Bill Walton was tremendous as a player, announcer and person, which explains why his death stings
Bill Walton, who died of cancer on Monday, May 27, was a truly great basketball player.
That’s not breaking news. Walton led UCLA to the NCAA Final Four all three of his varsity seasons from 1971-74. The Bruins won national titles in 1972 and ‘73, and he was the College Player of the Year all the years. He was on two NBA championship teams, was the NBA Finals MVP in 1977 and the regular season MVP in 1978.
Walton was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, an honor he richly deserved.
But sometimes, his greatness on the court is overshadowed by his outsize — fitting for a man who stood at least 6-11 — personality and his colorful, stream-of-consciousness style as an announcer. So, please don’t forget how amazing he was on the court.
His performance in the 1973 NCAA title game (Walton is in the back row, center, in the public domain post-game photo team picture above, posted in wikimedia commons) against Memphis State was remarkable, as he made 21 of 22 shots and scored 44 points. Walton would have scored 52 points, but four shots were disallowed as offensive goaltending in an era when dunks were banned.
He added 13 rebounds, seven blocked shots and two assists. Walton was a tremendous all-around talent, the dominant player on both ends of the court.
I watched as many of his games as possible. To say UCLA dominated college basketball in that era is a huge understatement. Coach John Wooden led the Bruins to 10 titles in 12 seasons, including seven in a row from 1967-73.
My friend and blog partner John Tsitrian was a UCLA student then, and he remembers seeing Walton on campus. He would have been hard to miss.
In the 1970s, UCLA men’s basketball games were shown nationally on late-night TV. The great Dick “Oh my!” Enberg was the announcer for these broadcasts, some shown live, others tape-delayed. That’s how a South Dakota kid became a huge UCLA, and Bill Walton, fan.
My big brother Vern was an avid Walton fan. Wanting to emulate him, I watched the games, too. Vern, or as we called him, Corky, was a solid player for Estelline High School’s team, which won district titles in 1970 and 71. The coach modeled his team on UCLA, demanding the players stay in excellent shape, play tenacious defense and share the ball on offense.
So Cork loved to watch UCLA. I did, too.
Walton, along with guards Henry Bibby and Greg Lee, and forwards Keith — later Jamaal — Wilkes and Larry Farmer and other skilled players, formed a powerful unit. The Bruins won 88 straight games, going 30-0 in both 1971-72 and 1972-73.
They stumbled a bit in Walton’s senior year, losing four games. Notre Dame scored the final 12 points to snap the record winning streak on Jan. 19, 1974, a game I watched intently. That defeat was agonizing — damn Dwight Clay and his baseline jumper!
A pair of narrow losses to Oregon State and Oregon on Feb. 15-16, 1974, a road trip immortalized on the cover of Sports Illustrated, haunted Walton for the rest of his life. Oregon, it turned out, would have an enduring impact on his life and career.
In 2010, Walton, who was wearing his UCLA letter jacket during an interview with The Oregonian, reflected on those defeats. It was clear they still stung.
“Our world had fallen apart. … we look back at those with embarrassment and shame, dismay, that we did not get the job done,” Walton said. “I will forever have that stain, that stigma on my soul. I’m looking for salvation. I’m looking for some way to rinse it off, but it just won’t go away.”
Any fan of Walton can hear his deep, distinctive voice uttering those words. He stuttered for years and was often silent or reluctant to say more than a few words, but once he mastered his mouth, he talked seemingly without end.
On March 23, 1974, The Walton Gang, as UCLA was known at the time, lost 80-77 in double overtime in the NCAA semifinals to North Carolina State, led by David “Skywalker” Thompson and his incredible 44-inch leaping ability.
Then, it was onto the pros. Walton turned down an offer to play in his hometown of San Diego in the ABA. The league was struggling to gain equality with the older, more established NBA, and Walton wrote in his autobiography that he was offered ownership of the franchise and the right to choose any player in the league — except Julius “Dr. J” Erving — as his teammates.
He was a major NBA fan, admiring Wilt Chamberlain and his fellow UCLA star center, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who became a close friend after they hung up their sneakers. But he idolized Bill Russell.
