Back from the Dead

by Bill Walton

  One of the critical elements of leadership is the willingness and ability to say no. And that is where we stood, at the crossroads of our lives. Faced with the greed, selfishness, war profiteering, cronyism, incompetence, and the lunacy of where our “leaders” were taking us in Southeast Asia, we had no other choice.

  The isolated happy vacuum that some prefer for their lives and college experiences was not what I was looking for. And with its long and proud progressive history of integration and social and political involvement that includes the likes of Ralph Bunche, Jackie Robinson, Don Barksdale, Rafer Johnson, Walt Hazzard, Arthur Ashe, Kenny Washington, Mike Warren, Lucius Allen, Kareem, and Sidney Wicks, UCLA was just fine with, and for, me.

  UCLA has always been a place where students stand tall and speak their minds. Just before I came up from San Diego, one of the Bruin basketball players, Bill Seibert, had done just that. His public displeasure with most things Coach Wooden ultimately led to Seibert being banished by the Coach to Tasmania.

  But now the peace rallies and the rage against Nixon and the war were a constant part of our lives. Speakers, programs, demonstrations, seminars, sit-ins, be-ins, love-ins, teach-ins, you name it and it was happening at UCLA. And we were at all of them. Yet the powers that be kept reassuring us that everything was fine, there was nothing to see here, and that we should all just keep moving along.

  So now we had completed our 1972 undefeated championship basketball season, the Olympic deal had passed me by, and I was finishing up the school year, trying to figure it all out. Then, almost two years to the day after the Kent State and Jackson State massacres, Nixon ordered a new and massive expansion of the Vietnam War—with naval blockades, the mining of harbors, and an enormous aerial bombing rain of terror.

  The opposition—us—surged forward to say “NO.” Thousands of students came together at Royce Quad, soon making our way down Westwood Boulevard as people spilled out of the surrounding buildings, swelling our ranks. I recognized and knew most of them. We became one. Through the village that was the campus’s commercial heart, we made our way to Wilshire and Veteran, with our sights on the 405 freeway. The police drew their line there and held us back. We hung there for a while, sitting down in the intersection but not venturing farther, before heading home for the night.

  The next day, May 10, 1972, the Daily Bruin ran an editorial that said it all.

  “Today is the day to strike,” it began. “Today is not the day for ‘business as usual.’ Today is not the day to go to class. Today is the day to rally, to march, to close down the university. Because today is the day to end the war.”

  Right. I get that! It went on powerfully from there. So we came back, with more—and for more. Some of the peace marchers worked their way down to the massive federal building at Wilshire and Veteran. Others went building to building on campus, recruiting and encouraging everyone within earshot to join us. Some of us headed to Murphy Hall, the administration building, just off Royce Quad. We spent the night there and fortified our positions with everything that could be moved—tables, chairs, trash cans, and fire hoses. We left early the next morning, figuring it was better to keep moving, and by noon there was a new and huge gathering of people near the top of Janss Steps, roving around looking for the action that seemed imminent.

  The LAPD was soon on the scene, and skirmishes began to break out, back and forth across the Quad. At one point, the “peace officers” were moving us forcibly out of the Quad in an easterly direction toward Murphy Hall and the law school, when, on one of the upper floors of Haines Hall, just east of Royce Hall, a student stuck his head out a window and turned a full-on fire hose on the rear guard of the shocked police battalion. We loved it, and the cheers rang loud, proud, and true. The entire corps of armed guards turned and raced into Haines in hot pursuit of the guy with the hose. When they were all inside the building, either climbing the stairs or riding the elevators up for the capture, the guy with the hose threw it out the window and used it as a rappelling rope to shimmy down the exterior wall of Haines, hitting the ground on the run and sprinting over to the safety of our midst, where we engulfed him in a warm, welcoming roar of approval.

  The red-faced cops had had enough by this point and soon were busting heads with nightsticks and slapping handcuffs onto anyone they could catch—and that would include me, as well as fifty-one of my very good friends. As I sat there handcuffed on the police bus, waiting for it to fill up and take us to the federal building and then to a jail in the San Fernando Valley, I spotted Chancellor Young, sadly and sorely surveying the carnage of everything that he had built and loved so much. I yelled out the window, “F— you, Chuck!”

  I later apologized to the chancellor for that personal attack, making it clear that my apology did not change my way of thinking or what side of the fight I was on.

  After a few unpleasant and boring hours in the jailhouse, I was out before nightfall, as UCLA and Chancellor Young sent a team of lawyers to set things right for all of us. And then, somehow, I ended up in a car with Coach Wooden driving me back to campus. I was nineteen, and I’m pretty sure it was the first time I was ever alone in the restrictive confines of a car with the Coach.

