The love in Bill Walton's voice when speaking about his four sons was unforgettable
One day, about 15 years ago, my phone rang. The voice on the other line was distinct. “MISTER FREEEEEMANNNNN. Stop what you’re doing and let’s talk, brother.”
It was Bill Walton.
I reached out to Walton about a biography that I was writing on Florida State coach Bobby Bowden. Part of the book was about the closeness Bowden had with his family, and what it was like when your sons, the people you love so much, enter the frantic and sometimes harsh world of coaching. Bowden had three sons and they each coached in college like dad.
Walton’s four sons entered the family business as well with Luke playing and coaching in the NBA. He won two titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and later coached both the Lakers and Sacramento. Walton's other sons played as well. It was a true basketball family.
Remembering a legend:Bill Walton, Hall of Famer and UCLA great, dies at age 71
There have been many amazing tributes to Walton, all of them important and worthy, but I wanted to focus on one aspect of his life you may not know as much about: his relationship with those sons.
When Walton, who died this week at the age of 71, spoke about his family on the phone that day, there was a palpable and deep sense of pride in his sons. He spoke repeatedly about how much he loved them. There was so much grace and kindness in his voice, it was striking. It was the first time I’d spoken to Walton (it wouldn’t be the last) and I’d rarely heard a man speak about his sons with such extreme care.
I will never forget that love in Walton's voice.
Walton was impressed with Bowden because he knows how hard it must have been to have his sons go into coaching.
“I admire Bobby Bowden,” Walton told me for the book, which was published in 2009. “From what I know about him, he’s done such a good job of raising that family while being in the spotlight. That’s not easy to do and add to that some of his sons went into coaching. Then you factor in how he competed against some of his sons. I don’t know if people truly understand how difficult a strain it must’ve been for that family. No one should feel sorry for Coach Bowden or me or anyone else in our situation, but there’s no question it’s a challenge. People think kids like Coach Bowden’s or mine have it easy and have it made, but that’s not necessarily the case.”
When it came to Walton there was always introspection. He mass produced it the way Detroit does cars.
Walton was a giant of a figure, but his depth, not his height, was his greatest asset. This depth came in several forms. One of them was that Walton was a white man that was woke. Not in the way that word has been accosted by extremists and bigots, but in the true sense of it. He was aware of his surroundings; the political ones, the cultural ones, and the people around him. Walton stressed to me several times over the years about what he owed to Black NBA pioneers who cleared the way for him.
He protested the Vietnam War, and this is a fact that I’m not sure many people today fully understand how remarkable that was for a college basketball star to do at that time.
The other greatness with Walton was how later, along with his wife, he raised and loved those boys while excelling in the insane world of professional basketball. He used that Walton introspection to raise good kids.
Walton told me he stuck to three main tenets when raising his sons: keep their lives as normal as possible; remind them how fortunate they are that the family was able to earn a living through sports; and emphasize that his love for them was unconditional and endless.
Walton remembered how as Luke began to sprout as an athlete, he’d repeatedly tell Luke that good and bad would come in sports, and he had no control of when and how much.
“Failure and criticism,” Walton would say, “are as much a part of it as winning and championships. You decided to do this, no one forced you.”
So as we remember Walton, and as we will for some time, maybe forever, we shouldn’t forget that he’s left behind not just a basketball legacy, but also a familial one.
“There is no better feeling than when you go to your son’s game,” Walton said, “and afterwards he says to you, ‘Thanks for coming, Dad.”