The Boston sports community and the Celtics in particular suffered a great loss Tuesday, when news broke that Tommy Heinsohn had passed away at age 86.
Among the many whose lives were touched by Heinsohn is WEEI’s Glenn Ordway, who shared some memories of his friend on Tuesday’s Ordway, Merloni and Fauria show.
“I can’t tell you how many conversations he and I have had about family, about kids, about stuff like that,” Ordway said of Heinsohn. “So to me, this is more than just losing a legend in this town. For me, it’s a friend who I spent a lot of time with over the years.”
Ordway began working Celtics radio broadcasts in the early 1980s alongside the legendary Johnny Most. He said Heinsohn, who was working on the Celtics’ television broadcasts, was a big help to him and helped ease some early tension between him and Most.
“Tommy Heinsohn was wonderful to me when I first started doing the Celtics,” Ordway said. “When I worked with the Celtics, I was working with Johnny Most. I was brought in because Johnny was having health issues. Tommy and Johnny were best friends. Johnny was extremely insecure, as most people would be if you’ve had that job for that long and you’re having health issues and you’ve got a younger person that’s tapping on your shoulder, even though I was basically just thrown into that position. Tommy was a great support system, and I think really helped bond that relationship with me and Johnny, and because of it Tommy and I became extremely good friends over the years.”
Heinsohn would ultimately work alongside Mike Gorman on Celtics TV broadcasts for nearly 40 years, right up to this past season. He became known and loved for his passion, pro-Celtics bias and frequent ripping of the officials.
Ordway remembers a time when Heinsohn wasn’t always like that, though -- when he worked on CBS’ national NBA broadcasts and actually called things down the middle.
“He is a legend. There is absolutely no question about it,” Ordway said. “You know what’s amazing to me, is if you go back and you watch some of the old video of Tommy when he was doing the CBS broadcasts -- he was the national broadcaster, he was the analyst on the No. 1 team. And the LA people hated him because he was a Boston Celtic, but he was fair in those broadcasts.
"And then of course you look at the transition of Tommy becoming the Celtics analyst on TV, and he adopted virtually everything that Johnny Most did his entire career. That’s what he did. It’s the good guys against the bad guys, and ‘I hate the officials.’ He did all of that and he adopted it. And obviously he knew the game inside and out.”