Bob Cousy

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Cousy was the only son of poor French immigrants living in New York City. He grew up in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan's East Side, in the midst of the Great Depression. His father Joseph was a cab driver, who earned extra income by moonlighting. The elder Cousy was born in Belfort, France, and grew up in Alsace–Lorraine (then a disputed German territory), unwillingly serving in the Imperial German Army during World War I. Shortly after the war, his first wife died of pneumonia, leaving behind a young daughter. He married Juliette Corlet, a secretary and French teacher from Dijon. They lived on a potato farm in Lachapelle-sous-Rougemont before immigrating to the United States when Juliette was pregnant with Bob. At the time of the 1930 census, the family was renting an apartment in Astoria, Queens, for $50 per month. The younger Cousy spoke French for the first five years of his life, and started to speak English only after entering primary school. He spent his early days playing stickball in a multicultural environment, regularly playing with Black, Jewish and other ethnic minority children. These experiences ingrained him with a strong anti-racist sentiment, an attitude he prominently promoted during his professional career. When he was 12, his family moved to a rented house in St. Albans, Queens. That summer, the elder Cousy put a $500 down payment for a $4,500 house four blocks away. He rented out the bottom two floors of the three-story building to tenants to help make his mortgage payments on time. Cousy took up basketball at the age of 13 as a student at St. Pascal's elementary school, and was "immediately hooked". The following year, he entered Andrew Jackson High School in St Albans. His basketball success was not immediate, and in fact he was cut from the school team in his first year. Later that year, he joined the St. Albans Lindens of the Press League, a basketball league sponsored by the Long Island Press, where he began to develop his basketball skills and gained much-needed experience. The next year, however, he was again cut during the tryouts for the school basketball team. That same year, he fell out of a tree and broke his right hand. The injury forced him to play left-handed until his hand healed, making him effectively ambidextrous. In retrospect, he described this accident as "a fortunate event" and cited it as a factor in mak

In Their Own Story

During his junior year at Andrew Jackson High School, Cousy was cut from the team twice before finally making the varsity squad midway through the season. In that first game, he scored 28 points, proving his worth after failing a citizenship course earlier made him ineligible. His journey to the pros began in earnest when he accepted a scholarship from the College of the Holy Cross over Boston College, which lacked dormitories. At Holy Cross, Cousy faced limited playing time as a freshman but eventually found his rhythm. In the 1948 NCAA championship game against Oklahoma, while star George Kaftan scored 18 points to secure the 58–47 victory, Cousy played poorly, scoring only four points on 2-for-13 shooting. Despite this, Holy Cross became the first New England college to win the tournament, greeted by 10,000 cheering fans at Union Station in Worcester. This resilience and adaptability carried him into the NBA, where he led his team to six titles.

Reader's Guide

Making his high school varsity squad as a junior, Cousy went on to earn a scholarship to the College of the Holy Cross, where he led the Crusaders to berths in the 1948 NCAA Tournament and the 1950 NCAA Tournament, while winning NCAA All-American honors for three seasons. Cousy entered the 1950 NBA draft and was initially drafted by the Tri-Cities Blackhawks as the third overall pick in the first round, but after he refused to report he was picked up by Boston. Following his playing career with the Celtics he served as a college basketball coach and an NBA head coach for the Cincinnati Royals. Upon his election to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1971 the Celtics retired his No. 14 jersey and hung it in the rafters of the Garden. Cousy was named to the NBA 25th Anniversary Team in 1971, the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1981, the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996, and the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021 making him one of only four players that were selected to each of those teams. As of 2026 of those four he is one of only two who are still alive (the other being Bob Pettit) and the older of the two. He was also the first president of the National Basketball Players Association. On August 22, 2019, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump.

Did You Know?

• Cousy broke his right hand falling out of a tree at age 13, which forced him to play left-handed and made him effectively ambidextrous.
• He was cut from his high school basketball team twice before making the junior varsity squad.
• Cousy was the first NBA player to reach 4,000, 5,000, and 6,000 career assists.
• He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 22, 2019.