Your Survival Guy was 14 years old when the best Boston Celtics (1985-86) team of all time won the championship. Read Dan Shaughnessy’s remembrance of Bill Walton here:
The memories and stories started pouring in as soon as the news broke.
Everyone remotely connected to the 1985-86 Celtics has a Bill Walton memory. Invariably, those stories are personal. And all of us were shocked Monday when it was learned that Walton had died in California at the age of 71.
No player ever loved playing for the Celtics more than Walton. And it’s cruel and ironic that Bill would pass with the team on to another appearance in the NBA Finals, which means a chance to win an NBA-record 18th banner.
My friend Rich Johnson, longtime curator of the New England Sports Museum and — like Walton — someone with a lifelong stutter, weighed in online, sending out a recording of the Grateful Dead’s “He’s Gone,’’ while writing, “Listening while wiping away tears. His personal kindness to me was life changing.’’
Bill touched a lot of lives in his short stint in Boston, and those of us lucky enough to have known him share the same emotions.
Just one year younger than Walton, I became aware of him when he took over at center for the UCLA Bruins in 1971 and started winning NCAA championships. As sports fans in New England, we followed Walton from afar when he broke into the NBA and won his first championship with the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977, and then the MVP in 1978. Early in his pro career, he was clearly the best passing big man in the history of the sport.
A lot of forgettable, frustrating seasons followed. A legitimate 7-footer who always claimed he was 6-11 (he thought being 7 feet tall made him freakish), Walton had bad bones in his feet and could not stay on the court long enough to maximize his seemingly infinite potential. As a result, he underachieved with the Blazers and Clippers. There was little demand for his services when he came to Boston in the autumn of 1985 in exchange for a wounded, declining Cedric Maxwell.
And then, 1985-86 happened. The Celtics enjoyed one of the greatest seasons in league history (including playoffs, they went 50-1 at home), destroying all competition en route to the franchise’s 16th championship. In his magical season, Walton was given a gift of health, playing a career-high 80 games and winning the NBA’s Sixth Man Award.
But it was more than that. When Walton teamed with Larry Bird, we saw nightly passing clinics — stuff “Hoosiers’’ coach Norman Dale would have loved. It was basketball ballet. Give-and-go. Pick-and-roll. The picket fence. And don’t get caught watchin’ the paint dry.
Bill was basketball’s Baryshnikov, enjoying a Faustian favor bestowed by the parquet gods. The California flower child (Kevin McHale accused Walton of having harbored Patty Hearst, but Bill said he never met the fugitive/heiress) became the favorite son of hardscrabble Gallery Gods in the old Boston Garden.
Decades later, during the pandemic, while working on a book about that Celtics season, I called Bill to ask about 1985-86, and he said, “When you’re part of something that special, it changes you. You spend the rest of your life trying to get that back. When you’re doing it, it seems like it’s going to last forever. When it ends, you realize how fragile, how tenuous, and how fleeting it all is.’’
None of us who were there will ever forget Walton’s first Celtic game. Playing in New Jersey, the Celtics blew a 19-point lead to the atrocious Nets and committed 28 turnovers in a 113-109 overtime loss. Walton scored 4 points in 19 minutes, committing five fouls and seven turnovers. He was hard on himself after the game.
“We play a million of these games, and this was just another one, and we knew we were OK,’’ McHale remembered. “But Bill was really taking it hard. All of a sudden, he stood up and said, ‘I’d like to apologize to all of you for losing the game tonight. I was a disgrace to the game of basketball.’
“None of us had ever heard anything like it, and Larry just snapped at him and said, ‘I sure as hell hope we play better, because I can’t stand hearing this 81 more times. Go have a beer and forget about it.’ ’’
Walton did just that, and it ended up being one of the greatest seasons in NBA history.
“It was better than perfect,’’ Walton told me in 2021. “It was just such a joy. It was what you dream about and I wish it lasted forever.’’
Unfortunately, it did not last even another year. Bill’s feet gave out on him for good in 1987 and he retired.
In recent years, we stayed in touch, and I started sending him an annual Happy New Year message.
Some Walton responses:
“Thanks. Shine on. Happy Everything Forever. Here we go.’’
“Shine on. Write on. Create on. Carry on.’’
“Once in a while you get shown the light. In the strangest of places if you look at it right’’ (Grateful Dead).
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world. BW, from the bright side of the road.’’
Walton’s optimism was infectious. When I came home from the hospital in February after complex heart surgery, there was a text from Bill on my phone:
“Please get better soon . . . Good health. Good everything, forever. We have lit our votive candles . . . Heal on.’’
Last Friday, we had one final exchange. The online version of a Rick Carlisle story I’d written included a photo of Carlisle alongside Danny Ainge and Larry Bird at City Hall Plaza after the Celtics won in ’86. There was a little boy in the photo, standing directly under Bird’s left elbow. It was clearly one of Bill’s four sons.
Unaware that he was gravely ill, I texted Walton, offering, “Hope all is well,’’ then asking which of his boys was in that photo.
“Adam, oldest, now 48,’’ he texted, adding, “Larry was always so nice.’’
I thought maybe I’d reach out to him again once the Finals got underway.
Too late.
Shine on, my friend. We are all better for having known you.
