Walton Can’t Run, but He’s Climbing Broadcast Ladder
A little less than a year ago, Bill Walton lost the use of his ankles.
On March 15, 1990, in the third major operation on his painful ankles in three years, the bones were fused. That means the ankles no longer flex. Walton’s feet are locked in position.
But after six months on crutches, the intense pain he had for years is gone.
“I’m the luckiest man alive,” said Walton, who no longer needs the crutches. “I can walk, ride a bicycle and go to sleep pain-free.
“My heart really goes out to people who suffer from chronic pain. Only someone who has experienced it knows how bad it can be.”
The latest surgery, besides eliminating Walton’s pain, also ended any hope that he could play basketball again.
So, finally, it was time to get serious about another career. Somewhat surprisingly, he chose broadcasting. Maybe more surprising is how well he has done.
A one-season stint with Channel 5 in the early 1980s did not go particularly well. But back then, a basketball career was Walton’s driving force, not broadcasting.
Now, he’s putting all his energy into his new endeavor, and the results have been positive.
As Prime Ticket’s UCLA commentator this season, he has been opinionated, informative, glib and articulate.
Also, he has been hired by CBS. Next week, the network will name eight broadcast teams to work the NCAA tournament, and Walton will be a member of one of them.
Walton did an audition for CBS with Jim Nantz during USC’s recent victory over UCLA at the Sports Arena. Because of space limitations near the court, Walton and Nantz had to do the practice run off a monitor in the Clipper locker room.
Apparently, things went well.
Walton isn’t doing too badly for someone who grew up with a stuttering problem, although there is barely a trace of it today.
Walton, 38, said it started to go away about 10 years ago, after he spent some time with Marty Glickman, a veteran New York sportscaster who for several years served as “coach” to NBC’s announcers.
Walton’s close friend, Ernie Vandeweghe, and Glickman are longtime friends. Glickman, who played basketball at Syracuse in the 1930s, got to know Vandeweghe when he played at Colgate in the ‘40s.
While Glickman was visiting Vandeweghe in California in the early ‘80s, they visited Walton in San Diego. This was before Walton’s one season with Channel 5, and Vande- weghe thought Glickman might be able to help Walton with his speech problem. He was right.
Glickman today is semi-retired. He still announces the New York Jets’ games on radio, teaches a broadcasting class at Fordham University in New York and has a business in which he advises prospective sports announcers.
He was at home Thursday, recovering from hip-replacement surgery, when he got a call from a reporter asking what he had done for Walton.
“Gosh, that was a long time ago,” Glickman said. “I’m surprised Bill even remembers.”
Oh, he remembers all right. “Marty Glickman deserves a lot of credit,” Walton said.
Said Glickman: “I’m kind of surprised. I really didn’t know I deserved so much credit. It’s very gratifying to know I was able to help.
“I think what I told Bill is the same thing I’ve told others who stutter or stammer. That is, ‘Slow down; collect your thoughts before you speak.’
“People can think a lot quicker than they can speak. Some people have to learn to slow down their thought process.”
Someone else Walton credits is longtime NBC sportscaster Charlie Jones, whose home in La Jolla is less than a half-hour’s drive from Walton’s home near the San Diego Zoo.
“I just can’t say enough about what Charlie has done for me,” Walton said.
Walton and Jones talked last spring, and Walton mentioned his interest in broadcasting. Jones, one of the all-time nice guys in the business, offered to help.
The first thing, Jones said, was to get an audition tape. They made one at a San Diego studio.
The next was to get Walton an agent. Jones referred him to his own agent, Martin Mandel of San Francisco, who was able to make Walton’s deal with Prime Ticket.
But Jones’ help didn’t stop there. Walton takes tapes of games he works to Jones’ house, and the two sit for hours critiquing Walton’s work.
“What we work on is mechanics,” Jones said. “The content is all Bill’s.
“We talk about all kinds of things--his on-camera presence, his appearance, his clothes, his makeup . . . “
Bill Walton concerned about clothes and makeup--yes, people do change.
“I’ve matured,” said Walton, whose well-groomed appearances belies his former long-haired, bearded image as a peace activist. “I’m still Bill Walton, but life’s experiences have changed some of my thinking.”
His outlook today--a different time, a different war--is more modified.
“I still oppose any kind of war, but Saddam Hussein is a serious threat,” he said.
Once considered a recluse, Walton is more outgoing and friendly.
Said Jones: “He’s great with people. He’s just a very, very nice man.”
Walton, who has a seven-bedroom, seven-bath home, is the single father of four boys, 9 through 15. Walton, who has been divorced about three years, said the boys also spend time with their mother in Del Mar.
John Wooden is among those pleasantly surprised by how well Walton is doing as a broadcaster.
“I shouldn’t say I am surprised,” the former UCLA coach said, “because Bill always had a good work ethic, and he is very bright. He has a high IQ. He was a very good student.
“I guess what surprises me is how well he speaks. You know, he used to have a speech impediment. You wouldn’t know it now, would you?”
TV-Radio Notes
Ratings talk: The NBA All-Star game received a higher rating than the Nevada Las Vegas-Arkansas basketball game last Sunday, but just barely. The NBA game got a 7.8 national Nielsen rating, the lowest since 1979; the college game got a 7.6, the highest rating for a regular-season college basketball game since Southern Methodist-North Carolina’s 8.6 in 1985. . . . Overall, college basketball on CBS is averaging a 3.1, down slightly from the 3.3 it averaged last season. . . . In Los Angeles, the NBA All-Star game beat out UNLV-Arkansas, 9.7 to 6.6. The UCLA-Arizona game on Channel 7 got an L.A. rating of 4.5.
For its coverage of Sunday’s Daytona 500, CBS will have cameras in cars driven by Mark Martin, Richard Petty, Davey Allison and Dale Earnhardt. . . . The Arete Awards, which honor athletes who show courage in sports, will be televised Sunday at 5 p.m. (delayed) by ESPN from Naples, Fla. Jim McKay is the host, CBS golf commentator Ken Venturi the honorary chairman. Pat Summerall will also be on the show.
The Liberty Basketball Assn., a new women’s league scheduled to begin play in December, will have a preview game televised on ESPN Monday at 9:30 a.m. The baskets in this league are at 9 feet 2 inches, which will allow some players to dunk. . . . With the Kings playing the Washington Capitals at the Forum at 1 p.m. Monday, Prime Ticket will sign on in time to televise the game live.
Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder will be Steve Edwards’ guest on radio station KABC’s “Sportstalk” program today. Snyder is scheduled from 5:30 to 6 p.m. . . . The second half of a two-part interview Gabe Kaplan did with former Laker Michael Cooper from Rome will be aired on “Sports Nuts” on KLAC today at 5 p.m. . . . Clipper radio broadcasts, beginning with tonight’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, can be heard inside the Sports Arena at 530 on the AM dial.
Jim Healy’s half-hour KMPC radio show will be fed to all 22 stations on the Angel network beginning April 1. The stations have the option of whether to run it. Stations in Fresno, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Tucson and Palm Springs have already committed to carry it. KMPC General Manager Bill Ward, on the April Fools’ Day start: “New listeners may think the show is one big joke--until they listen the next day and find out it’s always like that.”
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