Within the mid Nineteen Eighties, farmers all through the U.S. have been being squeezed between excessive rates of interest on working loans and low costs for commodities; missing a ample authorities security web, over 300,000 farmers defaulted on loans throughout this decade and much more farmers discovered themselves struggling to interrupt even.
Clarence Willcome was one such farmer. He owned a dairy farm close to Birnhamwood, a small city between Wausau and Inexperienced Bay in northern Wisconsin. The 59-year-old father of 13 was a two-time coronary heart assault survivor with a pacemaker and a pile of debt.
In April 1986, he wrote a letter to a man who grew up on a farm asking him for recommendation.
By the point Don Nelson bought round to replying to the letter, his Bucks had been swept by the Boston Celtics within the Jap Convention Finals. The workforce, broadly acknowledged as top-of-the-line in NBA historical past, was on its option to a championship. Nelson would spend his summer season doing one thing that was, maybe, extra important than profitable a title.
After shedding recreation 4 in opposition to the Celtics, Nelson advised reporters, “I’m not feeling excellent proper now, but I’m not shedding my house or going bankrupt and having to begin over with my life.”
He pledged his share of the Milwaukee Bucks’ playoff bonus to Clarence Willcome, and satisfied Herb Kohl, then the proprietor of the Bucks, in addition to Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing, to kick in and assist as nicely.
However this was only the start.
Having placed on a couple of kilos since his enjoying days, Nelson went on a weight-reduction plan and invited donations for every pound he misplaced.
He additionally took off on a 250-mile jaunt by means of Wisconsin in August of that yr, driving a tractor as a part of a marketing campaign to boost funds and consciousness to help farmers.
It was a colossal give-back from a man who positively knew hardship rising up.
Don Nelson was born on Could 15, 1940, in Muskegon, Michigan. When he was two years outdated, his dad and mom moved to Grant, Michigan, the place his father tried his hand working a maple syrup farm. Two years later, the household packed up and relocated once more, this time to his grandparents’ farm exterior Sherrard, Illinois.
His first expertise enjoying basketball got here there. As occurred on farm after farm within the Midwest in that period, Nelson realized to play on filth, taking pictures at a makeshift hoop nailed to an outbuilding. In his case, it was a spokeless bicycle rim connected to a rooster coop.
Nelson began faculty in a one-room schoolhouse with seven different college students, three of them being his sisters, and all taught by an 18-year-old lady contemporary out of highschool. It was a college that Nelson often attended barefoot.
Don had a rocky relationship together with his father, who continuously lectured him, however his mom doted on him; in her eyes, in line with Sharon, “the solar rose and set on Don.” “He’s bought his mom’s coronary heart,” his oldest daughter would later comment, “very tender and affectionate.”
Simply earlier than Don began seventh grade, his grandparents misplaced their farm.
The household relocated to Rock Island, Illinois, and Nelson started enjoying aggressive basketball, “I went out for my seventh-grade workforce and bought hooked on basketball.”
The Nelsons lived on the town, and Don used to cease at varied areas on the stroll to highschool within the morning and shoot hoops. His afternoons have been spent on the YMCA doing the identical.
He grew to an appropriate top for the sport, topping out at 6’-6” and enjoying middle for the Rock Island Islanders.
Nelson jumped to the varsity squad as a sophomore, and was a starter by the point his junior yr rolled round. He made First Staff All-State as a senior. Throughout Nelson’s two years as a starter, the Islanders racked up a 47-7 document, whereas Nelson put up extremely gaudy numbers on condition that he was enjoying a 32-minute recreation with no shot clock. As a senior he averaged higher than 21 factors per recreation and set a college scoring document. There have been opponents and events in his senior yr the place he was triple-teamed in an effort to sluggish him down.
Regardless of these numbers, Nelson was not a sizzling recruit. The one actual curiosity in his providers got here from the College of Iowa, and his father thought that he could be higher served working as a watch repairman, a thought that amused Don’s first spouse, Sharon: “Can’t you see Large Don sitting there with these little glasses, fixing watches?”
