Bill Walton, in truth, may have been the most selfless superstar ever, and played on teams that embody the most basic and pure spirit of the game.
The voice on the other end of the phone was distinct and it was familiar. It was Bill Walton and he was calling from Big Sur.
“The message was that you wanted to talk about Coach Wooden,” Bill Walton said. “I’ll call from the end of the earth to talk about Coach Wooden.”
And you know, he would. If there was one word to describe Bill Walton — who died Monday of cancer at age 71 — it would be “authentic.” He was who he was and he did what he did and he believed what he believed, and depending on your view of the world, you could find that delightful or dyspeptic. He didn’t care.
“The thing is people think it was amazing that Coach Wooden and I got along so well,” Walton told me that day in 2005. “It wasn’t amazing at all. He wanted what I wanted. He wanted to win. And he wanted every player on the team to have a hand in that win.”
He laughed.
“And that,” he said, “was just beautiful, brother.”
Walton, in truth, may have been the most selfless superstar ever, and played on teams that embody the most basic and pure spirit of the game. At UCLA, under Wooden, the Bruins won the first 73 games Walton ever played, the last of the 88-game winning streak that still stands as a record.
