Back from the Dead

by Bill Walton

  I wearily got up and weakly trudged down the hall and stairs to his waiting car. Henry could park anywhere he wanted. He drove me to his “house,” which was unlike any living accommodation we had ever seen for a college student. He took me inside, got me comfortable with everything, and then started calling his Angels to come over and help. For the rest of the week, an endless stream of Henry’s Angels came by to nurse me back to health, ultimately providing me with everything that I needed. By the end of a week of them breathing life back into me, I was ready for anything. Like going to Oregon.

  We played Oregon State first. The Friday-night game at Corvallis was our worst of the season. I felt awful. Couldn’t get anything going. We committed 30 turnovers and allowed the top Beaver, Freddie Boyd, to run wild. We barely won, by only 6 points. It was the only game all season that we didn’t win by at least 13, until the NCAA title game. By the next afternoon in Eugene I had my rhythm back, and we won by 25. The next game, we beat the Cougars from Washington State in another convincing rout, and we never looked back.

  I was also hitting stride academically by this point. I had changed majors, from engineering to political science, and what a lively romp that was, what with the changing times, Reagan, Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Vietnam, Watergate, L.A. mayor Sam Yorty, and all.

  All this time, the L.A. Lakers were fabulously supportive of our team. Across the board, they couldn’t have been nicer. Wilt was everywhere; Elgin was dazzling; Jerry and I would regularly have breakfast together at the Westwood Drug Store; Chick was our best friend and arbiter of information, history, prognostication, entertainment, and all other known things; the entire Laker staff was always so kind, and the people who ran the Fabulous Forum treated us as if we were on the team as well.

  The NBA and the Lakers in the years we were at UCLA were stupendous. There were some teams for the ages that regularly came into town on a mission—Milwaukee with Kareem, Oscar, Lucius Allen, and Bob Dandridge; New York with Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere, Dick Barnett, and later Earl Monroe and Jerry Lucas; Boston with Dave Cowens, John Havlicek, Jo Jo White, Don Nelson, Paul Silas, and Don Chaney; Baltimore with Earl Monroe, Gus Johnson, and Wes Unseld; San Francisco with Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond. Every night the battles raged. And the Lakers always won—setting a still-standing league record with 33 in a row from November into January.

  At UCLA, Wooden taught us from the beginning how to think like champions, how to act like champions, and ultimately how to become champions. It was the natural order of our lives. So after running the table in the regular season—26-0, the UCLA winning streak now at 41—the NCAA tournament was next.

  In the twenty-five-team geographic format of the day, our Western Regional was in Utah, with BYU hosting but not playing, having lost in the at-large round to Long Beach State, even with the great Kresimir Cosic from Yugoslavia. We’ve always loved Utah for all the right reasons: beautiful people, fabulous geography and geology, incredible spirit and drive of the pioneering, entrepreneurial dreamers and visionaries who built the place. Brigham Young was ever so right when he declared, “This is the place.” And what a place they had to play ball there on BYU’s campus: the Marriott Center, the most beautiful basketball temple one could dream of, right in the center of everything, with 20,000 blue and gold seats and the most technologically advanced floor (along with Stanford’s) I ever played on. It was like playing on a trampoline, with unlimited springboard capabilities.

  By this point I was suffering from near-constant pain in both knees, and not only because of the operation I’d had on my left knee five years earlier. All the doctors I was regularly seeing, either through UCLA or now also the Lakers, were basically treating the pain and not its source. It wasn’t until years later that the medical consensus would conclude that the real and chronic problems all originated with the congenital structural defects in my feet that limited normal and natural movement, and shock absorption and dissipation up through the legs, knees, hips, pelvis, and spine. But I sure loved playing on those forgiving, springy, launching-pad floors at BYU and Stanford.

  We played Weber State in the Regional Semifinals and had no trouble with them, even though the refs gave me nothing but grief. I was limited by fouls in a game that didn’t require much to get the job done. We moved on to Long Beach State, coached by Jerry Tarkanian and always seething from being so close to but always in the shadow of UCLA. Tark and his squad were convinced that their time was now. They had barely lost to UCLA and Sidney, Curtis, and Steve in the 1971 Regional Final, a game that Long Beach had but gave away. UCLA was saved that day by rarely used subs Larry Farmer and Larry Hollyfield, now key contributors for us.