Walton worshiped at the shrine of Russell, seeing and understanding all the things he did to make the Boston Celtics the greatest dynasty in professional sports, with 11 titles in 13 seasons. Russell could score, but he had teammates who were better shooters. He focused on defense and rebounding, controlling the game and making sure the Celtics almost always won.
Winning was the only goal Russell had. He didn’t care about stats or highlights, even as he won five MVP awards. He wanted his team to triumph, and to an amazing degree, they did. Russell played on a state championship team in high school, won two NCAA titles for the University of San Francisco, an Olympic Gold Medal in 1956, and 11 NBA crowns.
Walton was a member of just two NBA title teams, the 1976-77 Portland Trailblazers, and the 1985-86 Celtics. He likely would have won more if his body, especially his fragile feet, hadn’t betrayed him.
From 1976-78, he was at the center of the best team in the world, as the Trailblazers won the 1977 NBA title and were headed to another one in 1978 until his feet literally broke down and he was unable to play.
“I’ve never coached a better player, I’ve never coached a better competitor, and I’ve never coached a better person than Bill Walton,” coach Jack Ramsay said.
I lived in and around Portland from 1988-93, and basketball fans there still talked about Walton and those championship Blazers. They told stories of thrilling games at a jam-packed Rose Garden, and of quiet moments in city parks when the huge redhead would ride up on a bike and share a moment, and at times a puff or two of his favorite smoke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFax1AE6g0
After his injuries stalled his career, Walton left Portland with angry words, accusations and lawsuits in his wake. He returned to San Diego, where he played for the Clippers, who had talent but were never title contenders. That must have agonized a man who was devoted to winning.
That’s when I saw him play. The Clippers played in an exhibition game against the Denver Nuggets in Reno on Oct. 17, 1983, and I went to it with my friends Ellen and Roger, both, like Bill Walton, gone far too soon.
We sat behind the Clippers bench. It was a Monday night, and the Green Bay Packers defeated Washington 48-47 on Monday Night Football, so a lot of sports fans had other interests and tickets were easy to obtain. That high-scoring football game is how I was able to track down the exact date of the exhibition game we attended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C6Db0o2cHw
Walton was working himself back into playing shape, but his feet and back still bothered him. I remember him stretching out on the floor when he came off the court.
Happily, there was a fitting end for his career. He signed with the Celtics, his favorite pro team, in 1985 and became a significant factor in Boston winning a third and final championship in the Larry Bird era in 1986.
Walton came off the bench to provide inside strength, rebounding, blocking shots and scoring. Most memorably, he teamed with Bird to run dazzling plays that usually ended up with a lay-up or a dunk. It was a rare chance to watch two masters at work.
No big man passed as well as Bill Walton. His outlook passes sparked beautiful fast breaks, and his interior passes led to easy buckets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p3t8wrIhgc
Walton played well in the 1986 playoffs, but it was a final hurrah. His body once again crumbled the next season and despite working hard to regain his health, he was forced to retire. In 14 NBA seasons, he played 480 games, but was sidelined 688 times.
He had a deep love and understanding of the game. He just didn’t have the body to match.
“My injuries piled up,” Walton told the Advanced Medical Technology Association. “Bad back, broken bones, ankle and foot problems, broken hands and wrists, knee injuries, and broken noses.”
Walton struggled for a while after he was forced to the sidelines. The pain he suffered from the game he loved at one point had him pondering suicide.
But he found a new passion as an announcer. Walton had a long and very successful career announcing NBA and college games, especially in his beloved “Conference of Champions,” the once-mighty PAC-12, which ceased operations just days before he died. That’s eerie but also in some ways fitting.
He knew basketball at a very high level, but the reason his fans — and I am proud to be among their legion — adored him was his ability to tell stories, offer insights and opinions while occasionally commenting on the game in progress.
He also was funny as hell, poking fun at his own verbosity and image as a Grateful Dead insider, a pot-loving, teepee-owning liberal who asked President Nixon to resign when he was the best-known college player in the country.
Walton talked about science, history, politics, music and more, always urging people to read, explore the outdoors and be kind to others.
That’s the Bill Walton who was celebrated and mourned after his death at the age of 71. People who played with him, shared a microphone or met him along his long, strange, wonderful trip through life recounted countless tales of his kindness, intelligence and humanity.
All true. But he was a helluva player first.
Fourth-generation South Dakotan Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states and contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Reprint with permission.
