K. C. Jones (May 25, 1932 – December 25, 2020) was an American professional basketball player and coach. He is best known for his association with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA), with whom he won 11 of his 12 NBA championships (eight as a player, one as an assistant coach, and two as a head coach). As a player, he is tied for third for most NBA championships in a career, and is one of three NBA players with an 8–0 record in NBA Finals series. He is the only African-American coach other than Bill Russell to have won multiple NBA championships. Jones was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989. Early life Jones was born in Taylor, Texas, as the oldest of six children. The initials "K. C." were his given name; he inherited the same name as his father, a factory worker and cook, who himself was named after the fabled railroad engineer Casey Jones. When Jones was aged nine, his parents divorced and he moved to San Francisco, California, with his mother and two siblings. He learned to play basketball on a patch of gravel. Jones attended Commerce High School in San Francisco where he played basketball and football. Playing career Jones played college basketball at the University of San Francisco and, along with Bill Russell, guided the Dons to NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956. During their time with the Dons, Russell and Jones led the team to a then-record 55-game win streak (including an undefeated 29–0 record during the 1955–56 season) and helped pioneer a play that later became known as the alley-oop. Jones also played with Russell on the United States national team which won the gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, while defeating their opponents by an unsurpassed average margin of 53.5 points per game. After completing college and joining the NBA, Jones considered a career as an NFL player, even trying out for a team. However, he failed to make the cut. During his playing days, he was known as a tenacious defender. Jones spent all of his nine seasons in the NBA with the Boston Celtics, being part of eight championship teams from 1959 to 1966, retiring after the Celtics' loss to the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1967 Eastern Division Finals. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball