Celtic History: Searching for Jiri Welsch

The old joke goes...

"I just spent a month in (any Communist country/city name) last week."

Well, I only got a week in Prague—the capital city of the Czech Republic—this past week...and it was too short a time.

Prague is a beautiful old city. Welcome to the new Czech Republic—home of middle European democracy.

The American invasion of fast food franchises has already begun. There are McDonald's everywhere, and KFCs have made inroads as well.

I know I caught the country somewhere between the old and the new, because there are still no Starbucks yet. Yes—hard to believe, I know.

Of course, Starbucks has signed leases for at least two sites in the old (tourist) part of the city. I’m not happy. The cafes there are just fine without Starbucks. In fact, they're great. The last thing Prague needs is a Starbucks.

Oh yeah, I’m ranting now.

If you flip right past the front page of newspapers, here are some things you never knew, even though you should:

Like true democrats, the Czechs have elected Vaclav Havel (liberal) as their first president and Vaclav Klaus (conservative) as their second. Vaclav No. 1 is for a Global Warming initiative. Vaclav No. 2 is not.

Sound remotely familiar to anyone here in the USA?

I was surprised to learn that "Vaclav" is Czech for "Wenceslaus," who is considered the Czechs' founding father and patron saint.

Everyone knows of that Christmas song—"Good King Wenceslaus." He is him. But how they got "Vaclav" from "Wenceslaus" I’ll never know.

The city of Prague is home to about one million citizens, most of whom know far more about "futball" (soccer to us) and hockey (fighting on ice to us) than "baskitbull."

It was only a day or two before I finished my trip that it occurred to me to check out the Prague-sters POV on basketball—and to see if they even knew who Jiri Welsch was.

Much of my information came from a single lad named Vaclav (popular name) Vrsecky (pronounced "Vershesky"—think of Coach K). Vaclav was the bartender at a local jazz club called The Ungelt Jazz & Blues Club.

The Ungelt is one of a number of clubs that operate in the old brick-walled cellar "caves" of the old city. It’s as cool as it sounds. It’s American jazz (and blues), Czech style.

I got lucky on my first attempt with Vaclav V.

“Have you ever heard of Jiri Welsch?”

“Jiri Welsch? Of course! Zidek, too.”

Cool. He knew of Jiri Welsch and reminded me that “George" Zidek (UCLA and three years, three teams in the NBA) was also a Czech.

George’s actual first name is, surprisingly...Jiri. I looked it up.

I guess there's a shortage of first names in the Czech Republic. Probably a leftover problem from the Communists—they get blamed for everything now.

You know how it was. Very little hot water. They had to share everything, even names.

Upon further questioning, I found that Vaclav actually played some basketball growing up. Most Czech kids either join soccer clubs or hockey leagues. He says the choice is usually whatever their parents want them to do.

“What position did you play? Guard?” (He wasn’t very tall.)

“No. I was usually a swingman. But I wasn’t very good. I stopped after a year or so. I took up handball. I was better at that.”

“Why did you play basketball in the first place?”

“My father was a basketball player. So he wanted me to play.”

He said that he didn’t know what became of Jiri or Zidek once they left the Czech team. He only followed them there. He knew who the Boston Celtics were. He didn’t know that Welsch played for them.

I asked him if he knew which team just won the European championships. He guessed Greece. I told him it was Russia. He said he didn’t follow it because the Czech team wasn’t there.

How did the Czech team actually do in the recent Euro Championships? They lost three straight games, playing well only against the Germans—they took them to overtime before losing with Welsch on the bench due to foul trouble.

I never believed Welsch was particularly good, but I never believed he was as bad as he turned out to be in his NBA adventures. Something happened to make him totally loose his confidence, though I have no idea what it was.

Maybe there was something in the American capitalist water that made him weak. He seemed like a good guy to me.

Here's a reverse story of an American, J.R. Holden, playing PG for the Russian national team. Pretty interesting. I found it on ESPN by Chris Sheridan. More hot water problems in the Russian empire. We spoiled Americans.

Or is it just that we have the secret to making water hot. Maybe Einstein headed west with that formula, too.

More Celtic trivia in the Czech Republic...

While Czech history books are full of Czech (Cech or Cechy) history, it's undisputed that the peoples who inhabited the current Czech homelands before the Slavonic people arrived in the sixth century were...Celtic!

I’m not kidding.

The Celts were driven from these lands just decades before the Common Era by a Germanic tribe. (No. Not the the Nowitzkes. This group must have had good post moves to get the Celtics out.)

But the Celtic tribe’s name was Boiohaemum, thereby giving the area its currently used name—Bohemia. True story.

While there has been a large Jewish population in the area over the centuries (Kafka lived there), I found no mention of Red or Auerbach. And though the entire city is engorged with religious statues, I didn’t see any statues of saints carrying basketballs.

I guess the Celtics took up basketball and found their leader Red 'the Conqueror' (patron saint of Boston Celtic basketball) after they left.

The Celtic Basketball Dynasty (as it is known in history books) lasted a long while. It's the stuff of legend to many—a group of mythological warrior saints with unusual names like Russell, Cousy, Heinsohn, Jones the First, Jones the Second, Cowens, Havlicek, Bird, McHale, and Chief.

The problem is that you have to dig down deep into the sedimentary layers to find evidence of it.

Basketball Land has since been dominated by usurper groups like the cowboy tribe (called the Spurs) of the south, an industrial tribe from Detroit, and until recently, a gold-and-purple wearing tribe who are also inappropriately named the Lakers, though no lakes be found in Los Angeles. History is full of disjointed surprises like that.

But beware, you Basketball Land barbarians.

The Celtic tribe has been re-formed under Good King Danny "Wenceslaus" Ainge. With the guidance of general Glenn "The Impaler - Upon the High Post" Rivers, they will unleash their three warrior princes with great and terrible weapons.

Basketball Land will soon have new rulers. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

And if you ever get the chance, visit Prague, a beautiful old city—and one of the first homes of the Celtics.

Tell Vaclav that Tom (with a common name like that that, I should talk) sent you.

Oh...and for the record: I was Czechoslovakian by heritage, until the breakup of the two formerly united areas. Now I’m just Slovakian, meaning "not Czech" by Czech standards.

I bought some Czech Bohemian crystal anyway. I guess we Americans tend to be more forgiving, and free-er with our money.

One last bit of Czech trivia:

I’ll bet you didn’t know that the character Borat, who is supposed to be from Kahzakstan, actually speaks Czech in his role. Go figure. Ano? Dekuji.

Now go...and tell it on the mountain.

Next up: Celtics preseason preview, translated into English.

This article first appeared on Celtics17 on the MVN.com network.