Basketball legend Bill Russell, who won state championships for his Oakland high school and collegiate championships at University of San Francisco before winning the most NBA titles in the league’s history, died Sunday at the age of 88.

Russell’s 11 NBA championships with the Boston Celtics between 1957 and 1969 remains the all-time record and the league has since named the NBA Finals MVP award after him, but it was his time in the Bay Area where his storied basketball career first started, winning two California state championships with McClymonds High School in Oakland and then two NCAA championships with USF in 1955 and 1956.

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Dan McMenamin is the managing editor at Bay City News, directing daily news coverage of the 12-county greater Bay Area. He has worked for BCN since 2008 and has been managing editor since 2014 after previously serving as BCN’s San Francisco bureau reporter. A UC Davis graduate, he came to BCN after working for a newspaper and nonprofit in the Davis area. He handles staffing, including coaching of our interns, day-to-day coverage decisions and management of the newswire.