Bill Walton: One Of A Kind

Legendary basketball figure, Bill Walton, passed away on Monday at the age of 71 from cancer. 

​Here is a personal story. ​

When I was in business school at Loyola Marymount University, we were honored when Bill showed up one night to speak to our class. For someone like myself, meeting a basketball icon was a real treat. He started by talking about his time with John Wooden at UCLA. While Walton won back to back national championships in 1972 and 1973, the Bruins were defeated in the 1974 Final Four, losing to North Carolina State in double overtime. 

At the end of the 1974 season, Walton had collected his third national player of the year trophy (in a row)! He would go on to be the #1 pick in the draft, taking his talents north to Portland. 

The irony of his comments with Coach Wooden, however, were that none of this was mentioned. In a time of unprecedented winning, Walton's memories were all about the team, playing the right way, and respecting the game. It was presented to us as a class as a spiritual time, where the team's personalities, ambitions, and skills magically blended together. 

To see someone speak about something that was more than 35 years in the past with that type of enthusiasm gave you a feeling for just how special that time was in his life. 

Walton would then shift gears and talk about his second career as a broadcaster. He started, "How does someone with a speech impediment even dream about holding a microphone on television?!" 

He proceeded to tell us about the work that went into his development as a speaker: he had both physical limitations and mental fears that needed to be corrected. For most retired athletes, the last thing they wanted to do was tackle something that would require a massive lift. For Walton, it wasn't enough to sit back and let a weakness control his life. He took classes, practiced in front of the mirror, and humbled himself over and over again. 

He told the class, "I didn't know if I'd ever be on ESPN, but that's where I set my sights." 

As I walked out of his class, he handed me a copy of John Wooden's Pyramid of Success and said in his deep, low voice, "Good luck to you." 

Walking across campus that night, I thought to myself, "man, that guy's proof that it's never too late to do what you want to do." 

To Read About Bill

My favorite Bill Walton related book is The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam. The book is a basketball classic for many but does a great job highlighting Walton's unique personality as a part of the 1979-1980 Portland Trailblazers. 

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