by Bill Walton
I didn’t want it to ever end. I stayed in the locker room, still in my game shorts, for hours. When I finally did leave the joint, the scene outside was much like being on tour with the Grateful Dead. People everywhere.
I somehow ended up that night at Lionel’s downtown penthouse palace, and the next morning there was a parade in our honor. I arrived on my bike, but it quickly disappeared into the crowd. It was the most glorious summer day in Oregon, and everybody was just so happy and having a real good time, and there was nobody there to say no—to anything.
When I finally got up on the stage, after a parade route where our fans were passing everything back and forth, I was simply overwhelmed with the emotional outpouring. When the mayor, Neil Goldschmidt, handed me the microphone, the only thing that I could say was, “Thank you—for a real good time. And will the guy who took my bike down at the start of this whole thing please bring it back, because at some point I’m going to have to get home.”
I then turned and poured the championship beer that someone had passed me all over the mayor’s head.
He was a big fan of the team, and we were close friends. He acted like it was OK. I can only hope.
But that was the kind of day and deal it was. It was all OK. We were the champions.
* * *
If you go deep in the NBA playoffs, on top of the regular and exhibition seasons, you’re basically playing more than 110 games in that year. That breaks down to having a game nearly every three days, all year round, except it’s squeezed much tighter than that, what with a few months off in the summer.
We were so ready to get going again. And when Coach Ramsay decided to have training camp down the road and valley from Portland at Willamette College in Salem, we couldn’t wait to get started. It meant more time together, just us. Just the guys. Just the way we liked it.
Jack had us do the timed six-minute mile again this year. I finished second behind Lionel, in probably about four and a half minutes. Startling to Jack, I stopped one stride short of the finish line and waited for everybody else to come across. When a clearly confused and befuddled Jack Ramsay called out the free-time limit, I finally took my last stride across the line, exactly one second late. I then reached down in my sock and pulled out a five-dollar bill that I had stashed there. Handing it to him, I mumbled to Jack something along the lines of us being ready, and it was time to play ball.
Once we actually got onto the court, we picked up right where we had left off three and a half months earlier—just this side of perfection. We were a much better team already, not because of any personnel changes, although Tom Owens for Robin Jones was an upgrade, but rather because we were finally beginning to really grasp the nuances, options, and continuity of Jack Ramsay’s offense, and how it always led to something else if the first attempt did not play out.
And while everyone was still riding the euphoric tsunami from the previous spring, most everybody came back in even better physical shape than we were in when we had finished off Philadelphia in June. We were all young, and right from the start of the season we were back in the groove—red-hot and rolling.
We had many great rivals, including the Lakers, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Golden State, Phoenix, San Antonio, Denver, Detroit, you name them. When you’re the champions, they all bring it every night—but so did we.
Like an avalanche, our team just kept rolling, getting bigger by the breath. We were on a record-setting pace through the fall, on the move toward a second championship, in a season when we consistently played near-perfect ball and set the record for the longest home-court winning streak in the history of the NBA, and I would ultimately be voted MVP.
And when it seemed as if things couldn’t get any better, on January 14, 1978, the clouds over Portland parted and our second son, Nathan, was born like an unfolding flower, glistening in the morning dew—a flower that has continued an eternal bloom, and shows no signs of ever wilting.
Thirty years after our run, Jack Ramsay was asked to put the team into historical perspective. He succinctly replied: “I like our team. And we’ll take our chances. Anytime. Anywhere. Against anybody.”
Then, in late February, when Philadelphia rolled back into Portland on their “We Owe You One” tour, in a game that was essentially decided with the opening tip, I was running back down the court on defense and suddenly, unexpectedly, inexplicably felt a deep burning pain in my foot.
And things were never the same again. Ever.
* * *
CHAPTER 12
* * *
Shadowboxing the Apocalypse, and Wandering the Land—as the rain kept falling from a heavy sky.
THE DAZE BETWEEN: PART II
Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there.
In the rough-and-tumble world, it is staggering how fragile everything really is.
From the top to the bottom is really not ever very far.
And being unable to play—again—because of the deep burning pain in my foot quickly took me back to a place I’d never wanted to see again.
All the problems from my first two years resurfaced:
“He’s soft! Come on, get tough!”
“Be a man, eat a steak.”
“There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s all in his head. He just doesn’t want to play.”
I had tried with everything I had to move beyond that lonely isolation, where it was just me, all alone, in the great unknown, and there was nothing that I could do about it.
Experience has now taught me how remarkable the human body and spirit are. I have learned firsthand that when you do finally recover from trauma in your life, you do not remember how bad it was and how much it really hurt. If you did, you would never be able or willing to get going again.
So there I was, stuck, one more time, with no reference points from the past to remind me of yesterday’s mistakes and follies.
The Blazers and the doctors couldn’t figure it out—again. I pointed to where it hurt and tried my best to describe the pain. But every time, they would simply say that I was looking too close and that there was nothing wrong, that I should just go out and play. And that in playing I was not going to make it any worse.
