A giant in the game of basketball for over 50 years, Bill Walton was “truly one of a kind,” as Adam Silver said. Walton, who led the UCLA Bruins to two national championships before winning two titles in the NBA as well, died of cancer Monday at the age of 71.
Throughout his storied basketball career, Walton was featured on numerous Sports Illustrated covers, starting with his time with the UCLA Bruins in 1971–74, where he was national player of the year three times and won two national championships under John Wooden.
Walton moved to the NBA when he was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in 1974, starting a 14-year career that included a title with the Blazers in ’77, another with the Boston Celtics in ’86 and just about every other award you can think of in between (NBA MVP, Sixth Man of the Year and Finals MVP).
Younger generations got to know Walton through his broadcasting career, in which he further cemented his legacy by putting the “color” in color commentary with unforgettable one-liners and numerous mentions of the Grateful Dead. Starting in 1990, Walton called college and NBA games, working for CBS, ESPN and NBC over his multidecade, Emmy-winning TV career.
To celebrate the life of the legendary red-headed Deadhead, here’s a collection of SI covers from his career and the stories that go along with them.
In March 1972, William F. Reed introduced sports readers to the 6’11” star center of the undefeated Bruins. “The sophomore with the floppy red hair and problem knees is easily the No. 1 big man in college ball, the most talked-about player of this season and maybe one of the best ever to try the game,” Reed wrote.
Just a month later, Walton landed on an SI cover again when he marched UCLA to its sixth straight title (his first). “Walton led the tournament in points (57), rebounds (41), blocked shots, time-outs and, distressingly, moans,” Curry Kirkpatrick wrote of a Final Four that featured a lot of debate around how officials treated Walton.
Walton and the Bruins defeated Notre Dame and won their 61st consecutive game in February 1973. “As the Bruins flew into the Midwest last week to take on Loyola, Notre Dame and Immortality, they seemed like the last persons on earth to care very much what they were about,” wrote Kirkpatrick, who dug into the players behind the big statistics. “They did not talk of The Streak. They did not think about it. One UCLA man said if the newspapers had shut up they wouldn’t even have known about it.”
Previewing the 1973 Final Four, Barry McDermott looked at if Indiana, Memphis State or Providence could possibly take down the Bruins, who were on the hunt for their seventh straight title. “Walton remains the key,” McDermott wrote. “Without him UCLA would be just another great team. But no one has stopped the big center since that policeman arrested him at a UCLA peace demonstration. Told that Indiana might be expected to slow down the game, Walton scoffed. ‘Good. If they plan that, you can tell them to save their plane fare.’ “
In December 1973, Maryland landed in LA as the “UCLA of the East” and almost defeated the real thing. “In defeat Maryland gained more honor, respect and downright envy than it had in any of its 50 victories over the two years past,” Kirkpatrick wrote of the battle.
The Bruins lost to both Oregon and Oregon State in mid-February 1974, Walton’s final year at UCLA. The team’s 88-game winning streak had been snapped just a few weeks before to Notre Dame.
It was a long-awaited rematch for NC State when it took on UCLA in the 1974 Final Four. “For this is the Era of the Bruins, a spell during which college basketball has hummed along to the rhythm of California Winnin’ and thrived on the homilies of that little old man in tennis shoes, John Wooden,” McDermott wrote ahead of the game. “Whether it will be his farewell appearance this week, only the Wizard knows. Bill Walton is graduating and there is speculation that Wooden will graduate with him, trading in his rolled up program for a lounge chair plumped with the cushions of a fat pension and happy memories.” Wooden would go on to coach another year, but the Wolfpack would indeed spoil Walton’s end at UCLA.
Walton had his first matchup against fellow UCLA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at an October exhibition game in 1974. “’I said it before and I’ll say it again: he is the best I’ve ever seen,’ Walton whispered after the Bucks had won 103-96. ‘I learned something out there tonight.’ “
After an injury-plagued first two seasons in the NBA, Walton was finally healthy in 1976 and had the Trail Blazers atop its division. Many thought there was a new Bill Walton, one who was less of a hippie, that accounted for his sudden return to basketball dominance on the floor. He told Kirkpatrick the real reason behind this changed player: “‘I’m just healthy,’ Walton said last week while wearing a lavender Grateful Dead T shirt. ‘That’s all. For two years I wasn’t able to run up and down the court freely without making a conscious effort out of it. Without thinking about it. That’s no way to play basketball.’ ”
Walton and the Trail Blazers took down Abdul-Jabbar and the Lakers in just four games in the 1977 Western Conference finals. “In the years to come it surely will be remembered as the Mountain Man Jam or the V (for Vegetarian) Bomb or the Sky-Is-Falling-Redbeard-Autographed-Screamer. Something like that,” Kirkpatrick opened with. “But before the explosive dunk shot that Bill Walton put in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s face—the one he threw right down there in the famous goggles—before that moment becomes blown out of proportion, let us consider what it was not….”
Walton and the Trail Blazers went on to win their first (and so far, only) title in 1977 after taking down the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Finals. “The Portland Trail Blazers had whip-lashed the 76ers four times in eight days to win the NBA championship, simply because whenever Walton rolled his arms over his head in those strange, jerky circles, all of Multnomah County came to his aid; but when Erving asked for help, what most of the 76ers came up with was zilch,” Kirkpatrick wrote.
In August 1978, Walton made another shocking play, this time off the court. After a dispute over medical care stemming from a foot fracture in an April playoff game, Walton demanded to be traded. John Papanek detailed Walton’s surprising decision and the odd way it unfolded that summer.
After demanding to be traded, having those demands denied and then missing the entire 1978–79 season, Walton was finally ready to return to the court, this time with his hometown San Diego Clippers. “Everything is perfect now for Walton. He’s back in California with his family and the mountains,” Papanek wrote. “But more than anything, it is the anticipation of playing basketball again that lights up his face so that it matches the color of his hair.”
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