Every Saturday Night Live sports host, ranked
By Hunter Cooke
17. Bill Russell
The Boston Celtics legend hopped on the show in Season 5, playing a Bad News Bears-esque coach who wouldn’t stop asking people “Is it because I’m black?”, a postman who takes dumps in the bottom of the postage box, and a soldier listening to Nick Borealis the Lounge Singer, who is singing to all the black troops stationed in Greenland.
In an age where racial-based humor was just becoming viable comedically, and Russell joins up with some of the best SNL comedians of all time to take it on. As with many on SNL, he was outshined by Bill Murray. Russell’s show was pretty good, but not excellent. It seemed like he wasn’t really written into many of the skits.
Russell wasn’t a terribly funny guy, he was more of the driven type of athlete. Anyone who followed Bill Russell’s career isn’t really surprised that he fell short on SNL.
Next: 16. Charles Barkley