Bucky O’Connor was the coach on the College of Iowa, and he’d been recruiting Don. Bucky had an eye fixed for expertise, and was contemporary off teaching the Hawkeyes to a pair of Ultimate 4 appearances (1955, 1956). Nelson signed a letter of intent to play for the workforce. Then, O’Connor was killed tragically in a automotive accident in April of 1958.
Bucky’s substitute was Milton “Scharm” Schuerman, who had graduated from Rock Island in 1952, and who had simply traded his basketball jersey for the clipboard of an assistant coach the earlier fall. The dying of O’Connor made him head coach of a Large Ten squad when he was simply 24 years outdated.
As a sophomore (freshmen have been ineligible to play school basketball in these days), Nelson averaged a double-double, toting up 15.8 factors and a fair ten rebounds per recreation. In his junior and senior years, he averaged 23.8 factors per recreation. His rebounds per recreation jumped yearly, going from ten as a sophomore to 10.6 as a junior after which 11.9 as a senior. He left this system as the varsity’s all-time scoring chief.
As soon as once more, Nelson’s numbers didn’t entice that a lot curiosity from the following degree of basketball. He had deliberate on turning into an assistant coach with Iowa, however the Chicago Zephyrs had expressed an curiosity in him, and as Nelson later recalled, “I figured I might at all times fall again on teaching if a enjoying profession didn’t work out.”
He was picked within the third spherical of the 1962 draft by the Chicago Zephyrs. He spent a yr in Chicago, the place he averaged a good 17 minutes as a rookie, however the workforce didn’t see a lot of a future in both him or Chicago.
They decamped for Baltimore and have become the Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) and Nelson was picked up by the Los Angeles Lakers.
Nelson spent a yr and a half enjoying for Fred Schaus’ squad, however once more, the workforce didn’t see a whole lot of worth in what Nelson dropped at the desk both, and he discovered himself unemployed as soon as extra when 1965 rolled round.
Don was 25, hadn’t completed his diploma necessities on the College of Iowa, and his future appeared to be significantly dim. The one work he’d completed aside from basketball as much as that time was guide labor.
By then, Nelson was a household man—he and spouse Sharon had welcomed their first daughter, Julie, into the world in 1961, adopted, in speedy succession, by a son, Donnie in 1962, and one other daughter, Chris in 1963. A fourth little one, Katie, joined the household in 1967.
In 1965, the Lakers had simply misplaced to the Celtics within the Finals, and a participant who was apparently not adequate to go well with up for the shedding workforce had caught the attention of the profitable workforce’s coach.
Whereas Crimson had a well-deserved status for being astute at each drafting and buying and selling, his capability to acknowledge expertise wherever he discovered it included choosing up guys off waivers, and none of those castoffs turned out higher than Nelson.
With Havlicek working his means in the direction of a beginning function, the workforce would quickly be in want of a great sixth man, and Nelson was Crimson’s goal to fit into the function that he had pioneered with Frank Ramsey and expanded with Hondo.
Crimson provided Don a one-year, $11,000 contract, which was $4,000 lower than his rookie deal; Don swallowed his delight, took the deal, and spent the following eleven seasons sporting inexperienced and white. It wasn’t a foul profession for a man who retained a modest view of his on-court talents: “I needed to work on a regular basis, do all the things further I might,” Nelson would recall, including, “I used to be simply common.”
The Celtics confronted off in opposition to Nellie’s former workforce within the Finals thrice within the subsequent 4 years.
Boston prevailed all thrice.
Down three video games to 2 within the 1969 Finals, Nelson scored 41 factors throughout two must-win video games, almost double his season common. His last two factors got here with a minute and a half to go within the fourth quarter of Recreation 7. The Celtics have been clinging to a 103-102 lead when Nelson’s shot bounced up off the again of the rim passing excessive above the backboard earlier than dropping cleanly by means of the web, narrowly beating the shot clock and stopping an 8-0 Los Angeles run. “I shot it so poorly that it hit the again of the rim and it went means up within the air, and it got here down and went straight by means of the basket,” Nelson would later recall. “I simply occurred to be in the appropriate place on the proper time.”
