Back from the Dead

by Bill Walton

  I had not fallen or landed wrong on anybody. Nobody had stepped on my foot that I could remember. It just hurt, real bad. And every time I tried to start to run it would hurt more, and more, and more and more—deep inside.

  I had lived with foot pain my whole life. My feet ached all the time. That’s the way I thought it was for everybody who played ball. But this was different. It felt like somebody was stabbing me in the foot with a sharp, hot knife, and the more I tried to work it all out or to play on it, the worse it got. It felt like somebody was holding a blowtorch to my foot and ankle.

  It was late 1974, and things would never be the same again.

  At the time, I was playing all right, scoring in the high teens per game, and at the top of the league in rebounding and blocked shots. But now I couldn’t play at all, because every time I put my foot down, there was this stabbing, searing pain.

  There were no answers or solutions—from anybody. And when I could not return to the court, it all came down. The blame all landed on me. They kept saying there was nothing really wrong with me, and I was just choosing not to play. Or it’s my diet—he doesn’t eat raw, red meat. It’s the vegetable juice that he drinks. It’s the music—he likes the Grateful Dead, Dylan, Neil Young, and all the rest. It’s his clothes, his hair, his friends, his politics. The criticisms covered every area of my life, with no particular order or reason.

  At the same time, two of my friends and housemates, Jack and Mikki Scott, were suspected of being involved with the Patty Hearst kidnapping. Patty had been kidnapped in the Bay Area by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and held for ransom. When everything went spiraling wildly out of control, Jack and Mikki were, much to my surprise, quietly and secretly recruited to help keep Patty and some of the SLA members safe and alive. But Jack and Mikki had now conveniently disappeared, with me as one of their last points of contact, which brought the FBI calling, convinced I was involved. My phones were tapped, my mail intercepted. I was trailed. Everywhere I went, there were federal agents with guns and binoculars. Everybody I talked to was now subject to the same thing. My family, friends, teammates, and total strangers as well. And all of this got wrapped up in my struggles on the court—or my struggles to simply reach the court.

  It was endless, mindless, and senseless. And through it all, my foot still hurt. I could not play, no matter what I did or tried. And I tried everything.

  I missed a majority of the rest of the season, although I did come back intermittently and try to play. I was only able to play in thirty-five of the eighty-two games my rookie year. And nobody was happy about any of it, least of all me.

  In retrospect, I had a stress fracture in my foot, the first of an endless string that would plague me the rest of my basketball career and life.

  But that was never suggested. The team doctor, when I pointed to where it hurt real bad, kept telling me that I was looking too close. And in the papers, it was always about me not wanting to play, or not being tough. And that if only I would support Nixon, be for more war, eat a dead cow, cut my hair, quit my friends, smoke some cigarettes, drink some carbonated soda, or something, then everything would be fine.

  Many nights, lost, lonely, hurting, and confused, I would call the owners up late and quit on the spot. Then I would spend the night tossing and turning, knowing that that was not right. And I would be up before the dawn, back on the phone with them, explaining that I was not going to let this nonsense and other people’s negativity and problems drive me from the game I loved. And that I would be there that day for work, even though I couldn’t play, and really had no chance to, for the foreseeable future.

  It was awful, and I was stuck. I had gone from the top to the bottom. I went from living on $128 a month for nine months a year at UCLA to being the highest-paid NBA player ever, yet the quality of my life had gone down. I was miserable.

  I finished the season with a cast on my foot, though still without any acknowledgment that there was anything wrong. One of the few saving graces were the kind and strong people, including my neighbors Herman and Ruth Frankel, who thankfully and proudly stood behind me when this whole new game got so very rough.

  People would recommend and send interesting and inspiring books, which I immersed myself in. Wilt sent me his latest autobiography, Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door.

  I devoured it. I was touched by the stories of struggle by so many, including Wilt, who recounted that as a rookie he was disillusioned and frustrated upon entering the NBA. It was not what he dreamed it would be. And he became determined to do something about it all.

