Bill Russell, who led the University of San Francisco to back-to-back NCAA Championships in 1955 and '56 and won 11 NBA Championships in his 13-year professional career with the Boston Celtics, has been selected as one of three recipients for the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, which is presented to individuals for their incomparable athletic career and decades as social activists.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jim Brown join Russell as this year's recipients. The group will be honored during SI's Sportsperson of the Year event on Dec. 12, 2016 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Chris Stone, Sports Illustrated Group editor in chief said of the honorees: "In 2016 we learned that the consequences of speaking out on hard issues were often painful ones, but also how deeply athletes can impact and advance the conversation on those same, hard issues.