  Coach was not happy, to say the least. And he was in my face, in a most determined fashion, unlike anything I had ever seen or witnessed before. And he went on and on, about how I had gone TOO FAR THIS TIME. And that I had let EVERYBODY down. Him, his family. My family. UCLA and its family. The NCAA—and its family. And basically anybody he could think of, which pretty much included the history of the world. And their families, too. He was hot.

  What was I to say?

  I was guilty—of wanting PEACE NOW!

  As we got closer and closer to campus, I started arguing back. And I began telling him how this whole deal is wrong, and we have to do everything that we can to stop the military madness . . . RIGHT NOW!

  He kept coming back at me, assuring me how wrong I was—on EVERYTHING.

  Finally I turned to him in the driver’s seat and said, “Look, you can say what you want. But it’s my friends and classmates who are coming home in body bags and wheelchairs. And we’re not going to take it anymore. We have got to stop this craziness, AND WE’RE GOING TO DO IT NOW!”

  Coach was taken aback, and his voice suddenly changed. He started up again, this time in a more somber tone, about how he didn’t like the war, either, but that I was going about the whole thing in the wrong way. Because my actions, as a participant in the peace rallies and initiatives, were infringing on the rights of others to continue on with their pursuits and choices in life.

  My tone didn’t change. “RIGHT . . . like everything is JUST NORMAL and that if we only let it all ride, everything will be fine . . .”

  Then he started talking about how to reach goals, and that in this case the best way to get my point across would be by writing letters of disagreement to the people in charge.

  “Write letters? Are you kidding me? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What good is that going to do?”

  What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?

  “LETTERS? Goodness gracious sakes alive!”

  How can you run when you know?

  We were pulling up now to my rooming house on Gayley. This was not ending well. There was certainly no resolution or common ground.

  There was no mention of Tasmania.

  As I thanked him for the ride, I told him that I would see him tomorrow at school. Just as he was pulling away, the lightning-bolt flash of inspiration seared across the smoking crater that is my mind one more time.

  LETTERS! YEAH, RIGHT!

  So I turned away from the rooming house, cut across and through Dykstra Park and headed up the back way toward Pauley, and made a direct line to the athletic department and Coach Wooden’s office. He would certainly not be there, having just dropped me off; assuredly he was on his way home to see his wife, Nell. Imagine what she had to say!

  As I made my way
to the second floor, the offices were all empty, since it was late in a very difficult UCLA day. But Coach’s secretary was still there, closing things down for the night. I asked her sheepishly if she had any stationery, since Coach Wooden had talked to me about writing some letters. She nodded willingly and shuffled through some files before producing some of the finest and cleanest-looking UCLA/John Wooden/NCAA Championship Basketball stationery you can possibly imagine.

  I thanked her profusely, with a big smile, and she said quietly, “I hope everything is okay, Bill.”

  I assured her that all was well—even more so now.

  So I headed back to my room, which was less than half a mile away, and started writing. I scripted a letter to Nixon on Coach’s UCLA stationery. I outlined all of Nixon’s crimes against humanity, then demanded an immediate end to the war and the return home of all our troops. Then I demanded his immediate resignation as our president, and I thanked him in advance for his cooperation.

  And I signed it. And went to bed.

  The next day at school, all the guys were there. The same way that they were all at the rallies the day before, and most every other day as well. But they had not been taken down. They were all very concerned. Bill, what did Coach say? What did he do? What’s going to happen?

  I told them everything was cool, that Coach had been very nice (I lied), and that he told me that instead of going to all these rallies and getting arrested and all, I should instead write letters. And I had written one.

  They were all excited, and so I showed them my beautiful letter, on Coach’s stationery. They got all fired up, and as they were reading this heartfelt manifesto of freedom and peace, they asked if they could sign it, too. And they did. In big, bold, brave script.

  So I went to see Coach. Now he was nice and cordial, having calmed down from yesterday’s intense and confrontational car ride home from jail. “Bill, it’s good to see you. I hope that you got something positive out of our discussion yesterday.”

  With a big smile, I told him that I had, and that I had taken his advice and had, indeed, written a letter. And that I hoped he would sign it.

  Puzzled, perplexed, he looked up at me and asked to take a look. When he saw that the letter was written on his stationery and addressed to Nixon, he stiffened. And while he held this masterpiece of literature in his worn, gnarled, bent fingers and hands, the blood started to drain, his extremities turning white, and his calm, poised demeanor changed to uncertainty and boiling rage. I could see and feel that he wanted to tear the thing to shreds.

  When he finally got to the end, he took a very deep and long breath. He looked up at me with the sad, soft eyes of a father. A father who had been let down; in life, and everything else.

  He looked at me and said, very quietly, “Bill, I cannot sign this letter. And you’re not going to send this, are you?”

  With a big, joyous grin I told him, “Coach, you told me to write letters! And I did. I always do exactly what you tell me!”

  Slowly and sadly he handed me back the letter, in perfect condition.

