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I'm still bummed out about the loss of Bill Walton this week. As you guys remember, I really enjoyed his telecasts. Really great, fun and entertaining guy, speading words of peace and love. Represented his era very well.

When i was very first starting to follow sports, which was basically sitting in the living room playing with matchbox cars while my older brother had sports on TV, say 1973 1974, Walton was a superstar and UCLA was legendary.

Tough to summarize Walton in a short post, but he even hooked my wife into watching many of his telecasts after the time he narrated an in-game segment on Markkanen and Finland (and other entertaining short segments about Mount Hood, the Sonoran Desert, etc, lol).

And among my favorite moments from him was the time like 6 years ago when his partner and Syracuse homer-alum Dave Patsch started dumping on UConn for no reason:

Patsch: "Boy, the UConn program is in shambles, what a collapse over the last few years"

Walton: "Oh really... huh... how many National Championships does UConn have?"
Patsch: "uh... four..."
Walton: "How many does Syracuse have?"
Patsch: "uh... one..."
Walton: "Alrighty then".

And loved his constant reference to "The Conference of Champions", and "Truckstop Conferences", lol. I may have used his Truckstop line in my NCAA Settlement post the other day.

And he shared a lot of great history and stories about stars of his era, and he had a lot of respect for the Big East and old indie hoops.

Also, gotta say it's weird hearing about the passing of old childhood sports legends... as a kid they seem invincible... must be how my father felt when DiMaggio and Ted Williams passed.

Really cool and weird dude. His telecasts were definitely unique. Walton would go on hilarious tangents while broadcasting the game.

He will be greatly missed. Its a shame that he had to live through the collapse of his beloved Pac-12.

May he rest in peace!

billyjack wrote:I'm still bummed out about the loss of Bill Walton this week. As you guys remember, I really enjoyed his telecasts. Really great, fun and entertaining guy, speading words of peace and love. Represented his era very well.

When i was very first starting to follow sports, which was basically sitting in the living room playing with matchbox cars while my older brother had sports on TV, say 1973 1974, Walton was a superstar and UCLA was legendary.

Tough to summarize Walton in a short post, but he even hooked my wife into watching many of his telecasts after the time he narrated an in-game segment on Markkanen and Finland (and other entertaining short segments about Mount Hood, the Sonoran Desert, etc, lol).

And among my favorite moments from him was the time like 6 years ago when his partner and Syracuse homer-alum Dave Patsch started dumping on UConn for no reason:

Patsch: "Boy, the UConn program is in shambles, what a collapse over the last few years"

Walton: "Oh really... huh... how many National Championships does UConn have?"
Patsch: "uh... four..."
Walton: "How many does Syracuse have?"
Patsch: "uh... one..."
Walton: "Alrighty then".

And loved his constant reference to "The Conference of Champions", and "Truckstop Conferences", lol. I may have used his Truckstop line in my NCAA Settlement post the other day.

And he shared a lot of great history and stories about stars of his era, and he had a lot of respect for the Big East and old indie hoops.

Also, gotta say it's weird hearing about the passing of old childhood sports legends... as a kid they seem invincible... must be how my father felt when DiMaggio and Ted Williams passed.

Billy we must be about the same age, as i have similar memories...

If you want to soak up more Walton and haven't done so already, check out Dave Pasch's X/Twitter account. So much Walton stuff since he passed. One of the more amusing anecdotes Pasch shared was whenever Walton caught a game on TV that Pasch was calling (without Walton), Walton would text him "This Philly BB on TV right now is terrific. Check it out if you get a chance. Don't know the channel. But it's out there, somwhere..."

The only thing that out-sized his goofiness was his kindness. Some of the previously untold stories (or I hadn't hear them) of his unending kindness are just amazing. RIP

Great posts guys. Sorry took a while to respond cuz offseason i dont check in regularly