It is beyond parody now – as the weeks of 2020 go by, something truly significant happens and you shake your head and say to yourself that 2020 is some kind of year. We all thought 2020 had such potential – it is a really cool number after all – and then it actually happened.
Today we all received the sad news that Tommy Heinsohn passed away. A Celtics legend as a player and a coach and then as a broadcaster, Tommy has been a local fixture and legend for over 60 years. Beyond his basketball acumen, many may not know that Tommy was an accomplished artist. Our President Ray Ciccolo had the honor about 10 years ago to host a discussion with Tommy at the Arsenal Center for the Arts. Joined by the sportswriter Leigh Montville, they discussed the crafts of art and writing and how they related and intersected with sports. For a local kid from Cambridge, Ray couldn’t have been happier to be on that stage!
You go through life and you hope that you are really good at one thing, whatever that is. Tommy Heinsohn was really good at FOUR things: a Hall of Fame player who won 8 championships, a coach who was good enough to win 2 more, a broadcaster for over 30 years whose partnership with Mike Gorman was an utter delight, and an artist who could take the beauty of this world and translate it onto canvas. Tommy was a true renaissance man.
RIP Tommy – 2021 can’t get here soon enough…