The Mighty O’Ba Sports Report: The Passing of Basketball Great Bill Walton

By Pat Freeman, The Mighty O’Ba

Bill Walton, protesting the Vietnam War

This week, the sports world lost a generational athlete who I believe was one of the greatest basket ball players to ever step be tween the lines of the basketball court. Bill Walton, along with Kareem Abdul Jabbar, formerly known as Lew Alcindor, make up the greatest succession of basketball players in his tory. They are forever linked in history and never played together, but followed each other at UCLA under the great coach John Wooden.

Their college lives exemplified how great a coach John Wooden was because both these great athletes had strong social change views which were always defended by the legendary coach.

Bill Walton, I believe might have been the most dominant when he entered the NBA. He was unstop pable and brought a physical attitude to the 1977 NBA champion Portland Trailblazers, who were coached by former Buffalo Braves head coach Jack Ramsay. That team exemplified what Ramsay had built with the Buffalo Braves be fore this franchise was re moved from Western New York because of bad ownership and bad leadership that did nothing to advo cate for this area retaining its NBA franchise.

Bill Walton was the heart and soul of that champion ship team, along with Lionel Hollins and Maurice Lucas. The problem that Bill Walton had was strictly health related, which eventually hampered and later ended his career.

Bill Walton will not only be remembered for being one of the all-time greats in athletics, but a person who stood up for the voiceless no matter how unpopular his positions were. He also put his personal career on the line protesting for causes that he believed in which has resonated in the lives of other athletes who at times have not used their platforms for the greatest good for the many.