Within the early years of the Nineteen Seventies, the Celtics needed to rebuild their squad—among the many main contributors to the Sixties dynasty, solely Nelson and Havlicek carried the torch on into the Nineteen Seventies.
Nonetheless, Auerbach’s shrewd drafting and buying and selling introduced the Celtics again into competition by 1973, once they misplaced a intently contested Jap Convention Finals to the eventual champion Knicks. The next yr, the Celtics would win all of it. Coached by Tommy Heinsohn, the Celtics confronted the Milwaukee Bucks within the Finals, and Nelson performed a key function in defending Kareem, regardless of about an eight inch top differential between the 2 gamers. Heinsohn’s technique of double- and triple-teaming Kareem within the decisive recreation didn’t do a lot to decelerate the Bucks’ middle, but it surely did lighten the load on Dave Cowens sufficient that he was in a position to outscore Kareem 28-26, because the Celtics secured their twelfth championship general and their first of the post-Russell period.
Don performed two extra seasons with Boston, going out a champion with the 1976 squad that defeated the Phoenix Suns in six video games.
After retiring, Nelson had a household assembly in Moline, Illinois at a Maid-Ceremony restaurant—a small Midwestern chain specializing in unfastened meat sandwiches and fried rooster. His son Donnie recalled that his father introduced the household with three choices. He might promote vehicles, grow to be a referee, or take a job as Larry Costello’s assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks.
In keeping with Donnie, the vote got here down 5-0 in favor of the assistant teaching gig.
Though he had spent only a yr enjoying for Auerbach, he referred to as that yr “a grasp class.”
“I realized all the things that I knew about teaching from Crimson,” Don would say years later. “I principally adopted what he imparted.”
Along with his yr as a participant underneath Crimson, Nelson cultivated an in depth friendship with the coach, benefiting from each alternative he had to absorb Auerbach’s data of the sport—and his capability to deal with gamers.
Eighteen video games into his first season as an assistant coach, Larry Costello was fired and he was promoted to the top coach task.
Don would coach the Bucks from 1976 to 1988, turning into the franchise’s winningest coach, securing eight consecutive playoff appearances, seven straight Central Division titles, and 6 consecutive 50 recreation profitable seasons. Regardless of these common season accomplishments, Nelson’s groups failed to attain the very best degree of success within the playoffs, though a good bit of that may be attributed to the general power of the Jap Convention. On 4 events the Bucks have been eradicated by the eventual league champs. Solely as soon as was Nelson in a position to defeat his mentor’s workforce, and that was when the Celtics have been in almost open revolt in opposition to their very own coach, Invoice Fitch.
Nonetheless, Nelson reduce a novel and memorable determine as a head coach.
At a time when the casual gown code for coaches was a bit extra strict than it’s as of late, Nelson waged a small marketing campaign of protest by sporting tennis footwear—generally held along with tape—and ties that appeared like fish.
When the Bucks felt it was time to maneuver on from Nelson, he rapidly discovered a spot in California, teaching the Golden State Warriors.
Nelson introduced a run-and-gun model of offense to the Bay Space, together with his “Run TMC” squad of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin bringing a measure of success to a franchise that had been mired within the Western Convention doldrums for the previous decade. Earlier than Nellie arrived, the Warriors had completed above .500 precisely as soon as in ten years; Don bested .500 in yr one, and recorded a pair of 50-win seasons whereas coping with an injury-prone workforce. Greater than that, although, he introduced pleasure again to the followers. “The fast-paced play was so enjoyable to look at, and there have been so many entertaining headstrains between video games, that I don’t have memories of a single defeat,” wrote San Francisco Chronicle columnist Peter Hartlaub in a tribute to the coach.
In 1991, the San Antonio Spurs misplaced to the Golden State Warriors within the first spherical of the playoffs. Simply over midway by means of the next season, the Spurs fired head coach Larry Brown, and on the finish of the season, his teaching workers was additionally dismissed.
However, in the identical means that Auerbach had seen one thing in Nelson that the Lakers neglected, Don noticed one thing in one in all Brown’s assistants that Spurs GM Bob Bass had missed.
