To Absent Friends - Bill Walton

 

The news today of the death of Bill Walton from cancer at the age of 71 came as a stunner to me.   Part of the reason for that, no doubt, is due to the fact that he was a year younger than I, and part of it is because, well, Bill Walton was just such an indomitable figure on the court and an almost larger than life figure off of it.

I am not going to try to summarize Walton in prose.  Instead, just some bullet points to summarize his career:

• Played on two California State High School Championship teams out of Le Mesa, CA
• Played on two NCAA championship teams at UCLA
• Played for two NBA Championship teams, Portland and Boston
• Three time NCAA Player of the Year
• Two times NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player
• NBA MVP (Portland)
• NBA Sixth Man of the Year (Boston)
• NBA Finals MVP
• Key player for UCLA during their 88 game winning streak that covered three seasons, still an NCAA men's basketball record.
• In 1973 NCAA title game against Memphis State, Walton shot 21-for-22, scored 44 points and had 13 rebounds
• Member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
• Named one of the NBA's Top 50 players of all time in 1997
• Attended over 1,000 Grateful Dead concerts
• Underwent 39 surgeries over the course of his basketball career

The second to last bullet point suggests what a free spirited guy he was, and the last bullet point is to suggest that for all of Walton's accomplishments, they could have been even greater had he not had such an injury riddled career.  Twice in his pro career he missed two full seasons.

Walton was always an outspoken person. He was a peace activist during his college years at UCLA, and was once arrested for taking part in an anti-war demonstration.   He remained outspoken against what he considered to be injustices in society for the rest of his life.

After playing, Walton turned to broadcasting, and his, uh, loquaciousness set him apart from most ex-jocks who go behind a microphone.   I can remember hearing him doing color on some college hoops game and thinking, maybe if you had to listen to him over to course of an entire season, you'd get tired of him, but for one game, nothing was more entertaining to listen to than the stream-of-consciousness style of Bill Walton.  

His OBITUARY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES tells the story that Walton was a stutterer as a young man.  He worked hard to overcome it, and went on to a career not only in broadcasting but as motivational speaker.  He would tell his audiences that overcoming his stutter was "my greatest accomplishment and your worst nightmare."   Once during his working career, my brother Jim attended a conference where Walton was the featured speaker, and he loved it.  The Times obituary also tells a terrific story about Walton returning to Portland in 2009 to receive some award from the State of Oregon.  I won't try to summarize it here, but click on the link to the obit and had it.  It's a great story.

The passing of some celebrities can make you feel sad, some more so than others.  To me, the passing of Bill Walton is one of those.

RIP Bill Walton.

Coach Wooden and his star player

Walton and Kareem battle it out in the NBA

The Coach and his two greatest players

The world's most famous Dead Head

 

The Lions in Winter

Unrelated Topics - Baseball, Football, and Basketball

A quick shuffle through the Mental In-Box.....

• The announcement that Clayton Kershaw signed a seven year, $215 million dollar deal with the Dodgers was stunning to me, although perhaps it should not have been.  The team has signed a local TV deal that, according to some reports, is larger than the deal that the Yankees have, and an ownership group that thinks nothing of spending tons and tons of money. Few things in sports are as fragile as a pitcher's arm, so for their sake, here's hoping Kershaw doesn't encounter Kerry Wood- or Mark Prior-like arm miseries.

• The signing tells me one thing that is relevant for Pirates fans:  Let us enjoy and treasure Gerrit Cole for these next five years before free agency is granted to him.  If he develops they way we hope he can and if the going rate for such pitchers is now thirty million a year, well, he most likely will not retire as a Bucco.
• How about Alex Rodriguez with his 162 game suspension, saying that he still plans on showing up for Spring Training with the Yankees?  Can you imagine what a circus THAT will be?    
• As exciting as the NFL playoff games during Wild Card weekend were, the ones this past weekend were pretty lackluster.  The one significant take-away that I took from Round 2 was a giant WOW for the performance that the New England Patriots put on in handing the Indy Colts' heads to them.
• Back on September 5, I made the following statement in my Steelers preview post:  As for the Super Bowl, how about the Broncos to defeat the 49'ers in a New Jersey blizzard on February 2.  And it is still possible that that could happen!!!  To be honest, I'd have given long odds back then that that prediction would still be alive going into Championship Weekend. Not sure if the blizzard is still a possibility, though.
• I'm sure you all probably saw the comments made by Art Rooney II in his traditional post-season interview with the Pittsburgh media last week.  I can't take too much issue with most of what he said except for the comment that the Steelers "should have been in the playoffs".  Presumably he was talking about the missed calls by officials in that final game between Kansas City and San Diego.  Also presumably, he had forgotten about that 0-4 start to the season.
• Great exchange between Kornheiser and Wilbon on PTI on Tuesday:
• Tony: And what would the ACC be like right now without Syracuse and Pitt?
• Wilbon: It sure ain't your grandaddy's ACC this year.
• Remember all the talk among basketball know-it-alls saying what a tough time Pitt, Syracuse, and Notre Dame would have adjusting to the ACC?  A quarter of the way into the schedule, it sure looks like they all had that statement backwards.
• Listening to Pitt basketball games on the radio remains high comedy.  The game against NC State a few weeks ago is a prime example.  When Pitt fell behind 17-2 at the beginning, the pissing and moaning of Hillgrove and Groat was classic, and when the Panthers turned it around in the second half to win by 15, said pissing and moaning turned into unbelievable smugness and gloating.
• On the topic of college basketball, I watched the entire game between #1 ranked Arizona and UCLA last week.  It was a terrific game, won by Arizona despite a late charge by the Bruins, and was made all the more enjoyable, to me anyway, because of the color commentary provided by Bill Walton, who has an incredible ability to talk endlessly about almost anything.  As entertaining as he was last week, I get the feeling that if I was subjected to him more than two or three games a season, he would drive me to the point where I would want to throw a shoe at my television.