  I mailed it that day. And sure enough, Nixon resigned, although not soon enough, as the dead and broken bodies kept piling up.

  * * *

  Twenty-two years later, it’s the spring of 1994, and I’m with Coach Wooden in Washington, DC, the city of hope, where all good things are possible, and some of them, by then, had actually come true. We were both there to be honored as the newest inductees into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame.

  My relationship with Coach spanned forty-three years. It moved through three distinctly different stages: as a recruit in high school; as a player at UCLA; and then as his friend, until his death in 2010. The entire time, I was his student. He loved to teach. And he would often tell me that I would never learn what I didn’t want to know.

  So we were there at this very nice hotel, right next to the White House. It was over-the-top nice. I called Coach early, since we were both always up before the dawn. “Let’s get out of the hotel and go do something fun before the day turns into work,” I said.

  I hired a big car, and we rolled through the center of town, past all the museums of the Smithsonian and all the great buildings where our civilized society takes care of things. It’s so beautiful there.

  I asked him what he wanted to do or see, but he didn’t want the responsibility of the decision. I reminded him of his childhood friendship with Abe Lincoln, and that there was a place nearby where we could go say hello. He rolled his eyes.

  We were now pulling up to the Lincoln Memorial, and despite the early hour there were already dozens of folks there. We got out of the car and made the long, hard climb up the steps, two old guys struggling to get to the top, not sure who was helping who more. When we got up there, it was a surreal moment of perfect weather, a glorious sunrise, with so much of our national cultural history there before us.

  Immediately a crowd surrounded Coach, noisily wanting pictures and autographs. He quickly put an index finger to his lips, asking for quiet and respect, then held out both palms just in front of his chest, and whispered that this was sacred ground and not the right place for irreverent behavior.

  The crowd settled down but still circled around him, me standing by his side.

  Then, without prompting, Coach began softly reciting Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, from memory, even though the words are inscribed on the marble wall on the south side there.

  “Four score and seven years ago . . .”

  In this temple of so many emotions, not least hang sadness and disbelief over the hate, bigotry, selfishness, and greed that created a world gone mad before history’s eyes.

  “Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure . . .”

  As Coach continued, all the people surrounding him that morning were crying, tears rolling down their cheeks, and Coach soldiered on.

  “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

  When he finished, a round of applause and cheers started to roll through the massive stone chamber, but Coach immediately shushed the people, and they properly complied.

  It was time to go, Coach and I, arm in arm, limping down the steps with the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, and everything else out in front of us. Now at the bottom, Coach took a step right, toward the car. I had my hand on the inside of his left elbow. I stopped him, and he turned his head back toward me. I looked straight into his eyes and his soul, those eyes that had seen and done so much, that soul that had felt it all.

  He was puzzled; the car was just a few steps away.

  “Hey, Coach,” I said softly. “Just over here”—I pointed left—“is the Vietnam Memorial. And I’m wondering, Coach, if you would mind coming over there with me, because there are some people there, Coach, that I need to see.”

  He looked back at me sadly. Despite its place of honor and tribute, the Vietnam Memorial is as sad and depressing as it gets. He said, “Yes, let’s go.”

  We pivoted and walked back north across the face of the Lincoln Memorial, through the small meadow, past the Three Soldiers statue, and then to the heart-wrenching, gray-and-black gabbro inverted V.

  We worked our way down the expanse of stone, everyone there crying, many on crutches or in wheelchairs, flowers and pictures of shattered lives and dreams everywhere. Nobody spoke. But hands stretched out and touched the names—58,282 of them, with more still being added from time to time—on the Wall. The waste, the greed, the thievery, the cruelty, the lies—all so overwhelmingly senseless.

  I prayed for my friends.

  We stayed as long as we could. The only sounds were the birds, the wind, and the muffled, wet sobs of sadness and loss.

  It was time to go. We nodded to each other and started
the long, lonely climb up and out, knowing that we would most likely never be here together again.

  As we started the climb, out of the darkness and silence, Coach slowly and quietly, in hushed tones, started reciting a poem from memory. It was one of his favorites, “Two Sides of War,” by Grantland Rice.

  All wars are planned by older men

  In council rooms apart,

  Who call for greater armament

  And map the battle chart.

  But out along the shattered field

  Where golden dreams turn gray,

  How very young the faces were

  Where all the dead men lay.

  Portly and solemn in their pride,

  The elders cast their vote

  For this or that, or something else,

  That sounds the martial note.

  But where their sightless eyes stare out

  Beyond life’s vanished toys,

  I’ve noticed nearly all the dead

  Were hardly more than boys.

  We got to the top, and ultimately climbed out. The car took us back to the hotel and then on to the show.

  Coach Wooden and I always had our disagreements. I would constantly test the boundaries, pushing back against everything from his haircut policy to his politics. But when it came down to it, we were aiming for the same things—just often from different angles.