RIP, Bill Walton

Sad news from the sports world. Former NBA great Bill Walton died yesterday of cancer. Walton was just 71 years old. 

Walton starred for the Portland Trailblazers, leading them to the 1977 NBA Championship. It is still the only NBA title in that franchise's history. Walton also won another NBA title as a member of the 1986 Boston Celtics, although he was not the leading star for the team. 

I knew him better for his role as an NBA announcer. To me, he was one of the most distinctive voices (along with Marv Albert) of the NBA during what I still feel was the golden era of NBA basketball, in the nineties. 

He also struck me as decent and likeable. That is not a given in sports. For example, growing up as a fan of the New York Giants, I was impressed with some of the faces of the franchise. While quarterback Phil Simms seems like a genuinely decent guy, head coach Bill Parcells and star linebacker Lawrence Taylor were a different matter. As much as I admired their skills and contributions for the success of those Giants teams back in the  mid-eighties to early nineties, they seemed a little less likeable, frankly, when you got away from the football field.

More recently, it felt the same way with star quarterback Tom Brady as well as some other athletes. While I always admired Brady, and his obvious drive to succeed and win, he felt a whole lot less likeable off the field than Joe Montana, who was the star quarterback during the era of NFL when I was growing up as a far. I didn't like the 49ers, but they had some personalities whom I always liked, including Montana, Jerry Rice, and Bill Walsh. Other athletes, however, felt less likeable, at least to me. Pete Sampras felt like that to me in the nineties, as did some other sports figures. Kyrie Irving comes to mind as a still active player in the NBA who has undeniable talent on the basketball court, but who seems frankly downright unlikeable once he's off the court.

Which is why Walton seemed almost the polar opposite. He always struck me as somehow decent. But that was even more the case after catching two or three episodes of the "30 for 30" documentary on him (which actually has six parts), and which is called "The Luckiest Guy in the World." After viewing that, he felt more likeable and decent than ever. He was drafted by Portland in 1974, and really seemed like a good fit. He was kind of a hippie, which fit in perfectly with Portland and Oregon, which has a reputation for being rather tolerant. Walton seemed down to earth, and had a philosophical approach to life. He tried to connect with nature as often as possible, and had a very different viewpoint on the world than most athletes. This generated controversy. Yet to his credit, Walton always seemed to take a stance on important world events which mattered to him. I admired his ethics, as well as his bravery.

Also, he made watching the NBA in the nineties even more enjoyable, similar to the way Pat Summerall and John Madden helped to make watching NFL games more fun in the 1980's and 1990's. I feel that the NBA would have been considerably diminished had he not been one of the leading commentators, frankly. 

RIP, Bill Walton. You will be missed.