INTERVIEW BY RICHARD DEITSCH
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | FEBRUARY 22, 2015

RICHARD DEITSCH: You recently called Michael Jordan “an average athlete.” Do you want to explain this further?
BILL WALTON: How much time do we spend going back and explaining something that we said, something that we believe? I love live television and I speak from the heart about what I know. I am always about moving forward. But Michael Jordan, who is one of the seven greatest basketball players ever. Michael Jordan, who is the personification of excellence in everything that he does on and off the court with the exception of the Charlotte Bobcats, and he promises me he is remedying that. Michael Jordan epitomizes one of John Wooden’s most oft-used maxim: “Basketball is not a game of size and strength, it’s a game of skill, timing and positioning.” Michael Jordan was not the biggest, not the strongest, not the fastest and not the highest jumper, but every single night Michael Jordan comes out and delivers peak performance on command. None of it has to do with his athletic ability or with his physical gifts or talents. Michael Jordan’s brilliance is about his brain, his heart, his fundamentals, his footwork, his physical fitness and his commitment to the team. I am a huge Michael Jordan fan and when he was playing, we built our lives around him when he was on TV. We grew up in a household without a television set. Then I was a dad and when our boys were young, I would insist that we have dinner in front of the television set from the opening tip to the closing horn when Michael Jordan was playing. What Michael Jordan has been able to do in terms of going up against the ultimate winners of the genetic lottery and just taking it to them and throwing it down in their face, that guy is one of the most incredible basketball players. And I love it because none of it has to do with being the biggest, strongest, fastest, highest-jumping guy.

DEITSCH: When is the last time you competed on a basketball court?
WALTON: Twenty-eight years ago. The last time I was able to play was on the Celtics team in 1986-87.

DEITSCH: Forget about playing in the NBA. Do you miss just being on the court, shooting around?
WALTON: No. Because I know I cannot play. You play basketball with your legs. I was born with structural congenital defects in my feet. I had no idea—I just thought everyone’s feet hurt all the time and only the lucky people could talk. Basketball was the easiest thing in the world for me. But learning how to speak in the greatest accomplishment in my life. What Marty Glickman did for me 34 years ago more than anything else in my entire life, that has changed everything. A lot of incredible things have gone down in my life, from my parents to Chick Hearn to John Wooden to the Grateful Dead to Bob Dylan to Neil Young to Muhammad Ali to Bill Russell to Martin Luther King to Bobby Kennedy to Sargent Shriver, all these incredible forces in my life. But none have had the impact of learning how to speak has. What happens is as your body fails, you have to be able to use your mind and what you can do.

DEITSCH: Seriously, has your speech been censored at all?
WALTON: No (laughs). First of all, let’s put it into context. I was just up at Berkeley doing a game. It was for the Pac-12 Networks. There had been a controversy at Berkeley—not a controversy as far as I am concerned—but Berkeley had hired Bill Maher to be their winter commencement speaker. Some of the students were irate and demanded the school rescind the invitation to Bill Maher. At one point, the whole thing came to a head and landed on the desk of Chancellor Nicholas Dirks. He looked at this problem, this challenge and what he said was education is not about making people comfortable. Berkeley and the University of California, we are the free speech campus to the world and this is the 50th anniversary of Mario Savio in Sproul Plaza. So Bill Maher will be our Winter Speaker. I stood tall and proud as a Californian, as a graduate of the University of California, and as an American. Thank you, Nicholas Dirks.

DEITSCH: And your body really failed you as we previously talked about.
WALTON: You learn life’s greatest lessons when you are lying on that floor like I was for all those years. You learn life’s greatest lessons when you think you are going to die, you want to die, and then you find yourself saying, “Oh, my gosh, I am going to live and this is what I am stuck with forever.” It was Dr. Steve Garfin in conjunction with this remarkable medical technology and company NuVasive which 12 years ago was a dream of a bunch of visionary entrepreneurs who thought they could do better. So they have changed the world, they have saved my life. One of the coolest things about my life is that I am still in the business of sports. When I was a player I had no interest in the business. I was just playing and doing the games and having a great time. You lie there on the ground long enough as I did and your life changes and I am a totally different person today then I was years ago and hopefully a better person.

