When I read that Celtics legend Don Nelson died last week, I had two instant flashbacks: The greatest carom in Boston Celtics history, and the fish tie. I’ll get to the greatest carom in a moment. First, let me tell you about the fish tie.
In 1986, the NBA implemented a dress code for coaches, forcing them to wear a tie while pacing the sideline during games. For some, dressing up came naturally; Pat Riley of the Los Angeles Lakers looked comfortable in expensive suits and neatly-knotted silk ties. Chuck Daly of the Detroit Pistons was another who wore nice suits well.
For Don Nelson, neckties were not part of his usual uniform. He grew up on his grandfather’s farm in rural Illinois; as a grade-school child in the 1940s he walked to a one-room school house. Later, he attended the University of Iowa.
In 1986 Nelson was coaching the Milwaukee Bucks. I was covering the Celtics for The Providence Journal. “Nellie,” as most players, coaches, fans and media types called him, had won five NBA championships from 1966 to 1976 with the Celtics. Boston fans always regarded him as one of their own, even after he left town to coach the Bucks, Golden State Warriors (twice), New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks before retiring in 2010.
Nellie followed the dress code, but his fashions weren't quite out of the pages of Esquire or GQ. Remember, he was a farm boy. When fish ties became the rage in Wisconsin in 1986, Nellie became a big fan — and a walking, coaching advertisement — for the polyester pisces.
I remember sitting with him in the loge seats at the old Boston Garden before the 1986 Eastern Conference Finals. We talked a little basketball and a bit more about the cool fish tie he was wearing. This was not your typical fancy Ferragamo featuring schools of tiny fish. And it was not a smart navy blue Vineyard Vines tie with sharks (brothers Shep and Ian Murray didn’t sell their first ties from their boat or Jeep on Martha’s Vineyard until 1998).
No, the Ralph Marlin fish ties of 1986 were the likeness of an actual fish from head-to-tail. Chinook salmon, tuna, brown trout, rainbow trout, northern pike, walleye, barracuda and muskies were a few of the colorful choices. Manufactured by Ralph Marlin & Company of Milwaukee, the ties were made of polyester because the material withstood heat and pressure, and absorbed ink better than silk.
Mark Abramoff and Jim Stratte, best friends from high school then in their early 30s, thought of the tie idea while hanging out at a sports bar in Milwaukee. Blaine Heilman, a classmate, drew a prototype on paper, pinned it to his tie, and wore it to a Bucks game. The rest, as they say, is history.
The ties, designed as a full-length fish, took off like a spring run of striped bass in Narragansett Bay. Originally intended for tackle shops and the 70 million fishermen in the U.S. at the time, the ties also landed in boutiques and swank men’s shops across the land. Starting in May of 1986, Ralph Marlin was selling 5,000 a week. By the end of 1987, Marlin had sold 500,000.
Now, about Ralph Marlin. Unlike Ralph Lauren, this Ralph came from the imagination of the three partners. In a July 1, 1986 feature, The New York Times described Marlin as “a mythical charter boat fisherman from Rosa Rita, Mexico, who, wore real fish around his neck for good luck.’’
The Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post also went fishing for Ralph Marlin tie features. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has one in its collection. You can find the ties today, worn, of course, on eBay and Etsy for as much as $50.
When the 1986 playoff series shifted to Milwaukee, I bought a Ralph Marlin fish tie there for about $20. The Celtics swept the Bucks, and I wore that salmon tie during the 1986 Finals against the Houston Rockets. I wish I knew where it is today.
Now, about that greatest carom in Celtics history. Nelson was a third-team All-America at Iowa and the 17th pick in the 1962 NBA draft. He lasted one season with the Chicago Zephyrs and was waived when the franchise moved to Baltimore. The Lakers claimed him, and he played for them for two seasons, mostly riding the bench in 1965, when they lost to the Celtics in the NBA Finals.
Nelson became a free agent, and the Celtics signed him for $1,000. Red Auerbach, ever the basketball genius, used him as the sixth man, a role John Havlicek had filled. Nellie played 75 games in 1966, and helped the Celtics win their ninth championship in 10 years. He was a key contributor on championship teams in 1968 and 1969 under player-coach Bill Russell, as well as in 1974 and 1976 under former Celtics star Tommy Heinsohn.
In the 1969 NBA Finals, the Celtics and Lakers battled to Game 7 at the Forum in Los Angeles. Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke, anticipating a championship, had thousands of balloons suspended from the rafters. His team had Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West. Johnny Egan from Providence College was the point guard. The Celtics were old and finished fourth in the East. No fourth seed had ever reached the finals. But, somehow, Russell, Bailey Howell, Sam Jones and Satch Sanders advanced all the way to the last game.
With 1:33 left in that epic game, the Celtics had a 103-102 lead… And the ball. L.A.’s Keith Erickson poked it away from Havlicek to the right of the lane, but directly to Nelson at the free throw line. Without hesitating — the 24-second clock was winding down — Nelson launched a one-handed jump shot from 15 feet. The ball hit the back of the rim, caromed straight up — higher than the top of the backboard — and then dropped through the net.
The Celtics won 108-106. The balloons remained in the rafters. That carom ensured Nellie a spot on the long list of Celtics heroes.
He retired after the 1976 championship season and began his second career as a coach and general manager. He eschewed traditional thinking, devised the point forward offense, deployed his center near mid-court on offense and drove opposing coaches nuts with his unconventional schemes dubbed “Nellie Ball.” He finished with a coaching record of 1,335-1,063, the most wins in NBA history until San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich surpassed him in 2022.
Nellie was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. The Celtics had retired his number, 19, in 1978.
Don Nelson was 86 when he died at Frisco, Texas. The Dallas Morning News reported that he had suffered a stroke three weeks earlier and was in hospice care.