  In the buildup to Long Beach’s rematch showdown with us, Tark kept downplaying everything, trying to keep a tight lid on what was sure to be a very volatile confrontation. He strictly instructed his players to not say a word about UCLA, Coach Wooden, or the game. He wanted his team’s victorious performance to speak for itself.

  Sure enough, as happened so often to Tark, things broke the wrong way. His starting center, Nate Stephens, big, rangy, and athletic but a little undisciplined, went off to the sportswriters the day before the game. He told them that UCLA was a bunch of frauds, that Walton was protected by the refs, and that Long Beach would beat them without any problem. Tark could not believe it, and there went whatever advantage he thought he had. We came out charged, and played well from the start. But Tark had his team slow the tempo to keep us out of our running game, and he packed his defense in with a terrific zone, collapsing around me. Unfortunately for him, that left Henry wide open to score all game, and we won by 16. All Tark could do was chew on his towel—one more time.

  The Final Four was next, back in Los Angeles, at the Sports Arena, which was USC’s home court. Our game, against Louisville, would be the second semifinal that Thursday night. As we got ready in our locker room, all pumped up and anxious to take the court, the opening semifinal, between North Carolina and Florida State, dragged into overtime.

  Coach Wooden never liked us hanging out too long in a cramped locker room; he wanted us moving. So at the regularly scheduled time, we wound our way out and into the tunnel leading onto the court, and suddenly found ourselves squeezed in, side by side, with the guys from Louisville and their coach—our Denny Crum! On the court, the preliminary game kept dragging on endlessly, forcing us to wait, and wait, and wait. Come on—LET’S GO! Wooden hung back in our locker room. And now, out on the launching pad, it was both teams and their coach, who was really our coach and best friend, Denny, heating up.

  So we started teasing Coach Crum, who stayed as serious as he could. He knew. He had put both teams together. We tossed off teasing comments like, “Hey, Coach, what are you doing with THAT team? Why don’t you join a REAL team?” Coach Crum was clearly embarrassed. We had our relationship with him, spanning years. And here he was trying to maintain the professed dignity of the head coach, taking his new team to the Final Four in his very first year. We kept urging Denny to come back from the dark side and to get back to where he belonged, with a real and winning squad. Ours.

  His Louisville players were shocked, Denny himself aghast, and Coach Wooden oblivious as he waited things out by himself in our locker room.

  Florida State ultimately beat North Carolina, allowing us to finally get going. Coach Crum decided to try to run with us. And while it made for a really fun game—for us, at least—Louisville, a limited team built around excellent guards, Henry Bacon and Jim Price, didn’t stand much of a chance playing our game. They went down by 19.

  The title game on Saturday afternoon was memorable on many fronts. We knew nothing about Florida State, which was normal for us. And they came to play. It turned out that they had lots of everything—size, speed, talent, depth—and they were pretty darn good. By the end of the game we knew their names—Ron King, Reggie Royals, Rowland Garrett, Lawrence McCray, Coach Hugh Durham—and they were better than both we and North Carolina
thought.

  Coach Wooden’s constant emphasis on our game and the irrelevancy of the other team always served us well. Typically we simply overwhelmed our opponents with our press and an assertive defense, which ignited an explosive, unrelenting offensive attack that would go on prolonged and unparalleled scoring runs. This game was different, though; really the first time we were ever challenged by anybody other than our second string in practice.

  Florida State controlled the early goings, and we had no rhythm, beat, or pace. As we were coming up the court one time, with the game and the fate of the known world seemingly in the balance, I ran by our bench, where Coach Wooden was sitting stoically, watching the wheels go round. I barked out to him that—Hey! Maybe/Probably/Please!—we should call time-out and regroup. He sat up, startled, caught completely off guard, as if I had totally lost my mind. Then he stood up, moved gently toward me on the court with his rolled-up program firmly in hand, and eyed me with the stern look of a most disappointed teacher. He told me right there and then: “We are UCLA. We do not call time-out. Time-outs are a signal of defeat, and only give the other team a chance to regroup.” And then as he started to draw small, looping circles in the air with his rolled-up program, he continued: “Just keep going as you are. Everything will be fine.” He smiled and winked at me, and went back and sat down.

