Bruin Legend and National Treasure Bill Walton Dies After Prolonged Cancer Battle

The Pac-12's biggest advocate has passed away just days after the conference's final event.

Bill Walton with Coach Wooden (Photo Credit: @KevinStott11)

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For the past ten years, I’ve had the sheer joy of sharing my passion for UCLA sports with all of you. Yet I find myself at an absolute loss for words today.

That’s because a great sadness has descended upon Westwood.

It’s a sadness arising from the loss of one of the greatest Bruin athletes in the 104-year history of the University of California, Los Angeles. My friends, Bruin legend Bill Walton has died after a prolonged battle with cancer. He was 71.

Back when Big Red was a freshman in the 1970-71 season, freshmen were still ineligible to play on the varsity team. It’s been said that the UCLA varsity team that year may have been the best varsity team in the country, but it was the second best team on the UCLA campus as the freshman team actually beat the varsity team that year. His teammates on that freshman team were Greg Lee and Jamaal Wilkes, known then as Keith.

Starting in his sophomore season, Walton led the UCLA varsity team to back-to-back 30-0 seasons and an overall mark of 86-4 during his time in Westwood including a 49-0 mark at home in Pauley Pavilion. Walton’s teams won the NCAA championship in both 1972 and 1973.

He was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers and played ten injury-plagued seasons in the NBA between 1974 and 1990. He won two NBA championships, one with Portland in 1976-77 and another with the Boston Celtics in 1985-86.

In addition to basketball, Walton was known as a big music fan. Anyone who followed him knows he was a huge fan of the Grateful Dead, having been inducted into the band’s Hall of Honor. But he was also a fan of the Allman Brothers Band, Neil Young, Phish, and Bob Dylan.

Indeed, my personal most notable Bill Walton sighting came at a May 2000 concert at the Honda Center when it was known as Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. It was there that I spotted Big Red standing up dancing as best he could given his physical ailments in the 18th row while Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played another legendary concert. I remember thinking to myself at the time that I felt sorry for the guy who had the seat behind Walton that night. It was only when Springsteen recently returned to San Diego in March with the E Street Band for the first time since 1981 that I learned that a friend had some issues with another concert-goer that night in Anaheim and she was happy when she saw that individual was stuck behind Walton that night. It seemed fitting. Or, as Bill might put it, it was karma.

Of course, that night in Anaheim, I was more focused on Bruce than I was on Bill, and I missed out on my best opportunity to meet him. So much so that I was hopeful that I would see Bill rocking out to Bruce again when tickets to the San Diego show went on sale. But the show was postponed from its original December date to March and Bill was probably too sick to attend by then.

Following his NBA career, Walton overcame his speech impediment to become a basketball broadcaster. In a 2017 with Oregonian sportswriter John Canzaro on his Bald Faced Truth podcast, Walton called this his greatest accomplishment. He said at the time:

I'm a stutterer. I never spoke to anybody. I lived most of my life by myself. But as soon as I got on the court I was fine. But in life, being so self conscious, red hair, big nose, freckles and goofy, nerdy looking face and can't talk at all. I was incredibly shy and never said a word. Then, when I was 28 I learned how to speak. It's become my greatest accomplishment of my life and everybody else's biggest nightmare.

Following his retirement from the NBA, Walton went on to a 35-year career as a broadcaster. Since 2012, he had worked for ESPN and the Pac-12 Networks where he became the biggest ambassador for the Pac-12 Conference. Nary a moment went by that Walton didn’t remind viewers of the Pac-12 tagline “The Conference of Champions.”

Walton doubled-down on his evangelism of the Pac-12 when he referred to the Big Ten Conference as a “truck stop league.” It was immediately clear that Walton wasn’t happy when the decision was made that UCLA would leave the conference and move to Big Ten.

The bigger surprise came when Walton suddenly disappeared from broadcasting in mid-February. His last game was a February 10th game between Oregon and Washington State. He was scheduled to call more games including the Pac-12 Tournament Championship Game, but his health issues kept him from being able to call those games.

At the time, it seemed odd that Walton would miss the final Pac-12 title game, but it now makes sense.

And, it seems only fitting that, days after the final games ever played in the Pac-12 Conference he loved, that Bill Walton has passed.

As I sit here writing this, I’m reminded one of my favorite all-time Waltonisms. Sure enough, back when we were on the old site, I memorialized this quote by uploading it to YouTube. While discussing the troubles of UCLA basketball that year, Walton’s longtime ESPN partner Dave Pasch asked Bill how he would fix UCLA. Walton responded by simply saying, “I’m not in charge. If I were, things would be different.”

I think that pretty much sums up how I’m feeling today. Things would be different.

Rest in peace, Big Red. You represented the Four Letters as well as anyone.


Go Bruins.