Back from the Dead

by Bill Walton

  And Larry never even got to play. One might have thought that after the week Larry had in practice, Coach Wooden would actually put him into the game to try to make a difference, seeing as how Larry was probably the one guy in the building who knew what Carr was going to do before he did it. But Larry did not even get in until the final few minutes, when it was already way too late.

  Coach Wooden was totally devoted to his starting five, and everybody else was just there to serve. He played his best players the entire game, or at least until it was out of reach. Conditioning was never an issue. We were UCLA. And very proud of it all. Coach was just not into substituting, the same way he never liked calling time-outs. The only UCLA player that I can recall being consistently productive off the bench for Coach Wooden was Kenny Washington, who defined competitive greatness, and always came with his best when it was needed most. The last game Coach ever taught at UCLA, the 1975 NCAA championship game, four players played the entire game, and one guy got sixteen minutes off the bench.

  Even though Larry had been brilliant all week impersonating Austin Carr in practice, Larry was a sub and not a starter. “Coach finally called me up to the head of the bench,” Larry remembered many years later. “I go ‘all right,’ so I’m finally going in. I’m real happy, excited as can be. When I got up to Wooden, he says to me, ‘Go get Austin.’ I said, ‘Coach, Austin’s got thirty-eight. What do you mean go get him? Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that? The guy’s already on fire!’ ”

  Back in Dykstra, watching this debacle through to the end, Greg, Jamaal, and I turned to each other as the surreal sadness turned all too real, and personal. We muttered to each other, “We will never let this happen again.”

  UCLA didn’t lose another game for three years.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  My Lightning, Too . . . The Music Never Stops

  They’re a band beyond description, like Jehovah’s favorite choir

  People joining hand in hand, while the music played the band

  Lord they’re setting us on fire.

  Me and some of my friends, we were going to save the world.

  My whole life has been about the dream of being part of a special team. The irony in our world was that the better the team became, the harder it was to keep it a team. The outside powers that were so determined to make it about me could not have been further from the reality of my life.

  Why the focus on and promotion of the individual, which minimizes and trivializes the many invaluable contributions that make the team what it is? Whose idea was that?

  I spent the summer between my first and second years at UCLA mostly back in San Diego. There’s better bike riding, beaches, mountains, deserts, air, and water there. And still plenty of everything else. Plus I needed some money; our $128 monthly scholarship checks only came during the school year. I got a summer job at the lumber yard, cutting and stacking the wood, filling the swelling purchase orders as the inexorable buildup of the Southland continued unabated. Emory from Helix was one of my bosses. He’s still there today. There were lots of UCLA guys there at the top as well.

  Back at school in early October, I was beyond the dorms, so I rented a room on Gayley Avenue, across the street from campus. It was in a disbanded frat house, dissolved due to lack of interest at the time. I think the rent was $20 a month, maybe $25. It took a sizable chunk out of my monthly scholarship check. I ate wherever and whenever I could. I was always hungry when I was at UCLA, although never for very long.

  The basketball was perfect. Coach Wooden was excited with the newness of the squad. The other teams were licking their chops, sure it was now their turn, what with the departure of Wicks, Rowe, and Patterson to graduation. Wooden was constantly barraged: What are you going to do now, Coach? You no longer have the dominant player (Wicks) or front line. Now all you have is a bunch of skinny, scrawny new guys with no experience. And by the way, Coach—who are those new guys?

  One of Wooden’s greatest strengths—and it’s impossible to rank, rate, or compare them—was his ability as a coach, teacher, leader, and/or friend to breathe life and confidence into people, players, and situations. He was always outwardly calm under the greatest of pressures, a trait that really helped us. Coach had no problem giving the same answer to the exhaustingly repetitive questions, and the response went something like this: “I like our team and players, and we’ll take our chances. I like our chemistry, personnel, and talent. And I will always take talent over experience.”

  One day early on in the six weeks or so of buildup to the games, Coach uncharacteristically stopped the run and gathered us around. He rarely addressed us in a static environment. So when he started speaking here, his words took on added importance. Coach started talking about who we are, UCLA, what we do, and why. He explained that our game was the fast break, the relentless attack that created endless and exciting opportunities for all—UCLA basketball. Fundamentals, physical fitness, the team game, the full-court press—all leading to commanding and seemingly endless victories.

  Coach went on to say, “In the open court, on the run, anybody can shoot. In the fast break, which is our game, no one will ever say a contrary word to you or anybody about assertively taking the ball, shooting a jump shot, taking it to the basket, making your play.” But then he turned cautionary, and went on. “If it’s a setup situation, though, and the other team is back and dug in defensively, if Walton and Wilkes don’t get the ball every time, the rest of you guys are coming out. Now let’s get back to it.”

  * * *

  John Wooden was all about preparation, with purpose, for performance. We were ready, now on the eve of our first game, now as the varsity squad. We had a good team, and it was our time.

  In those days, long gone now, players would stay in the locker room until just twenty minutes before the tip, when everybody would go out together for a group warm-up. While we waited anxiously in the sanctuary of our locker room before getting it all going that first time, we were doing our stretches and push-ups, playing pepper with the ball, and slap-fighting each other, getting ready to get down to it.

