Red’s Still Smokin’ at 76 : Auerbach doesn’t give up easily. But the once irascible rehead who ranted at referees has mellowed. He’s down to two cigars a day. His view are expressed in a softer, slower voice.

The cigar is still there between the thumb and index finger of his left hand. Opinions flow in a steady stream. The basketball court remains his domain.

Red Auerbach doesn’t give up easily. But the once irascible redhead who ranted at referees has mellowed. He’s down to two cigars a day. His views are expressed in a softer, slower voice.

When you nearly die, something has to change.

Auerbach can’t remember skipping a draft since he started his pro coaching career in 1946. When the Boston Celtics family gathered June 30 to make its pick, the patriarch was missing.

“I had a lot of things on my mind at that point other than the draft,” Auerbach says. “I was fighting for my life.”

Twelve days earlier, he underwent major heart surgery at the age of 75. Doctors cleared five blocked arteries. Recovery was slow. His spirits sagged.

“I remained quite concerned about Red through the early part of the summer,” says Dave Gavitt, who succeeded Auerbach as the hands-on leader of the team in 1990. “You could just tell that he had lost a bit of his confidence.”

Now he’s much livelier, if somewhat thinner. He turned 76 on Sept. 20 and flew from his Washington, D.C., home for the opening of training camp Oct. 8.

He stood on the gym floor, surrounded by cameras. Reporters sought his opinions on the demise of the Celtics and the huge contracts signed by Larry Johnson and Anfernee Hardaway.

“The whole thing is ludicrous, signing players for 10, 12 years,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

They wanted to know how he felt.

“I feel pretty good,” he said, “just take care of myself. I do a lot of walking, mostly on a treadmill, and you do what the doctor tells you, as simple as that.”

“He looks great. He’s got that old spring in his step,” Gavitt said. “He’s back on his game.”

The Celtics president has been in the NBA forever, from the era of the two-hand set shot to the $84 million contract. He was the shrewd architect of 16 Celtics’ championships. He won nine of them in 16 years as coach, ending in 1966.

He got Bill Russell in a trade and drafted Larry Bird a year before he was eligible to turn pro. Opponents were wary of dealing with him. Now there’s little reason to fear the Celtics.

Bird and Kevin McHale retired. Reggie Lewis died. Robert Parish is their best player, and he’s 40. The lottery seems more likely than the playoffs.

“You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken feathers,” Auerbach said. “All you’ve got to do is do the best and get the most out of what you’ve got and if you do that, you’ve got no complaints.”

Auerbach is doing his best with what he has. He still plans to fly from Washington to attend Celtics games when he feels up to it. He stays in touch with Gavitt, who values his input.

“He’s a contributor,” Gavitt said. “Red is a fighter, always has been. I think he probably figures deep in his own heart, the day that I just kind of retire, that isn’t going to work. I don’t think he ever wants to retire.”

He keeps going despite all the disappointments and tragedies of 1993.

Longtime Celtics broadcaster Johnny Most died on Jan. 3 after a heart attack. Parish was arrested and admitted to marijuana possession. The Celtics were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. McHale retired.

And Lewis died of a heart ailment July 27.

Auerbach felt chest pains and checked himself into a Boston hospital after the team’s breakup dinner May 7. He had two angioplasties to treat blocked coronary arteries and minor surgery on his right leg for a hole in an artery that failed to close.

The problems persisted. On June 18, he underwent bypass surgery. Six weeks later, he was still too weak to attend Lewis’ funeral.

The operation came nearly seven years to the day after he was shaken by another tragedy. On June 19, 1986, Len Bias died shortly after being drafted as the cornerstone of the Celtics’ future.

Auerbach shrugged when asked his emotions about the deaths of two young athletes.

“You can’t explain that,” he said. “That’s not a public thing. That’s how you feel about it privately. They’re great kids and those things happen. That’s life, I guess.”

For him, life goes on. He returned to training camp at an age when he could enjoy a comfortable retirement as one of the most respected leaders in NBA history.

“You can’t put 47 years of your life into something and just cut it off as long as you’re able not to cut it off. It’s as simple as that,” Auerbach said. “I could stay away but I don’t want to stay away.

“I can do anything I want, but you’re still interested because you want to show people that you live in the present. You don’t live in the past. That’s the whole key. You think positive. You think now. You don’t think what happened.”

His past sparkles with some of basketball’s greats: Russell, Bird, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek. Sixteen former Celtics are in the Hall of Fame. So is he.

Back in the gym, Auerbach glances out at a bunch of unproven free agents who may be wondering who this shuffling, bald, gray-haired man is. He made the Celtics into the NBA’s winningest franchise. Now he hears doubters say they may not make the playoffs.

“I don’t know that,” Auerbach said. “Right now, we’re in first place.”