Robert Parish: Larry Bird, Kevin McHale Won’t Return My Calls

Once named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history, Robert Parish now just wants to coach in the NBA. The only problem, according to the 59-year-old, is that former Celtic teammates and current NBA insiders Larry Bird and Kevin McHale won’t return his calls asking for help. From a story that ran A1 in Saturday’s Boston Globe: “‘People shouldn’t feel sad; they should help me get a job,’ said the Hall of Fame center with the deep voice on the other end. ‘I need a coaching job in the NBA. I’m restless and I need money.’…Parish, 59, said that Bird and McHale, both of whom have held coaching and front office jobs in the league (McHale is the coach of the Houston Rockets), have done nothing to help him in his quest to return to the NBA, although he says he has reached out to them. He calls his Hall of Fame teammates ‘acquaintances.’ ‘In my case, I don’t have any friends,’ Parish said. ‘I saw Kevin at an event; he said he was going to call me. He never called. I called Larry twice when he was at the Indiana Pacers; he never returned my call. And not just Larry. Across the board, most NBA teams do not call back. You need a court order just to get a phone call back from these organizations. I’m not a part of their fraternity.’ Bird has a rather different recollection. Traveling, he sent a concise text in response to questions from the Globe: ‘Robert never called me for a job. Period.’ McHale, for his part, expressed remorse in a voicemail. He said he tried to hire Parish when he was in Minnesota, but ‘I went back and checked . . . we were actually reducing spots at the time. Then I was let go from Minnesota.'”