  Coach came in and gathered us around. We sat there dutifully, one more time. Now he was dressed impeccably: suit and tie, clean and crisp as can be. No more caged tiger in his basketball gear from the practices. Now he was the seeming church deacon whom countless millions came to know later in Coach’s more public life, after his retirement from UCLA. In the four years that we played for Coach Wooden, his pregame preparation never varied. We never watched film, he never used the blackboard, we never ran a play—didn’t have any. And in the games, we never called time-out. Only rarely, and mistakenly, did he mention the other team by name. It was all about us, all the time, and what we were going to do, in our memorized exhibition of brilliance.

  So calm, so poised, so controlled, but always with the rolled-up program in his hand, he would look out at us and say, “Men, I’ve done my job. The rest is up to you. When that game starts out there, please, don’t ever look over at me on the sideline. There is nothing more that I can do to help you from this point forward. Now let’s get it going, up and down.” And then it was time.

  The only perceptible variance from this repetitive preparation came on opening night of each year—although this night we were clueless, because it was our first time around. What did or could we know?

  On opening night, as Coach was getting it all going, he started talking about the big picture of it all, the importance of getting off to a good, quick start if we were to have a wholly successful season. But as he was talking, he became uncharacteristically distracted. He kept looking off to the side of the room. Finally, he stopped his message and strode boldly over to the wall. He bent down and came up with a penny pinched in his fingers. Holding it up, Coach happily proclaimed, “Look at this, guys. Somebody has dropped and lost a penny. This is a good omen for us. This now-found penny represents good luck, and means that we have a chan
ce at success.”

  He then leaned over and slid that lucky penny into the slot on the top of one of his penny loafer shoes. And carried it there all season long.

  We thought he was nuts.

  We started strong. That first night was a blowout, a 56-point takedown of The Citadel, the then 130-year-old Military College of South Carolina. Maybe it was the lucky penny—who knows? I like to think that any bonus luck was from the Grateful Dead and the New Riders of the Purple Sage, since they had just rolled into and through Pauley and had christened our season and locker room with a fantastic concert just a few weeks before.

  We won our first eight games by a total of 355 points. At 15-0, our average winning score was 102–64. We beat Notre Dame by 58, and Texas A&M by 64. Teams were trying to beat us at our game—running. It wasn’t working. And we were really enjoying it all.

  Reporters and the media were never allowed in our locker room the entire time I was at UCLA. Coach thankfully controlled everything. I wanted no part of any publicity. I couldn’t talk, was completely unwilling to ever share any cogent or rational thought at all, which might jeopardize our chance of winning, and I never liked or accepted the focus and attention on individuals in a team game. The postgame media routine in those days was for Coach to select one or two experienced players who he thought were representative of the team effort to go outside into the hallway by the water fountain and answer reporters’ questions about the game.

  After the opening Citadel game, Coach proudly selected his prize new star, the team’s sharpest intellect, Greg Lee, to address the media. It did not go well, although nobody knew it until the next day. The newspaper game accounts had Greg, asked to evaluate the evening’s opponent, comparing The Citadel to an average junior college team. Coach was beside himself, couldn’t believe that his handpicked pupil and virtual son for all these years would ever let him down, much less on the night of his first-ever UCLA game. Wooden was so mad. We had never seen this. He was furious that Greg, or any one of us, would ever belittle the opposition—much less in public.

  In his own defense, Greg told us how the whole thing actually went down before his published words were stripped of context. The reporter’s statement, not question, was something like, “Come on, Greg. Those guys out there tonight were not any better than the teams you used to beat regularly and easily in high school!” To which Greg, in noble and reasoned defense of the helpless foes from South Carolina, replied, “No, that’s not right. They were much better than that! More like one of the junior college teams we played last year as freshmen.”

  Regardless, Coach did not see Greg’s verbal contribution as a positive.

  In all other ways, the team was coming along, and what a team it was. Greg and Henry Bibby at the guards, Jamaal Wilkes and Larry Farmer up front with me. Offensively we would have structure and motion that generally got us into a 1-3-1 attack, with Greg out front, Henry on the left wing, Jamaal at the high post, and Larry on the right wing; I got to work down low—just as I had wanted, and as Wooden had promised I would when he made me learn to play the high post as a freshman.

  As is always the case with a team, sacrifice was a critical element to our success. Greg rarely shot, becoming the key to our success as the perfect setup guy. Henry, as our lone playing senior, captain, and first-team All-America, was either wide open and scored a ton, or was tightly guarded and threw it to me for big numbers. There was never much middle ground here. Jamaal got the ball a lot from Greg and Henry, and developed the most effective fake-pass any of us had ever seen.

  Larry Farmer never saw many touches at all in the sets. Larry Hollyfield played some, and deserved more time, but where and from whom was it going to come? Swen Nater played only when I got into foul trouble (rarely) or in the closing moments when Wooden reluctantly took Jamaal and me out. Whatever playing time Tommy Curtis got—ever—was way too much. And the rest of the guys, plus a couple of redshirt players, made up the preparation squad, responsible for doing whatever it took to get us ready. They were sophomores Vince Carson and Gary Franklin, and the old carryover guys, Andy Hill and Jon Chapman. Andy and Jon, to this day, never forget to rightly remind me that they were among the last of the fourteen UCLA guys to win three straight NCAA Championships.