  Sure enough, things turned our way almost immediately, as Henry Bibby and Jamaal took over and went on unstoppable runs. We won the game by a paltry 5 points.

  At UCLA, the winning was so regular, constant, and assumed that it was no longer the standard of success. Over our time there, that measurement of achievement ultimately evolved into our own evaluation of how well we performed.

  * * *

  Afterward, Coach allowed the press to ask me a few limited questions—which was not a good idea.

  I try my best to always tell the truth. That way I never have to remember any story. And when I answered the requisite questions, none varying much from “How does it feel to win the championship?” by stating that it felt unfulfilling and unsatisfactory, in that we and I did not play well and that we did not exercise the usual control, impact, and level of excellence that we pride ourselves on—I was universally vilified as an ungrateful ogre.

  But we won! And already being in L.A., we had a very nice postgame party that I have very little memory of, other than waking up with very sore cheeks from smiling so much.

  Now it was back to school for the remainder of the term, which generally ran to mid-June, which was all fine and good, since the real nice weather doesn’t come to the coast of California until then, at the earliest. By this time, a year and a half into things at UCLA, I was starting to figure more of it out. And now having a better feel for the rhythm and pace, I understood that the basketball season was played in conjunction with the fall and winter quarters. And that the spring term was ours.

  When I went into Coach’s office one day and told him that I had come up with the very cool, and serious, idea of expanding my mind and my collegiate experience by spending my spring quarters at Cal, up in Berkeley—one of the greatest places on earth, and a real power spot for all that was going on in our world—after being a student-athlete for him at UCLA in the fall and winter, it caught him off guard, but only momentarily. His near-immediate response: No you’re not!

  I was most disappointed, but it really was just another in a long list of arguments with Coach that I lost. I’m not sure that I ever won any of them.

  * * *

  As we tripped and swirled through another glorious California renewal, springing toward one more endless summer, things were starting to change for me much the way they had after my sophomore season in high school. Except now instead of the college recruiting game, it was more the business of sport, with people constantly showing up trying to convince me how much better off I would be if I left UCLA and became a professional. None of it made any sense to me. I was having the time of my life. What was there to change, and why?

  I was also starting to receive all kinds of awards, including being named the NCAA Player of the Year, an honor I was ultimately credited with in each of my three varsity seasons at UCLA. None of this was of interest to me—being part of the team that won the championship was what I wanted. But Coach Wooden kept telling me that I had to go to all these ceremonies. Back and forth we went. I wanted to be a college student, not to be flying around the country for awards banquets full of people I didn’t know. He kept coming back at me about my RESPONSIBILITY. I said he should go in my place, if someone really needed to go. Finally we reached an agreement: I would go, but only if he came with me to each one. And he would give the required speech that I was incapable of delivering. And through that spring, we stuck to that agreement. On the first plane ride, when I told a most intriguing, accommodating, and encouraging stewardess, “I’ll have a beer,” Coach Wooden’s tongue and arm, from across the aisle, immediately snapped, “No he won’t.” And so it went.

  At the same time, throughout that spring, Coach Wooden would occasionally ask me to come by his office because somebody wanted to talk to me about one deal or another.

  I tried not to pay much attention to any of it, as I really had no interest. I had what I wanted. But one particular offer was different. Because word was swirling around that with the 1972 Olympics on the near horizon, people were looking for me to play on the U.S. team. Eventually I ended up in Coach’s office on this very subject. And here were these very stiff, weirdly dressed, and overly serious guys, meticulously laying out their plan for me to play in Munich.

  I sat there next to them, listening intently. Coach, safely behind the barricade of his large desk, with arms folded across his chest, didn’t say a word. When they finished their elaborate presentation, it only took me a moment to say yes, sure, I’ll play.

