him. And to think now that won’t happen anymore, that just really sets me back.”
After the game had begun, the Celtics released the following statement:
“We are terribly saddened by the passing of the great Jo Jo White. He was a champion and a gentleman; supremely talented and brilliant on the court, and endlessly gracious off of it. Jo Jo was a key member of two championship teams, an NBA Finals MVP, a gold medal-winning Olympian, and a Hall of Famer. His contributions to the team’s championship legacy may have only been surpassed by the deep and lasting impact that he had in the community. The thoughts and sympathies of the entire Celtics organization are with the White family.”
Cowens then spoke at greater length about his former roommate
“He was a good guy, a good family man. He always represented the Celtics well,” Cowens said. “And he had a style about his game. As much as Clyde Frazier and those guys, he was of that ilk where he always dressed nice. He was pretty smooth and debonair. But he played hard and he played a lot of minutes.
“I was thinking about it just a second ago. What Jo Jo was for us was really like an iron man. He played a lot of minutes. He was always in shape. Always.”
A check of the numbers revealed that White played in all 82 games for five straight seasons beginning in 1972-73. He averaged 39.8 minutes and 18.9 points per game in that span. The 6-foot-3 guard averaged 18.4 points and 5.1 assists in his 10 seasons with the C’s.
“The first day I got to the Celtics, he was in his second year,” Cowens said. “I went up to him and I said, ‘Hey, Jo, let me rebound for you.’ I wanted to find out how he shot, how his delivery was. He always had that thing where he’d get up to the top and then just as he started coming down he’d flick it. He had a little bit of a funny release, but man, could he shoot. If we needed to have a free throw at the end of the game, he was the guy we wanted. He’s the guy that hit the technical free throw against Phoenix in the triple overtime game. He was always the guy we wanted on the line at the end. He was money.
“And he was a hell of an athlete. He was a Marine.”
That and more. White was also drafted by the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Reds. In recent years, he worked for the Celtics as director of special projects.
Heinsohn remembers him taking on “special projects” as a player. In particular, there were the Celts’ battles against the Knicks.
“There was a real challenge with Walt Frazier,” Tommy said. “I liked to put (Don) Chaney on Frazier because of his size, and he would still score. But one day Jo Jo came up and said, ‘Let me play Frazier,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ But Jo Jo wanted to take it to him, and he did it.”
Said Cowens, “He was a tough competitor. He was tough.”
Back in the hallway, Maxwell shook his head.
“You’re talking about one of the most classy guys that I knew in this organization, a guy who could play the game, was well-dressed,” he said. “Everybody always talks about my clothing tastes, but my style, I kind of favored that after Jo Jo. When I first met him, he was just a dapper guy.
“And he was that one guy that I championed for a long time, saying that he should have been in the Hall of Fame before Dennis Rodman. No offense to Dennis Rodman, but Jo Jo White was one of the great ones.”
Last night the Celtics played under two championship banners that Jo Jo White helped secure and a third that carries his retired No. 10. He remains forever in the franchise pantheon.