DEITSCH: Have you enjoyed the process of writing (your memoir) and thinking about your life?
WALTON: You learn a lot, which is what I love to do. I come from a non-athletic family where academics and education and learning and knowledge and interesting things—that was my life. I played for John Wooden, which was all about the mental aspects of life. John Wooden was an English teacher. I played for Lenny Wilkens, Jack Ramsay, K.C. Jones, Red Auerbach, Paul Silas, Don Cheney, Gene Shue, all these guys who lived and played cerebral lives. Now, just think of the broadcasting influences in my life: growing up with Chick Hearn as the voice in my ear. Then Dick Enberg, our college broadcaster. Then having Brent Musburger so much a huge part of our lives. To have Brent Musburger still in my house, what a thrill for me. To have Dick Enberg who lives just down the way in San Diego, what a thrill. When I made the decision to go into broadcasting, people like Charlie Jones and Pat O’Brien and Ralph Lawler were so helpful and encouraging. Then the guys—Greg Gumbel and Tom Hammond and Bob Costas—they shaped me. All of their stuff is about the mind. That’s what I love about Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich and Jerry Sloan. I can still do some things. I go to the pool. I go the weight room. I can ride the bike and I love my bike. I am moving, I’m still going and I have an incredible world where I have this new sense of knowledge. I start my day with ESPN.com. Then I go to First Take. Then Keith Olbermann at the end of the working day, and then Neil Everett at night who brings it all together.

DEITSCH: What is the last concert you attended?
WALTON: The Grateful Dead did not do New Years Eve this year with the exception of Phil [Lesh] and friends back in New York. I did not go to that. But let’s talk about what is happening right now in music. You have Bob Dylan, with a brand new album called Shadows in the Night. It is off-the-charts fantastic. Start with [song] No. 3, “Stay With Me.” and finish with No. 10, “That Lucky Old Son.” The interview that Dylan did with AARP Magazine and the speech that he gave at the MusiCares Grammy Dinner was just over the top. And now Bob just announced some new tour dates. That is incredible, though too many truck stops for me. Then you have the Grateful Dead coming up July 3, 4 and 5 in Chicago, which is just going to be fantastic. Right now I am on the road for Pac-12 and for ESPN a lot. But we [Lori] try to go to as many concerts as we can. We love the music and love the vibe and atmosphere and the culture and families. It’s like going to a game. We go to be healed, we go to be inspired, we go to learn new things.

DEITSCH: One of the things we are seeing from you is a foray into social media. You are using Vine, tweeting more. Seems like you are taking to social media?
WALTON: John Wooden was right: I am the slowest learner ever. I am super-lucky in that I have the most wonderful wife in the world. Not only is she beautiful, not only is she super cool, not only is she fun, not only does she love music as well, not only is she great at everything she does. She really enjoys technology, as I do as well. She has been saying, “Come on, Bill. Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.” Here is the song for Lori that applies to this. The song is “Don’t Ease Me In” [by the Dead], and the lyric goes: She brings me coffee. She brings me tea. She brings me bout every damn thing but the jailhouse keys. I was there when Bob Dylan broke that out on the tour this past time through California and we just stood there and the world changed that day. I have been waiting for this album and it delivered. Then he gave the interview and then the speech and then he cleared up some of the misconceptions from the speech and it was just fantastic.

DEITSCH: You have met a lot of interesting people in your life. Is there someone that you would like to meet that you have yet to meet?
WALTON: The world is full of incredible people and I recently went to Arizona State University where the president is trying to make the world a better place. I run into that everywhere I go. I have had all these incredible people in my life from my parents and I talked about them during this interview. I have learned that those kind of people—people like Chick Hearn, Coach Wooden, people like Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan. There are people like that everywhere. Our job is to search for and to find and to learn from those master teachers. That is one of the great things about my job. I get to go to these college campuses where people are working on so many incredible things. That’s what I love about the media because the media tells the story. That is what I love about my job, to tell the story of what is going on. This is about people and chasing the dream and building lives.

When I was a boy growing up, to have all these voices—Chick, Dick Enberg, Brent Musburger, Charlie Jones, Pat O’Brien—I would listen to these guys and say, “If they can say that, if they can do that, if they can dream that and they can think that, look what I can do with my life, little Billy with red hair, big nose, freckles and goofy, nerdy-looking face and his horrendous speech impediment.” Now here I am. I am in the chair. What an incredible opportunity, privilege, but also with opportunity and privilege comes responsibility and duty and an obligation to move it forward. It’s like going to the gym to play basketball with Larry Bird and Maurice Lucas and Greg Lee and Jamaal Wilkes. I am the luckiest guy in the world. Who would have ever thought?