  Coach wanted my older brother, Bruce, to be on the team, too. Bruce was an All-America football player at UCLA and an Academic All-America. Bruce also kept a very active social life. So when Coach Wooden offered Bruce a spot on the basketball team, Bruce politely declined. He was concerned that Coach was just looking for an enforcer, and Bruce was quite confident in Swen Nater’s potential. Plus, Bruce realized that it was much easier to meet new friends in the stands at Pauley than from the bench.

  The most effective, efficient, and fun part of our game was the pressing defense leading to the fast break, where anybody out front had complete freedom to let it grow, glow, and go. Our full-court zone press, which never let up, led to literally everything for us. It was nominally structured (everything John Wooden had structure) as a 2-2-1. Henry and Larry Farmer up front, waiting for the ball to be put in play, and when the other team got the ball up the first fifteen feet to our free-throw line, they would quickly and assertively double-team the ball. Not to steal, but rather to force a pass. And that’s where and when the real action began. The second line of defense was Greg and Jamaal, starting at half-court. It was their quickness and sense of anticipation that made the whole thing work so powerfully. They had total freedom, and were strongly encouraged to go for any and every ball. My job was to cover everything else in the back.

  Our fans—the original great fan base in basketball history—had their job as well. As soon as we scored, which was quite often, the ball in our net triggered our press. The fans would immediately start the ten-second countdown that the other team had to beat to get the ball over the half-court line. The ten-nine-eight-seven rolling chant reverberating throughout Pauley would completely disrupt the other team and help us immensely, not to mention the refs, who sometimes lost track of the Count. The crowd was very cool in never keeping a constant beat, rhythm, or cadence in their count—very much like the Grateful Dead. As they got ever closer to zero and the resulting violation, our crowd became the Dead as they would pick up the pace, the speed, and the volume of the Count.

  The other teams got so flustered, and their coaches regularly lost it—which only inspired everybody involved to go for more.

  The gambles and risks of Greg and Jamaal at midcourt constantly forced the other team into fast-break action. Which all totally fed into my game. I would wait, impatiently, at the other team’s foul line, salivating for the opportunity to do something—block, rebound, and outlet—to turn the whole play the other way.

  The cycle started and went on endlessly, gloriously, and spectacularly, with regular 15- to 20-point runs, often to start the game. We loved it all.

  The opponents often crumbled under the weight and pressure of everything. They began to realize that ultimately they had no chance. Their pathetic, hopeless recourse was to start sucking the air out of the ball and the game by slowing it down and ruining all our fun.

  We were destroying everybody. After beating Notre Dame in December by 58 points, we went back to their place in January to complete the yearly home-and-home series. Digger Phelps ruined the day by forbidding his team from trying to win. Their only goal was to not get beat by 58 points. So they hardly ever shot. They held the ball as long as they could—at one stretch for three and a half minutes without so much as taking a step toward the basket. There was no shot clock in those days. It was boring, frustrating, embarrassing, and no fun at all—all of which pretty much describes Digger.

  We were ready to run and play; that’s the nature of basketball. But we scored only 57 points in the entire game, which was usually about our total by halftime. And still, we won the game by 25. It felt like a waste of a trip across the country, but at least we had Andy Hill along to show us the finer points of enjoying a high t
ime on the road and in the air as part of an NCAA Championship squad.

  Andy was the guy whom Coach Wooden assigned to welcome me to UCLA, when I would just show up, still a high school player from San Diego. He would feed me, find me a place to sleep in the dorms, show me the ropes, and ultimately become my tour guide in our one varsity season together.

  He had come to UCLA the same year as Henry Bibby and together they formed a dynamic, high-scoring backcourt on their freshman team. They were looking forward to openings on the varsity backcourt as eventually the starters at the time would be termed out. But for Andy, that starting spot sadly never came. It was a burning source of frustration for him, and over time led to serious friction between him and Wooden—though it never affected his commitment to our team, or our friendship, which has lasted and grown stronger over the last forty-five years.

  * * *

  Just before the start of the Pac-8 conference season, which was all-important, since you had to win your conference to get into what was then the twenty-five-team NCAA tournament, I came down with the flu and got very sick. I was down and out, couldn’t get up. I couldn’t go to class, couldn’t go to practice, and there was real concern that I would not be able to make the two-day trip to Oregon for the Beavers and the Ducks.

  Coach Cunningham would come by every day to my small, dark, dank room on Gayley to check on me, but I wasn’t getting any better. I was living alone and not really able to do much for myself. Finally Henry Bibby, our captain and senior leader, took things into his own hands. He came by one day, unannounced, and just walked right in—nothing was ever locked—and started gathering my stuff. I sat up groggily in bed, and couldn’t figure it all out. Eventually, when his arms were full, Henry flatly stated, “Come on, Bill. You’re coming with me.”