I couldn’t, though, and every time I tried, I did make it worse.
And the team, and everything that we had built over the previous twenty months, was falling apart.
There were other serious injuries to my teammates, most notably to Bobby Gross and Lloyd Neal. Ice had injured his knee, and the main weight-bearing bone in Bobby’s leg had split in half after he had taken a painkilling injection in order to play. He said he couldn’t feel anything when it happened. He just heard a very loud and unusual pop, and knew something was wrong.
I have also learned—the hard way—to never rank, rate, or compare injuries. Each one is unique, but the one that is affecting you is always the worst and the hardest.
The Blazers and the doctors told me that the pain in my foot was a mental thing—it was all in my mind.
They took me to a hypnotist, who had me lie on a table as he swung a watch in front of my eyes.
“Your feet are feeling better,” he would chant, over and over. “Your feet are feeling better. Now go out there and win us another championship!”
I looked at him like he was nuts, and I told him that my feet were killing me.
Then the Blazers and the doctors told me that my problems were in my soul. So they took me to a faith healer.
The faith healer and I went outside early one morning before dawn. We waded into the cool green waters of the Willamette River as it meandered through town. We stood knee-deep on the sandy bottom. The sun was just coming up over the Cascades to the east. It was spectacularly beautiful. When the sun was just high enough in the crystal-clear morning sky to be perched right on top of Mount Hood, perfectly balanced and surreal in its position of harmonic convergence, the faith healer reached over and grabbed my wrist and thrust both of our hands together, toward the heav
ens, chanting, “You’re healed, you’re healed, your feet are feeling great. Now go out there and win us another championship!”
I looked at him like he was nuts. And I told him that my feet were killing me.
There was never any discussion about the fact or possibility that there was something wrong with my foot. That this was a very real problem. And that maybe I wouldn’t, couldn’t, or shouldn’t be able to play.
The problem was: I couldn’t play. And as the playoffs approached, the team was struggling to win.
* * *
I was not able to play any of the remaining twenty-two games of the regular season. We still finished with the best record in the league, and I won the NBA’s MVP Award, voted by the players. But now with each ensuing day, a growing, devolving, spiraling sense of desperation enveloped my world, life, and team.
I kept trying, but every time I did, I only made things worse.
Everything in my life was falling apart. This was my team, my guys, my town, my friends, and my family. And I needed to do something to help.
We started the playoffs against Seattle, now coached by Lenny Wilkens. They had healthy players, and we didn’t. We had home court, but they had good feet and Dennis Johnson—who was on his way to establishing himself as the best guard in the NBA.
I spent everything I had trying to be able to play in Game 1. I was able to get on the court but I couldn’t get anything done. I could barely move, let alone play, and we went down without a fight.
In the locker room before Game 2, all the guys were looking to me. I had no answers. This was my life, this was what I lived for, this was my time and team. And every time I said my foot hurt, the persistent response from those who were supposed to know was always, “You’re fine. You’re just looking too close. Go ahead, you can’t make it any worse.”
In the solitude of the locker room, through the doubt, uncertainty, and halting hesitation, and with everybody looking to me for some sort of easy answer, I turned longingly to the doctor, who said he had an idea.
He pulled out a very long needle, with a huge syringe of xylocaine on the back end of it. He plunged in and injected the pain-numbing medicine directly into the base of my leg, just above the ankle. And for the first time in nearly two months, the pain was gone.
I went out and tried to play. And I could, a bit, but not for long, and not nearly well enough. After a short while, I could not really use any part of my foot or ankle, not that I could feel it. So I just went and sat on the bench as our team crumbled. I couldn’t get it done. We won the game but ended up losing big-time in the long run.
They took me to the hospital after the game. Our team doctor told me I was fine and that I’d most likely be ready to go again by the next game.
Later, I’m told, the hospital called the doctor up and said that their radiologists had read the X-rays and that there were terrible problems here, and if the doctor did not bring me right back in, they were going to go and get me themselves.
The navicular bone in my foot had split in half.
* * *
I lost my trust, confidence, self-respect, and belief that things would turn out right. Our team lost the series in six games.
I was in a cast—seemingly forever. Non-weight-bearing, and on crutches.
I could not believe, or accept, what I had done. Or what I had allowed to be done to me.
* * *
As I sat disconsolately in my house, seething and alone, I knew I had to get out of this place and space quickly.
Some friends, including parts of the Rolling Stones family, had control of a remote hot spring in southeastern Arizona, near Eden, and they all suggested it would be a good, safe spot. Warm, dry, and sunny weather. Inexhaustible supplies of hot mineral water. No people. Real privacy. And a chance to try to heal everything from my severely broken foot to my spirit, soul, mind, and psyche.
The place was called Healing Waters. It was out there. On the edge. In another time’s forgotten space, Geronimo and his teammates used to retreat there, in between his raging battles. They were all trying to hold on against the oncoming and invading tide.