  When Wilt played as a rookie in the NBA, he was the NBA’s MVP (the first of only two to ever do that) and its Rookie of the Year, and he averaged more than 39 points per game, and 29 rebounds per game.

  Despite all that measured success, Wilt related in his wonderfully insightful book how he felt that he had been pushed around and bullied his rookie season by the thugs and goons who had no interest in playing by the rules. So Wilt committed after that first season to the weight room. And things were never the same again—for anybody.

  I committed to do the same, and my search led me to Sam Loprinzi’s gym on the southeast side of town. I developed a new passion, weight lifting, a sport that I could participate in even though I couldn’t run or play ball.

  Sam Loprinzi was a legend. His entire family were pillars of the Portland community, and I fell in love with the gym. Sam was my first weight-lifting coach, and like Rocky, he changed my world forever. He opened the place up six days a week at 9:00 a.m. I was there right as he unlocked the door, and I stayed as long as I could still stand. I made lots of new friends at Loprinzi’s gym, who were all working through their own challenges. One of my regular training partners was Jesse “the Body” Ventura, as Loprinzi’s was a magnetic hotbed of all sorts of activity for the many pro wrestlers who made Portland home.

  I have remained passionately in love with the weight room ever since those very early days. And it was there that I recovered and geared up for the coming season.

  * * *

  That off-season, Lenny and Tom were able to secure two great new players in the draft: Lionel Hollins, from Arizona State, and Bob Gross, from Long Beach State.

  They were both very nice and interesting guys, who were blessed with fabulous athletic talent. They were great from the outset, although Lenny caught endless grief and fierce resistance from nearly every angle for trying to play Lionel, who apparently didn’t have the right skin color, and Bobby, who didn’t seem to fit somebody else’s prototypical vision. It was all unwarranted nonsense. I come from a culture of meritocracy. Bobby and Lionel had everything anyone ever needed. Lenny was sharp enough to know it first. He was willing to give them the time and chance they needed.

  We opened the 1975 regular season in Seattle. The Sonics were coached by Bill Russell, and the Blazer-Sonic rivalry was always fierce, with violent fights a regular occurrence. Seattle always had top talent, Fred Brown, Spencer Haywood, John Brisker, and much more. In one of the games we played up there, Brisker got thrown out for fighting only to come charging back out of an exit tunnel ten minutes later to come after our guy who’d been fighting him. Our guy was at the freethrow line, totally oblivious, as Brisker raced out to the court and took a running leap at him, fists flailing away.

  As we faced Seattle at the start of the season, I was having a very strong game. And at the end of three quarters, we’re in complete control and I have very big numbers already. As the fourth quarter begins, I notice out of the corner of my eye that Coach Russell has summoned a hack from deep on the Sonic bench. On his way to the scorer’s table to report in, John Hummer stops momentarily at Russell’s side for some quick instruction. As soon as Hummer gets in the game, he comes right by me, and with the play happening on the far side of the court, Hummer stops and sucker-punches me in the face, and then runs off.

  Livid, I take off after the thug and chase this goon all over the court
, all while the game is still going on. I finally catch him and start pummeling him. When order is finally restored, I get ejected from the game. And as I am being escorted out of the joint by the police and security, I stop to look back in disbelief. To my everlasting dismay, Bill Russell, my hero, is standing there, with that bent stoop of his, stroking his beard, cackling his irrepressible laugh, and sporting a winning twinkle in his eye.

  Seattle came all the way back from the depths and beat us that night, and there was nothing I could do about it from the bowels of the locker room.

  We got off to a bad start again, dropping our first four games, and I went down with a bad sprained ankle in that time, the first of another frustrating chain of injuries. Lenny was doing all he could to manage a talented but chemistry- and personality-flawed roster that was not of his making. It was often hard to figure out who was in charge and what the plan was in Oregon. I was beginning to learn two of life’s greatest business and corporate lessons—that if it’s not their idea, it’s not a good idea; and that it’s their team, company, or deal, and they’re going to do whatever they want with it.