He leaped on the likelihood to convey Gregg Popovich onto his workers.
The 2 would grow to be lifelong associates, even when Nelson did, on one memorable event, prank the seemingly unprankable Popovich.
Popovich had a substantial amount of admiration for Hank Egan, his coach on the Air Drive Academy, and when Nelson found that Egan was an beginner painter, he contacted him and provided to purchase one in all his work.
On discovering out that the portray was an meant reward for Pop, his former coach pointedly refused to simply accept any cash for it and despatched it to Nelson.
When Nellie bought the portray and had it framed, he took it to a Bay Space artwork gallery and had them put it on show with an inflated price ticket.
Nelson proceeded to take his workers to the gallery, and lured Pop over to the portray.
“He says, ‘That’s my Coach! That’s him!’” Don recalled, “So I mentioned, ‘Is that basically, Pop? I’d like to purchase it for you.’ We take it as much as the cashier and he says, ‘It’s $25,000.’ I mentioned, ‘Wrap it up and provides it to Pop.’”
“We get the image wrapped up and we’re strolling out. He begins crying. He’s actually bawling like a child.”
Don takes everybody out to dinner afterwards and divulges the prank; Pop’s solely response was, “God rattling it, Nellie; you bought me!”
In a while, when Nelson was spending a yr out of teaching and the Spurs had landed the primary decide within the draft, Don discovered that Popovich was contemplating a suggestion to commerce the decide that may grow to be Tim Duncan. His response to this rumor was an overt risk. “If Pop trades him, I’ll go down there and take a shotgun to his home!”
Nelson was later employed to teach the Mavs in 1997, spending eight years on the bench there, together with three 50-win seasons and a single 60-win season. Whereas there, he picked Dirk Nowitzki and bought Steve Nash within the 1998 draft; each would go on to win MVP awards, and Dirk could be instrumental in securing a championship for Dallas in 2011.
A last stint with the Warriors didn’t go significantly nicely on the bench; for the primary time Nelson’s workforce didn’t crack 50 wins throughout his tenure, however he did show influential on the Warriors’ future when he went to a 2009 NIT matchup between Davidson and St. Mary’s on Monday, March 23, in Moraga, California, within the hills east of San Francisco Bay. Davidson misplaced 68-80, however Nelson was struck by the play of their level guard, “I simply thought he was a star,” he remarked of Steph Curry. “I by no means dreamed we have been going to have the ability to get him.”
On draft night time, he made himself heard, urging rookie GM Larry Riley to take a danger and choose Curry with the seventh general decide within the draft.
Throughout his last yr as a head coach, in 2010, Nelson secured the NBA document for many wins, hitting 1,333 and bumping Lenny Wilkens out of the highest spot within the 78th recreation of the season, a contest at Minnesota. Don went on to retire with 1,335 wins—a document that may ultimately be damaged by his pal and protégé, Gregg Popovich, in March of 2022.
As a coach in an period dominated by facilities, Nelson steadily constructed profitable groups by going small and exploiting mismatches by operating the court docket, one thing he realized from Auerbach, “Crimson used to play the smalls in opposition to the bigs in observe to get everybody fired up. After we performed full court docket video games, the bigs by no means gained. They have been ineffective as a result of they couldn’t deal with the basketball, and that gave the smalls a bonus.”
“All I did was use a small lineup with a workforce that didn’t have excellent huge males, and I used to be very profitable with it.”
Nellie downplayed his personal contributions to the sport, “Over time I added a couple of of my very own wrinkles.”
A kind of wrinkles, and one which has been extremely influential, is the ‘level ahead.’
By inverting the everyday ballhandling duties, Nelson’s groups created the mismatches he liked by pulling defenders into elements of the court docket and assignments that they have been decidedly uncomfortable with. Right this moment, when Jayson Tatum brings the ball up court docket after a basket, he’s filling a task that Don Nelson virtually invented.
