Honoring Walton

Starting in Game One of the recent NBA Finals, the Boston Celtics wore a black memorial band with WALTON in caps on the left shoulder of their jerseys. It was a glowing tribute to a basketball legend who played on the Celtics’ 1985-86 championship team as a sixth man and ended his NBA career with the franchise the next season. Bill Walton didn’t play long as a Celtic, wearing Green and White only in two of his 10 campaigns but the impact he made in Boston was resounding.

Walton passed away at 71 last May 27, succumbing to colorectal cancer. When the Celtics hosted Game One of the Finals last June 6, they put on black shooting shirts with Walton’s name in a tie-dye background. Walton was a huge Grateful Dead fan and with the rock band sponsoring the tie-dye outfits of the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic basketball team, he made it a symbol of solidarity beyond sports. The Celtics didn’t honor Walton just for his time with the franchise but for what he stood for in his life. He wasn’t only a basketball star with two NBA championships but also a free thinker, freedom of expression advocate and outspoken social activist.

In March 1979, Walton visited the Philippines to film a TV documentary for the weekly “The American Sportsman” series on the monkey-eating eagle, an endangered specie. He won an Emmy for his work. Walton was recuperating from surgery to repair a broken bone in his left foot and joined a TV crew whose mission was to document the weighing of a baby monkey-eating eagle on top of a luan tree in Davao. While in the country, Walton was invited by the PBA team Gilbey’s Gin to conduct basketball clinics. He joined the squad at a preseason press conference in the Manila Peninsula Hotel introducing coach Pilo Pumaren and the players among whom were Gil Cortez, Ernie de Leon and Norbie Rivera.

Walton’s second wife Lori Matsuoka has Japanese, Chinese and Filipino roots. Her maternal grandmother was Filipina. They were married for 33 years. Walton had four children with his first wife Susie, including former NBA player and Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Luke.

It was in 2003 when I last spoke with Walton in New Jersey while covering the NBA Finals. Walton said he would love to bring his wife to the Philippines where she had never been to. If there was a sponsor willing to fly them over, Walton said they’d go “only don’t make it too close to the start of the season.” Walton never got the chance to come back here.

A basketball Hall of Famer despite his pro career plagued by injuries, Walton went through 37 operations on his feet, back and ankles. He had a speech impediment and it wasn’t until he turned 28 when his stammering and stuttering stopped. Walton overcame his deficiencies to become a popular TV broadcaster and a seven-time Best TV Analyst and Commentator awardee of the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association.

In his book “Back From The Dead,” Walton confided that he seriously thought of taking his own life, struggling with pain in the spine that left him virtually living on the floor of his home for 2 1/2 years. Then, he fought back, underwent a spinal-fusion operation, got a reconditioned knee, had his ankles surgically fused and found a new meaning to life, inspiring those who cared to listen by telling his story and promoting peace in the world.