Set in Stone?

On Wednesday, when it was announced that Boston was finally honoring the greatest winner in the history of team sports, Bill Russell, with a statue, the Joe Louis monument in Detroit came immediately to my mind.

That photo you see there is of Joe Louis’ fist.

Surrealist René Magritte would disagree with me. He’s probably right. Just as that link doesn’t take you to a pipe, that sculpture above is not Joe Louis’ fist. It’s sculptor Robert Graham’s interpretation of Louis’ fist.

It’s the most striking statue to ever honor an athlete. Many won’t agree with that. Many hate it. That’s understandable. The fist is an abstraction. If it’s not Louis’ fist in the literal sense, it’s not even close to being how people remember the heavyweight champ.

When you think of a statue for an athlete, you envision that athlete in action. Michael Jordan’s statue outside of the United Center is more like it. It’s as dynamic as the man himself with faceless defenders — faceless, because he did it to so many it’s hard to pick just one — getting blasted in MJ’s jetstream.

But many of them are rather pedestrian recreations of the athletes themselves. The Jerry West statue is nice, but this representation is sublime.

That’s why the Louis monument is striking. His legacy and his life were as abstract as the 24-foot, 8,000-pound bronze fist that hangs from a steel pyramid in downtown Detroit. Detroit Yes explains:

So great was Joe Louis that [it's] difficult to measure the historical contribution of this immense figure who, without a close second, is by far the greatest sports figure to ever arise from Detroit and assume center stage on the world theater. It was he who helped shatter the Nazi myth of racial superiority with his dramatic defeat of German champion Max Schmeling during the rise of Nazism. In doing so and then serving his country nobly in the segregated army of World War II, he laid bare the disgraceful hypocrisy that denied Afro American (sic) athletes access to the major leagues of American sport, not to mention all Afro Americans (sic) who were and are denied the basic birthrights of American citizenship.

He did this with his fists and determination. So it is fitting that he is honored with a place at the center of his hometown with an artwork as powerful and controversial as he was.

Russell, meanwhile, came along a generation after Louis, but was just as powerful and just as controversial as Louis was. Like Louis, Russell was a singular athlete. But unlike Louis, Russell was one of the more complex and intelligent men in American sports and he deserves a unique monument to his legacy. Better people, such as Paul Flannery (@pflanns) in Boston Magazine and President Obama have suggested as much.

The question is how to best represent Russell. The Boston Globe video has a couple of nifty computer renderings showing Russell blocking a shot, Russell in a suit and Russell sitting and talking to kids. Each would be a perfectly acceptable rendering of Russell. Of all these suggestions, a statue of Russell rejecting a shot would not only represent his brilliant, game-changing play on the court, but could symbolize his rejection of racism, prejudice and injustice throughout society, and often, directed toward him.

But when I think of what the “best” Russell statue would be, I keep going back to the Louis monument as inspiration. If people want to read about what Russell accomplished, they will be inscribed on the pedestal below. Yet if people want to know who Russell was, it will take more than a statue. That’s why Russell’s statue should be akin to the Louis monument: abstract and open to differing interpretations.

Imagine Russell’s forearms and hands rising from a gigantic block of solid stone, as if rising from the Earth, reaching for the basketball and of course, grabbing it.

(I would like to see it done just to hear Tommy Heinsohn’s reaction to it.)

It would be a stark contrast to most statues of athletes, including the Bobby Orr statue in front of TD Garden. That statue captures Orr at his apex, with him flying through the air after scoring the series-clinching goal against the St. Louis Blues in 1970. Of course, that’s how fans remember Orr. There is no other way.

But how do people remember Russell? Is there one moment in his career that defines him? Russell transcends mere moments and, although the NBA Finals MVP, an individual award, is named after him, no man in American sports history has better represented the concept of team.

Something as direct as a pair of hands around a basketball could be a perfect representation of Russell’s win-first philosophy. It could be, for some, difficult to understand, just as Russell was during his life. It probably won’t happen, though. People will want to see Russell’s goateed visage. Something as simple as Russell’s hands may be too abstract a manner to represent something as tangible as Russell’s athletic excellence.

But think of those hands. Those are the hands that led the University of San Francisco to a 60-game win streak and two NCAA titles. Those are the hands that held a gold medal at the ’56 Melbourne games. Those are the hands that held five NBA MVP awards. Those are the hands that started the famed Celtics fastbreak. Those are the hands that played in 11 Game 7s and never lost one. Those are the hands that don’t have enough fingers to hold all of his NBA championship rings. Those are the hands of the first African-American coach in a major North American sport. Those are the hands that expressed his feelings when words couldn’t after the Celtics improbably beat the Lakers in Game 7 in Los Angeles for Russell’s 11th and final title. Those are the hands that earned a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Those are some hands.

We don’t need to beatify Russell. He wasn’t perfect. After all, those were his hands that threw the pass that hit the guide wire over the hoop at the Boston Garden against the Philadelphia Warriors, that until John Havlicek stole the ball, put the Celtics seventh straight NBA title in jeopardy. Those were the hands, while coach and GM of the Sacremento Kings, that picked Pervis Ellison with the No. 1 overall pick in 1989. And those were the hands that for years famously refused to engage in the most basic interaction with fans, the signing of autographs.

There’s a reason for that. As Peter May points out, Russell and the city of Boston always had a tenuous relationship.

OK, we all think we know why it has taken this long. Russell never embraced the city of Boston when he played here — it was always “the Celtics” — and, from what we know, for pretty good reason. Boston was not a hospitable place for African-Americans in the 1950s and ’60s (or, as we would discover with court-ordered busing, in the ’70s, either). And God forbid that an African-American might be smart, outspoken, defiant and a great basketball player yet refused to sign autographs.

Vandals broke into Russell’s suburban Boston house, wrote racial epithets on the walls and left feces on his bed. Sports fans in Boston preferred the Bruins, who were pretty terrible while Russell was winning titles, or the inept Red Sox, who were the last team to integrate in Major League Baseball.

It’s not hard to understand why Russell kept many — opponents and the public alike — at arm’s length.

Yet the hands at the end of those arms helped shape modern American sports. Russell was outspoken, he was political, he was bright and he didn’t allow people to compromise or underestimate that intelligence just because he played basketball. A statue representing Russell’s hands isn’t as much about what Russell brought to his teammates, to Boston and to the public at large, but it’s also about what we as fans bring to Russell and to our sports heroes. How do we think of them? What does they represent? How did they achieve it? Why is it important?

Bill Russell sculpted one of the more extraordinary, American lives with those hands. It’s well past time we reach out and honor them.