The Golden State Warriors paid tribute to the late, great Bill Russell on Sunday, calling the graduate of Oakland's McClymonds High School and University of San Francisco a “true giant in the game of basketball, and more importantly, in the game of life.”

Russell, 88, passed away on Sunday morning. In a statement announcing the death of “the most prolific winner in American sports history,” his family called for mourners to “find a new way to act or speak up with Bill’s uncompromising, dignified and always constructive commitment to principle.”

Before winning a record 11 championships with the Boston Celtics and emerging as one of the most influential public figures of the early civil rights movement, Russell attended McClymonds High School in West Oakland. He and his family moved to Oakland from Monroe, Louisiana when Russell was nine.

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Though he was cut from the middle school team at Herbert Hoover Junior High and wasn't highly recruited coming out of McClymonds, Bill Russell made an immediate impact at USF. He started at center as a freshman, then led the Dons to back-to-back NCAA championships alongside eventual Celtics teammate K.C. Jones in 1955 and 1956. Russell also represented USF in track and field, winning multiple high jump titles and being regarded as one of the best high jumpers in the world.

Many great athletes once called the Bay Area home, and many more will to come. But few will leave a local legacy like Russell's, whose highly impactful commitment to civil rights and anti-racism—not to mention the basketball instincts that made him one of the greatest players ever—was honed during his formative years in Oakland.