Bill Russell: National Visionary Leadership Project

Basketball season is upon us, and in the spirit of things I decided to look into oral histories having to do with the stories of famous coaches. Bill Russell was the first black head coach of any major sports team in the US. Under his reign, the Boston Celtics won 11 national titles. He is an inspiration to coaches everywhere and his oral history helps tell the story of how he became the man he is and what he had to overcome in order to be considered one of the greatest NBA players.

The project Russell's interview is from, the National Visionary Leadership Project, has some amazing names attached to it. I initially went to the site just for the Russell interview but I've found myself going through numerous oral histories because they're all so interesting and enlightening. I've never really been exposed to oral histories, and obviously an oral history on a basketball coach isn't going to be any help with my thesis on the transformation of the American family, but these are amazing resources that seem like they could be so useful for numerous other topics.

Various questions could be asked about oral histories and how they turn out. What questions shaped the interview and what questions were left out that could've enhanced the oral history? How does the video editor/interviewer decide which clips to include and which should be cut? Was Russell asked to just talk about his life/influences/whatever interested him? Or was he given more of a prompt or outline? I love that the interviewer and Russell seem to interact very well and it's not a formal, serious interview. They both seem to be enjoying themselves and having a good time, which makes the viewer more interested also.