  I think I caught them off guard, as there was an awkward and very still silence. Coach Wooden had not had the best experience with the Olympic basketball people since Gail Goodrich was inexplicably left off the 1964 team in Tokyo. And even though UCLA had totally dominated “amateur” basketball from that time forward, Walt Hazzard was the only UCLA player to make the U.S. Olympic team during the Bruins’ unprecedented run of success.

  In Coach’s office, there was a brief moment of hesitation, doubt, and uncertainty after I said yes to the Olympics. So I picked it up myself. I still had the stinging memories of my experience with Hal Fischer and the U.S. National Team burning through my veins. Contrary to everything I knew, loved, and believed in, that had seemed to be all about the coaches, bureaucrats, and business guys, with basketball and the players a distant and unimportant concern.

  So I laid it out: “I’ll play, yes. But there is no need for me to try out again for this team. I just did that two years ago. And I made the team then. I’m either good enough to make it now, or I’m not. We are the undefeated NCAA champions, and I am the NCAA Player of the Year, and an Academic All-America as well. I will show up, in shape, three weeks before the Olympics start. I will be ready to go. We will train then, but I will not play in those endless exhibitions that we already went through as the lead-in to the world championships in Yugoslavia in 1970. I will play in the Olympics, and when the Games are over, I am right out of there. I have to get back to school. Please, I have important responsibilities, duties, and obligations here.”

  Coach Wooden remained silent.

  The Olympic guys looked at each other, then at me, then at Coach, then back at each other. Then they said no.

  I looked around at everybody, said thanks and good luck, and got up and left, never giving it another thought.

  One thing they never brought up was the idea of bringing our whole UCLA team and Coach Wooden to Munich to represent America. That would have been good. And then, most assuredly, the United States would have won, instead of going down in inexplicable fashion—the team’s first loss in Olympic history—to the Soviets.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 7

&nbs
p; * * *

  Commissars and Pinstripe Bosses Roll the Dice, Whichever Way They Fall—Guess Who Gets to Pay the Price

  Don’t you let that deal go down!

  If I lived my life by what others were thinkin’

  The heart inside me would’ve died.

  I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity.

  One of life’s greatest challenges is the search for the master teachers who can be the guiding force and moral compass in our quest for deliverance. I was so lucky to have so many great leaders converge so harmonically at UCLA during my years there to help me along my path, especially as they stood in such stark contrast to the people who were deciding the fate of the rest of the world during the same time.

  There was Charles Young, the chancellor who for almost thirty years guided UCLA to unparalleled heights; J. D. Morgan, generally regarded as the greatest athletic director in the history of intercollegiate athletics—he was there for forty years; Ducky Drake, who came to UCLA as a student in 1923 and stayed—in a myriad of positions, from coach to trainer to friend and confidant—until he died sixty-five years later. And John Wooden, a relative short-timer for twenty-seven years, our basketball coach—I guess you could call him that—but he was really so much more.

  While there were, and are, many people who have made UCLA as great as it is, these four guys were at the top for me. And their unique yet different abilities combined to create a positive environment from which young people could chase their dreams and build their lives. There I was, at seventeen years old, in California, at UCLA. It was all good, and getting better.

  And yet, on the macro level, Nixon is president, Reagan is governor, and Sam Yorty is mayor of L.A.

  While a long life teaches us that there seems to be continuous and endless tragedy in the world, it is impossible to come up with a greater moral and ethical divide in my lifetime than what was done in our name in Vietnam, where the bottom line on the ground seemed to be that we had to destroy the people there in order to save them. And the duplicity and double standards deployed by the war’s proponents only made it worse. For while they were always telling us how great and noble was their cause, they weren’t willing to go and do the job themselves. And while they led the cheers to go for the kill, they threatened us with the very same fate. “We’ll send you off to the war” was the unrelenting sword over all of our heads, and the height of hypocrisy. The buildup of horrors here at home included political and cultural assassinations, civil and racial violence, and the ultimate devolution of our society to the point that the game was not on the level.