There is another metropolitan area that helped shape Russell, and this past week, a long-frayed relationship with the University of San Francisco began an overdue emotional repair job. While the Patriots may have departed the Bay Area without the Super Bowl victory they’d hoped to leave behind, the work of USF alum Tara August, who manages Russell’s legacy, Russell’s widow, Jeannine, and USF leaders eager to honor their most famous basketball alum, the days since have made sure Russell’s imprint on San Francisco and Oakland, where he grew up and attended high school, will last forever.
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Groundbreaker. Icon. Legend. Don.
Join @usfdonsmbb , Bill Cartwright and the rest of the USF community TONIGHT as we celebrate and honor the life and legacy of No. 6️⃣ at the Inaugural Bill Russell Impact Classic!
✨Unveiling of “The Bill Russell Way” – 4:45 pm
🏀Tipoff vs.… pic.twitter.com/koXKRGRRPU
— San Francisco Athletics (@DonsAthletics) February 12, 2026
A memorial initiative that has been in the works for years began with Thursday night’s men’s basketball game, played on what would have been Russell’s 92nd birthday. This newly named “Bill Russell Impact Classic” will become an annual entry on the schedule and proceeds benefit the newly created Bill Russell Emergency Relief Fund, which offers short-term financial support for undergraduate students experiencing economic instability. In addition, there are new public displays installed on campus inspired by Russell’s achievements in athletics and leadership in social justice, and the main campus thoroughfare is now known as The Bill Russell Way.
“I think Bill would think this is OK,” Jeannine Russell said in a conversation before boarding a plane to Thursday’s game.
Russell’s years at USF were unequivocally successful; he had one of the greatest collegiate careers of all time. A two-time All American, he guided the Dons to back-to-back national championships in 1955 and ’56. A defensive mastermind, he helped them to a 60-game winning streak from 1954-56, was named the NCAA Tournament most outstanding player in 1955 and the West Coast Conference player of the year in 1956, and left school to win Olympic gold in Australia that summer. That was before he went on to the Celtics as the No. 2 overall pick and won 11 titles with 12 All-Star selections, 5 MVP awards, and 11 All-NBA selections.
But the look back at his college years wasn’t entirely joyful, with lingering disappointment over a desire to return and finish his degree only to be told he would have to pay outstanding tuition first. That created a rift, which only amplified some of the harder times Russell and his fellow Black teammates experienced battling racism while in college. As the school’s official website remembers, USF coach Phil Woolpert had made a ground-breaking decision to go against what was an accepted “gentlemen’s agreement” not to play more than two Black players at one time, starting Russell, K.C. Jones, and Hal Perry alongside Carl Boldt and Mike Farmer.
Sadly, even as the integration of college sports inched forward, too many hearts and minds were resistant to change, and Russell, Jones, and Perry endured racist jeers from opposing crowds and prejudice from road hotels, which wouldn’t allow the Black players to stay. The wounds were deep and long lasting, there until Russell died in 2022 at 88 years old.
“Bill obviously had strict guidelines of how he lived, and [USF] never really came to him with a solution,” Jeannine Russell said. “I had told Tara, ‘If we can come up with something that I think Bill would be proud of, possibly we can do that.’ She had mentioned when she was at USF, she had wished there was a fund the kids could go to, so that’s how we came up with the relief fund, where students, not just athletes, can all go and be able to get assistance. The school has just really gone above and beyond and been a great partner, and they’re just doing all the right things.”
On Thursday, Jeannine Russell was on hand to accept her late husband’s honorary doctoral degree, an especially poignant moment.
“He didn’t even get a scholarship, he got a scholarship thanks to his coach,” she said. “I think he was four credits short. He couldn’t afford the books. This is what the emergency relief fund is for. The fact that they’re doing that, that the game proceeds will go to the fund and also the Bill Russell 6 Foundation.”
As Jeannine Russell acknowledged, Bill Russell didn’t put much stock in legacy, believing his accomplishments spoke for themselves and stood the test of time regardless of what anyone else did or thought. But his pedigree for winning is astonishing. A championship in high school, two straight in college, a gold medal, 11 more titles in Boston. Yet it’s so important to remember that his profile for change is just as impressive, both in Boston, and back at home.
“Bill is so celebrated and honored in Boston,” August said, “that you say his name and he’s so revered that people salute or curtsy. Oakland is the city that made him, he loved the Bay Area and was so proud to be from here. We’re proud to honor that.”
The Patriots lose Super Bowl LX to the Seahawks in a beatdown by the Bay. Boston Globe Sports Report is live from San Francisco to break everything down.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.