Naturally, in a 31-year teaching profession, there have been a pair what-ifs. After the Celtics misplaced to the Bucks within the 1983 playoffs, with the workforce in want of a brand new coach, Crimson approached Nellie and provided him the highest spot in Boston. Don turned down his pal, “I felt a loyalty to the Milwaukee Bucks as a result of they’d been so good to me,” Nelson mentioned. In reflection, he added, “perhaps I ought to have been extra prepared to make that break and pursue the Celtics job.”
Eleven years later, Gregg Popovich was employed because the Spurs’ normal supervisor. He wasn’t significantly happy with the workforce’s present head coach, Bob Hill, so he reached out to Don and provided him the teaching task. Nelson was greater than prepared to simply accept the job, as he was having difficulties teaching Chris Webber, and he was nicely conscious that within the NBA coaches are sometimes way more expendable than gifted gamers are. Nonetheless, the Warriors refused to barter a take care of Nelson and the Spurs that may’ve gotten him the San Antonio gig.
There have been perks as nicely.
Nelson’s son Donnie grew to be 6’-4” and was a fairly good basketball participant himself. After attending Wheaton Faculty, close to the household house in Milwaukee, Donnie was employed by the San Francisco Warriors as an assistant coach. The next yr, the Warriors employed his dad as their head coach, and the 2 would work collectively all through Nellie’s tenures at Golden State and later in Dallas. Their years collectively on the bench helped make up for time misplaced throughout Don’s enjoying profession when he was steadily gone on highway journeys, and when the calls for of teaching left him little time for his household. These years additionally helped restore a relationship that was broken when Don left the household and divorced his first spouse, Sharon in 1982. “It gave me a possibility to get to know him at a special degree and actually achieve a ton of respect for him away from the family,” Donnie advised the Dallas Morning Information, reflecting on his father’s “ardour, integrity, and honesty.”
After retiring from the sport, Don moved to Maui, “I understand how far I’ve come from being a hog farmer. I’ve come a protracted, good distance from being some nation child. I bought within the quick lane, and I’ve stayed there a very long time,” he as soon as mentioned.
And but, because it turned out, in some methods, Nelson didn’t come that far in any case.
As a baby, Nelson had a pet pig, Butchie, that the household butchered whereas he was at college sooner or later—a lesson, little doubt, within the generally harsh nature of life on a farm.
However Nelson retained an affection for pigs that carried over into maturity. Whereas he was on his first stint at Golden State he ran afoul of Alameda metropolis laws when it was discovered that he was preserving a potbellied pig as a pet.
He additionally returned to farming as a retiree—though he ended up elevating a crop which may not have been authorized of by his dad and mom or grandparents.
Nelson’s second profession, after basketball, was rising medicinal marijuana in Hawaii.
Really, Don’s interest farm of twenty-two acres grows flowers and low in addition to pot, however pot is undoubtedly what grabs the headlines—particularly since Nellie admitted to smoking the stuff. He additionally hybridized two strains of hashish, producing a variant dubbed “Nellie Kush.” He even went as far as to construct a guesthouse on his property out of ‘hempcrete,’ a concrete which makes use of embedded hemp fibers for reinforcement.
Nellie claimed that he didn’t smoke pot as a coach or participant, however a minimum of one account on the market means that he was not unwilling to interact in a celebratory puff or two.
Nelson had his quantity retired by the Celtics in 1978, and was elected to the Basketball Corridor of Fame as a coach in 2012. He was named the NBA’s Coach of the Yr thrice (1982/83, 1984/85, and 1991/92). In truth, nobody has gained the award greater than Nellie, though Pat Riley and Gregg Popovich have additionally gained the award thrice.
“I spent 50 years within the NBA,” Don as soon as remarked, “Are you able to think about doing one thing that you simply love essentially the most in the whole world and doing it in your total life?”
Nelson moved from Maui again to Dallas earlier this yr. He handed away on August 9, 2026.
Reflecting on his profession as a coach, Nellie as soon as advised Michael D. McClellan, “I’ve no complaints with the best way issues labored out,” including, “For those who write my epitaph, I might be very glad when you simply mentioned that Don Nelson was a great man and a fairly good coach.”