  On the day of our fourth game and fourth loss, one I missed due to my ankle, my life changed forever for the better as our first child, Adam, was born in a golden beam of light—a light that has never dimmed. It was October 31, 1975, Halloween. And it was, and is, simply awesome—although I can’t say that it’s ever easy being my child.

  When I returned to the court, the team started to do better. Playing at home one night against Seattle and their center, Tom Burleson, the dealing got very rough—again. Driving the lane hard, my nose ended up on the side of my face, courtesy of Burleson’s nasty elbow. I had to go to the locker room, covered in blood. As I was lying on the training table they stuck a big, hard, metal rod up my nose and moved the broken thing back to the center of my face. They then packed my nose with gauze to stem the bleeding.

  I went back out there, but not too much later, going for the ball, Burleson put my nose on the other side of my face. I’m not sure any fouls were ever called. But I was back on the table, with the rod and the gauze. And when they finally got it all back in place, with the blood flow slowed to a trickle, they asked me if could go back out and play.

  As I tried to feel my face, which felt like it had just been stolen right off my head, I staggered to the door and was headed back out there just as everybody was coming in themselves, this one mercifully over for the night.

  Not too much longer down the road, on a dark, cold, wet night in Chicago, I was again high in the air going for the ball when I was undercut—AGAIN. Coming down head-first, I put my left hand out to break my fall from above. I broke my wrist. They said it was bad, and that the bone, the navicular, was a tough one to break because of the limited nature of the blood supply there, so healing was no sure thing.

  They put a big cast on my wrist—up to my elbow. I continued to play, even though I could not use my immobilized and plastered left hand at all, except as a club or stump. In the very next game, playing one-handed, I made a play for the ball with my one good hand. By the time I looked down, as the play ended, my middle and fourth fingers were completely dislocated and dangling loosely on the back of my hand down by the wrist.

  The trainer and doctor rushed me to the locker room, where they were unable to pull the fingers back into place. I was dripping wet with sweat, and they couldn’t get a grip. It was all very painful. Finally they stood over me while I lay writhing in pain on the training table. They took a roll of athletic tape and wrapped it around the smashed fingers, leaving the tape attached to the rest of the roll, which they then wrapped around their own hands and wrists for stability and traction. After making sure that the tape was secure on both ends, they leaned backward, slowly, agonizingly pulling my fingers back into place, with a big loud clunk when everything all fell into line.

  They taped some splints on both the front and back of my fingers and hands. And they asked me if I could go back out there and play. I looked down at my hands in my lap. Both of them broken and casted, splinted, and useless. I looked up at them—dazed, lost, and confused. There was nothing I could do. I could not use either hand—for anything.

  This took more than a while to overcome, though nothing yet had been able to keep me from the weight room at Loprinzi’s, as they crafted special splints to allow me to keep pushing and pulling the steel without moving my wrists or hands.

  When I did finally get back into it all, we started to play—very well. We developed a nice rotation. Sidney, Ice, John Johnson, newly acquired Steve Hawes and Bobby Gross up front with me. Geoff, Lionel, Lenny and Larry Steele in the backcourt. Lenny’s dream was starting to come true. We were winning. The fans were ecstatic. They could see it. We could feel it. It was happening. And we were on our way—all the way to the Promised Land. Nothing was going to stop us.

  We were peaking, and there were no limits. The Memorial Coliseum was packed now every night, the dynamic and vibe electric.

  And then one night during a game, as we were riding a very nice winning streak, the side of my lower right leg, just above my ankle, started to hurt like nothing I had ever felt before. I went in and had my ankle retaped. It still hurt. As I complained and pointed to the spot of the persistent pain, the doctor kept telling me that I was looking too close.

  During one of several trips to the locker room, he injected my leg and ankle with massive amounts of painkilling and numbing medicine. I did what I could, all the way to the end.

