Basketball Hall of Famer and longtime NBA and college hoops broadcaster Bill Walton had his NBA career cut short by a series of injuries to his feet and back, injuries that brought him from the brink of a career as a potential all-time great to one that was marked by his status as a part-time player, a former MVP and All-Star who missed four full seasons out of 14 with foot surgeries.
Walton died on Sunday at age 71, after what the NBA reported to be a battle with colon cancer.
While he will be remembered for his wizardry as the best passing big man in the game, for his flaming red hair and hippie aesthetic, and for his colorful descriptions as a national broadcaster, Walton also should be remembered as someone who spoke openly about depression and suicide, in the years just before those subjects became more openly discussed.
In his book, “Back from the Dead,” Walton described the intense pain and feelings of desperation he felt as he went through a series of back surgeries that, essentially, rebuilt his spine.
He described the increasing pain he was suffering just before he collapsed in 2008, when he was living in West Hartford, Connecticut, to be close to the ESPN studios where he was working as an analyst: “With the bitter cold, rain, ice and snow, coupled with the uneven terrain, I just started to shrivel up and die. The nerve pain from my spine that had plagued me for most of the past thirty-five years steadily worsened.”
Bill Walton: ‘I Was Going to Kill Myself’
In 2016, Walton reported that he had undergone 38 surgeries in his life, an incredible number for anyone, but particularly an individual as active as Walton, who traveled extensively from his Southern California home to cover games.
He told Sports Illustrated’s Maggie Gray that the pain he was enduring so consistently had driven him into a dark hole, and that his collapse in 2008 could well have been a death knell.
“Maggie, it’s like anything that is really meaningful and impactful,” he told Gray. “It’s how you’re feeling that day. When I was lying on the floor and I had nothing, I was going to kill myself, if I’d had a gun. It just—all these things kept flashing in. I kept telling myself all the time, what am I ever going to do if I get up off the floor?”
In another motivational speech, Walton talked about the importance of reaching out to others during the depth of depression.
“I was so lucky,” Walton said. “I was lying on that ground. I was going to kill myself. I had a friend—you know him, his name is Jim Gray. … Jim called me every day. Jim called me every day and said, ‘Bill, don’t give up, you can make it.’ And Jim, he went out and he found my doctor.”
‘I Am Looking Forward to What’s Next for Me’
All around the NBA, Walton is being remembered for his affable nature and unforgettable catchphrases from his time on the airwaves—“Throw it down, big man!” being at the forefront. I personally remember he once defended his odd pick of Dennis Johnson as the greatest rebounding guard ever by saying, “When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks at all.”
He also famously described winning the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award for the 1986 Celtics by telling ESPN’s Dave Pasch: “That means I was Larry Bird‘s valet. Which means my job was to tell Larry what time the game started.”
While much of Walton’s book chronicles the battles he endured both physically and mentally, the final chapter features some especially uplifting thoughts from Walton, once his surgeries were behind him.
“I am looking forward to what’s next for me,” he wrote. “I have been at this for far too long. I have a new spine. I have a new knee. And now I’m going off in search of a new life. .. I am happy again right now. Happy to be moving on down the road, looking forward to the next long, hard climb.”
Walton did not know at the time that cancer would be in his future. But he was able to meet that, at least, on his own terms.
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