Helix Charter High School refurbished its on-campus gymnasium a few years ago. Cherished memories from the past remain untouched.
It’s hard to erase what Bill Walton, in particular, accomplished there on the way to a storied career at UCLA (two NCAA championships and three national college player of the year awards) and in the NBA during a 14-year career (two league championships and two-time NBA all-star) .
In many ways, Walton’s name remains synonymous with the La Mesa school and at the top of San Diego Section basketball history.
His was a big life to celebrate — and embrace.
Walton graduated from the East County school in 1970 on his way to stardom in the college basketball ranks (1971-74), winning the 1972 and 1973 Final Four titles under iconic coach John Wooden with the Bruins.
A three-time consensus first-team All-American, Walton won the James E. Sullivan Award in 1973 as the nation’s most outstanding athlete at the collegiate of Olympic levels.
At 6-11, he towered over most of humanity. His greatness was felt on the court as well as through his philanthropy.
But he was also very human. He endured years of pain from foot and leg ailments and was unable to perform for multiple seasons.
He also overcame stuttering, a social stigma, which handicapped him during his youth.
His love was basketball. It was a way to escape into another universe. He made it his own world.
He followed his older brother Bruce onto the hardwood at Helix. Bruce and Bill share history as the only brothers to play in a Super Bowl (Bruce with the Dallas Cowboys in 1975) and NBA Finals.
Bill Walton led Helix to 49 consecutive victories during his two varsity seasons. The Scotties won CIF section titles in both 1969 and 1970. The Highlanders went 29-2 in 1968-69 and 33-0 in 1969-70.
He averaged 29 points and 25 rebounds as a senior and still holds the national shot percentage record art 78.3.
That was just the beginning for the red head as he helped engineer a marathon 88-game winning streak with the Bruins. He averaged 20.3 points, 15.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists during three seasons at UCLA en route to the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick with the Portland Trail Blazers in 1974.
His NBA career lasted from 1974-1988. He played for three teams: Portland Trail Blazers (1974-79), San Diego Los Angeles Clippers (1979-85) and Boston Celtics (1985-88). He won his first NBA title in 1977 with the Trail Blazers and his second in 1986 with the Celtics.
At times it was a struggle. But he managed to overcome adversity each time.
After four injury-plagued seasons with the Clippers, a rehabilitated Walton reinvented himself as a back-up center behind Boston’s Robert Parish, winning the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award in 1985-86.
Over the course of his NBA career, he scored 6,215 points (13.3 points per game), grabbed 4,923 rebounds (10.5 rpg) and dished out 1,590 assists (3.4 apg).
He was the NBA Finals MVP in 1977 and the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 1978. He led the league in rebounds (1977) and blocks (1977).
His No. 32 has been retired by both the Trail Blazers and UCLA.
He is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (inducted in 1993) and National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (inducted in 2006).
Other accolades include being inducted into the National High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1997, the California Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.
In 2009, he was named one of the top 50 sportscasters of all time by the American Sportscasters Association.
A bronze statue of Walton was unveiled at Ski Beach Park in Mission Bay in 2016.
He was inducted into the Boys and Girls Clubs of America Alumni Hall of Fame in 2017 and the gymnasium at the Boys and Girls Clubs of America in Santee was named in his honor in 2018. The Bill Walton Gymnasium is located inside the 26,000-square-foot Brady Family Clubhouse.
Close to home, Walton was honored in a ceremony at Helix on Jan. 3 as former teammates from the 1969 and 1970 CIF championship teams, along with coach Gordon Nash, gathered to remember him.
At nearly seven feet tall, he definitely had the penchant to stand out from the crowd.
The San Diego Gulls hosted Bill Walton Legacy Night last Friday at Pechanga Arena San Diego.
The Gulls made it a fun evening for everyone in attendance. Walton bobble-heads were the prize giveaway to the first 8,000 fans through the door. Gulls players wore specialty tie dye uniforms that were auctioned off to fans after the game through the San Diego Gulls Foundation. Fans could also buy replica jerseys and other Walton-themed items from merchandise booths.
The Electric Waste Band, a Grateful Dead tribute band, serenaded fans prior to the game and during in-game breaks. Walton was one of the biggest Deadheads, accompanying the band on its 1978 tour of Egypt when the band played in front of the Great Pyramids. A tie die aficionado, he reportedly attended more than 850 shows.
(He was the inaugural inductee in the Gratefull Dead Hall of Honor in 2001.)
Walton was an avid Gulls fans. He grew up, in fact, with the original Gulls of the Western Hockey League (1966-74) and also was a fan of the San Diego Rockets NBA expansion franchise (1967-71). As a teenager, he met and befriended such Rockets stars as Elvin Hayes and Calvin Murphy.
He obviously cheered for the Gulls’ greatest player, Willie O’Ree, who after retiring from hockey, made his home in La Mesa.
The Gulls feted O’Ree on his 89th birthday earlier this season with a private ceremony in the team’s locker room, presenting the San Diego hockey icon with a new fedora.
Trivia was aplenty on the arena scoreboard. Walton’s favorite drink was a date shake, he had a tee-pee in his San Diego backyard and wore size 17 Nike shoes (a gasp went up from the 11,559 in attendance).
One of Walton’s laments was not being able to play more games in his hometown and help the Clippers cement themselves in America’s Finest City. The Rockets have since won two NBA championships and four Western Conference titles since relocating to Houston.
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Walton’s super-sized legacy lives on in a second generation. Luke Walton, one of Bill’s four sons by his first wife Susie, won two NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers (2009 and 2010) and has since served as both a head coach and assistant coach in the league, winning a subsequent title as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors.
Luke and Bill Walton are the first father-son duo to win multiple NBA championships.
Luke Walton attended University of San Diego High School (forerunner of Cathedral Catholic High School) with his three brothers.
It was a family affair.