  When it was over, I limped out into the cold, wet, dark night and went to the hospital. X-rays revealed a major break in my lower fibula. The painkillers had allowed me temporarily to play through another stress fracture that was now badly and grossly splintered. And my season was over.

  I spent the next two months in a big leg cast. Like my first season, I was only able to participate in thirty-five games—not many of them complete or in full health.

  When the season ended, they fired Lenny and Tom. It was awful and wrong. These two had done everything they could to make it work. They kept telling the management that the roster was flawed and that with the bad team chemistry the whole thing was never going to work.

  The Blazers’ management kept repeating their story line. The problem was me. Walton could not get healthy. And that as soon as I did, everything would be just fine.

  Lenny disagreed. And it cost him.

  When I got the news, I was sad. Lenny had taught me so much. He always showed so much class, intelligence, perspective, and dignity. He showed me how to play against guys who were far more gifted and physically superior. But in the end, I could do nothing for him. I had let him down.

  When I got the news, I went out on a long bike ride to try to clear my head and cleanse my soul.

  I rode to Lenny’s house, to try to say I was sorry and that I wished there was something I could do to help. We sat all afternoon in his beautiful backyard. It was very hard, and I had no idea what to say.

  Lenny Wilkens deserved better—from me, from the Blazers, and from the people in Oregon. He was doing more than me or anyone else on the team. Yet he’s the one who went down.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  Help on the Way

  ON A JET TO THE PROMISED LAND

  Some rise, some fall, some climb—to get to Terrapin.

  I can’t get enough. Is it the end, or the beginning.

  We’ll rise up to glory.

  I was there.

  After firing Lenny, the Blazers came to me, saying that they needed to operate on my broken wrist. When I asked why now and not when the injury had happened months before during the season, all I got in return was a blank stare.

  The Blazers hired Jack Ramsay as the new coach. I had met Jack that spring when he was still coaching Buffalo. He had a radio show as part of his Buffalo Braves deal, and I was a pregame guest. We did an intriguing spot, and I came away very impressed.

  When Dr. Jack (w
ith a PhD in education) got to Portland, his first order of business was to go around to all the guys on the team and get a sense of what we had. He came to see me first. We sat in the front main room, my arm still in a most cumbersome cast, and talked about everything. I told him of my concerns, frustrations, and disappointment, that this was not what I had hoped for in joining the NBA.

  As he was leaving our house, I begged him to coach us, and to not assume that any of us knew anything about basketball. When that got back to Coach Wooden and Lenny Wilkens, they were more than a bit taken aback.

  When Jack was finished with his round of meetings he went straight to the Blazers offices and told the management team the same story that Lenny had been telling them for two years—that there was no way this was ever going to work. That argument got Lenny Wilkens fired. The same line of thinking got Jack Ramsay the NBA championship.

  The Blazers listened to Jack, in a way that they never did to Lenny. And Jack began what he was brilliant at—creating the vision and makeup of the team.

  * * *

  In the spring of 1976, with the season winding down for both the NBA and the ABA, and with Boston going on to beat Phoenix (who had shocked Rick Barry, Jamaal Wilkes, and the defending champ Warriors in the Western Conference Finals) for the NBA title, the struggling-for-survival ABA found itself in a state of serious contraction.

  Late in what were to be the last gasping moments of the final regular season for the ABA, the league was collapsing seemingly by the breath, going from ten teams to seven in the blink of an eye—during the season. Desperately trying to hang on and salvage what was left, the ABA was only a skeleton by now. But all the players had to go somewhere. And many of the really good ones ended up on the Kentucky Colonels, then coached by a young firebrand, Hubie Brown.

  Today we know Hubie as the league’s elder statesman and a calm voice of reason, sanity, and measured poise and discipline. Things were different forty years ago—on literally every front. It was a different culture then. The players on opposing teams—there was very little player movement from team to team—didn’t like each other. And there was next to zero fraternizing with coaches on the other teams. Are you kidding? We were trying to win. Everything.