K.C. Jones

K.C. Jones Jr. (May 25, 1932 – December 25, 2020) was an American professional basketball player and coach, best known for his association with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association. He won 11 of his 12 NBA championships with the Celtics — eight as a player, two as an assistant coach, and two as a head coach. As a player, he is tied for third for the most NBA championships in a career, and he is one of three NBA players with an unsurpassed 8–0 record in NBA Finals series. He is one of eight players to achieve the basketball Triple Crown, and the only African-American coach other than Bill Russell to have won multiple NBA championships.

Jones was born in Taylor, Texas, the oldest of six children. The initials "K.C." were his given name, inherited from his father, a factory worker and cook who was himself named after the railroad engineer Casey Jones. When Jones was nine, his parents divorced and he moved to San Francisco, California, with his mother and two siblings, learning to play basketball on a patch of gravel.

Jones was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989.