I had all the space and solitude I needed. It was wide-open desert out there, and there were hot-water pools all over the place, including one that was the size of a football field. I would slide into the healing waters, propping my wounded, cast-bound leg high and dry up on the side of the pool. I would stay in the water for hours—sometimes all night, under the magic spell of the remote desert night sky.
* * *
When I got back to Portland that summer, it was not a pretty scene. The Blazers and the doctors kept telling me I was fine, but after months of solitary reflection while hobbling and hopping around on my crutches, I knew that I was not. There were meetings with the team and doctors. They kept asking me to make some kind of public statement of support, about how everything was cool, and that any and all problems were of my own making. I also knew by then that this was nonsense.
They never said they were sorry—for failing to diagnose the problems with my feet, for blaming me, for shooting my foot up with painkillers only to have it break apart, for failing even to read the X-rays properly. They never acknowledged they were wrong, or said they’d try to make things right.
I was not ready for anything that they were up to, as I was still living with all the pain on every level.
Trust, confidence, and loyalty are critical elements to the success of any team. And by now I was feeling none of it. I felt betrayed and that they just didn’t care about what happened to me. I told them all that I had reached the point of no return, that it was time for me to go. I still had a year left on my original contract with the team, but I asked them to end it.
And I left, never to return to what had been, just a short six months ago, the most perfect thing ever in my life.
That fall, I got as far away as possible. Crutches, cast, and all, I went to Egypt with the Grateful Dead on the trip of a lifetime. There were three all-night concerts at the base of the Sphinx and pyramids. I was able to play with their team. There was a private viewing of the inner chambers of the Great Pyramid, sunrise services in Bedouin tents in the desert sands, and the world’s greatest charter flight ever. And much, much more.
After that, we went back to California—not Portland. We took a house on the water on Balboa Island, in Newport, just south of Long Beach. The Blazers wanted me to come back and play, but I couldn’t yet walk, let alone run, let alone play. I worked with the doctors of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, who did everything they could to speed along my recovery. While there, Ernie Vandeweghe reconnected me with Dr. Tony Daly, who had rescued me from the Russian mauling six years earlier. It was wonderful to finally have doctors who actually cared about what happened to me. I stayed with Dr. Daly for the rest of his life. He would go on to perform more than two dozen orthopedic surgeries on my feet and ankles over the next couple of decades.
This was just when Adam and Nathan were starting to grow into fine young boys. And when I could finally stand on my own and start to move under my own power once again, we would spend countless hours on the beach and in a little rowboat that we’d use to cruise around the bay.
I spent more time with the Dead, including a four-night New Year’s celebration all around California. Then as spring came to Balboa Island, I started to feel better again, on my way one more time, and cleansed of the negativity that had brought me down in Oregon.
I got back on my bike, then running, swimming, pushing steel, and hitting full stride just as the NBA season was ending. I had missed it all.
While in Newport Beach, a friend from Oregon took me over to see Richard Nixon at his former Western White House compound, just down the way in San Clemente. It was not my best moment. I should have taken Joan Baez with me.
Right before the summer, some NBA teams came calling. I took another trip, continuing the cleansing of my mind, spirit, and soul. A young documentary filmmaker named Bob Nixon, not related to Richa
rd, was making a show for ABC’s The American Sportsman on the endangered Philippine eagle, and he wanted me to be a part of it. I had no idea why he wanted me, but his persistence won me over. I soon found myself in the Philippines, climbing up a 150-foot tree and holding a giant bird with a beak and wingspan bigger than mine. More than a lot went down on this one, including a run-in with a large band of heavily armed separatists while we were all out on the edge. I had never done anything like any of this before—or since. But I’m glad I made it. Our show won an Emmy.
When I got back to California, I had messages waiting from a few NBA teams, including the Blazers. They hadn’t changed their tune, so it didn’t make any sense for me to change mine. Of everyone I talked to, the Clippers were the most interested and the only team that was serious about moving forward. Plus they had recently moved from Buffalo to my hometown—San Diego.
I signed a big, long-term contract with them about thirteen months after everything fell apart in Portland. And I was back in the game and climbing up the mountain one more time.
The Clippers couldn’t have been nicer. We found a dream house, on the north edge of Balboa Park near the San Diego Zoo. It is one of the oldest homes in San Diego. It’s a big place, nearly three perfectly flat acres. I bought the place the first day I saw it. Right in the middle of everything, but on a wonderfully quiet, dead-end street, in a terrific neighborhood where people spend their entire lives. It’s also just inland enough and off the beach to be mostly out of the fog bank that often envelops San Diego. When San Diego’s founding fathers laid out the city in the early days, their vision of Balboa Park and the zoo was true and pure. It is ideal, and we’ve now been there for thirty-six years. Nothing good could happen in my life to convince me to move on from here. We’re still the new ones on the block. The Clippers helped us get the deal done.