On logo stomps, legacies, and divergent publics in Boston Celtics fandom

Before Glen “Big Baby” Davis stirred the pot of the Kyrie Irving logo stomp, another voice in the wider Boston Celtics community weighed in, yet nearly escaped notice despite being related to the person who made the logo at the center of Davis’ controversial words.

That person of course would be Julie Auerbach Flieger, granddaughter of the legendary coach and team president behind most of Boston’s 17 titles — and the niece of Zang Auerbach, who created the logo in the 1950s. Auerbach Flieger responded to a recent post by Celtic great Cedric Maxwell asking why more people weren’t outraged by Irving’s end-of-game gesture, revealing it had been bothering her for some time.

“I’m so upset I haven’t even been able to post about it until now,” she began.

"My father was a Celtic most of his life and my uncle designed the logo," she added.

Yet, as Maxwell noted, many younger fans of the team and the league are not seeing things the same way. Why is that? https://twitter.com/TheCelticsWire/status/1404121416933548041?s=20

When it comes to the logo and what it represents, it all comes down to how symbols work in human culture, given the Celtics logo does not mean the same thing to all people -- nor all publics -- at all. For those with a tangible connection to the organization and its early days, the logo represents more than just the team on the court nowadays; it also represents a team that placed a premium on putting the best talent on its roster and in its front office. https://twitter.com/TheCelticsWire/status/1403864764854439941?s=20

In an era where many teams did not share that belief, it was one of several things that gave Boston an edge over competing franchises -- and a head of steam that made the organization (and that logo) legendary. Astute readers may have noticed that "publics" were referred to in the plural -- meaning distinct communities in an anthropological sense. Celtics and NBA fans are not a monolith, even if our love for a team allows our differences to melt away in part of what the magic of fandom can do for fleeting moments. https://twitter.com/TheCelticsWire/status/1404302605661229060?s=20

Emphasis on fleeting, however, because for all the trails blazed by Boston, a certain subset of fans still managed to be awful enough human beings to harass and harangue its star players. And not just in the golden era, but right up to the present. Even legends like Bill Russell needed to reconcile the various publics within Celtics fandom -- and society more generally -- using those ugly voices to drive him to even greater heights. https://twitter.com/TheCelticsWire/status/1404438534807867392?s=20

Symbols can have wildly different meanings to different publics and different people based on their very valid experiences with them. In recent years, the connection to the Celtics of old has wained in the public eye, with Auerbach's legacy being reduced to the symbolic with few tangible ties to the lives of the fans in the seats or perhaps in some cases even the players on the court. And those vocal, discriminatory fans have not gotten any quieter even if it is unfair to single out Boston as an exceptionally racist place in a country still deeply affected by those fissures in race relations. https://twitter.com/TheCelticsWire/status/1404483837237805060?s=20

It is absolutely a correct take to be offended by the actions of Irving, and also to not be, depending on which of those publics one lives in and what that logo means on a personal level. But it also isn't the ONLY take, and speaks to a need to re-connect to the values that made the Celtics special in the eyes of those with ties to what the greatness of the team was based on in the first place. Valuing people for what they bring to your organization, rather than their race, or creed, or gender. https://twitter.com/NotoriousOHM/status/1311466795472101376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1311467018751623168%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Farticles%2F2911486-adam-silver-on-lack-of-black-nba-head-coaches-i-know-we-can-do-better

It should go without saying that enjoying the physical injury of a person because of a petty symbolic gesture that may not have the same meaning for them as it did others is a classless move of its own. But so too should be the fetishization of symbols in place of the values on which their cache was built. Paying lip service to confronting systemic racism while contributing to it by recreating exactly the dynamic that has entrenched it across the NBA through internal promotion with no public search flies in the face of such values. https://twitter.com/TheCelticsWire/status/1404530230119784460

Now engaged with an appropriately thorough coaching search inclusive of not only a racially diverse field of candidates, Boston stands poised to be able to re-establish themselves not only as progressive by becoming one of a handful of teams in a majority Black league to have a Black head coach. They could also very well re-affirm the values that their legacy was founded on should they determine a woman is the best candidate for the job. This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook! [lawrence-related id=51980,51961,51959,51956] [listicle id=51948]

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