Bill Walton Won't You Please Play Ball?

Lee remembers that Walton enjoyed delving into ideas almost as much as playing ball. "I've never seen anybody who could thrust himself into causes as wholeheartedly or as fast as Bill. Boy, could he get excited. He used to come into my room at seven in the morning with his eyes wide open, saying 'Let's go!' You could almost make a list of the things we were into. First, there was politics, which I loved, then there was the diet, then bicycles, which Bill got into very heavily but I didn't, then transcendental meditation, though by that time I was into self-hypnosis. And as a freshman Bill was practically celibate, so I got him going with the chicks. And of course Dylan was from me. But Joe McDonald is from the people up north. Bill never had any Fish albums at school."

There were other gurus for Walton besides Lee—among them a diminutive political expert from Chicago and a local meditation/vegetarian expert. But by graduation he felt he was ready to go it alone.

He had said publicly that he would only play where it was warm, and when he arrived in Oregon in early May that was how he found it. He reveled in the sun and lush green countryside. "I can't stand the smog in L.A. I may never go to Southern California again," he told people. "I'm in love with the pure wilderness of Oregon."

Sam Gilbert, a Los Angeles construction millionaire who had been a confidant and adviser of Walton and other UCLA players, went with Walton and together they found a plot along the bank of the Willamette River for the special home Walton had dreamed of—one with dimensions that would fit him and with plenty of room for semi-permanent guests. The lot was on Nixon Avenue. "We'll impeach the street!" cried Walton jubilantly.

"There was a bicycle path that went for miles along the river and there were mountains to climb and a blue sky above," says Gilbert. "Bill was happy, wild. He wanted land, land. All his dreams had come true."

Walton even located a very laid-back natural food restaurant called The Center for Truth. For Walton it was especially pleasant because no one gawked. Months later, staring out at the drizzle of the gloomy Oregon winter, he would sit there picking at a bowl of rice, wondering how things could have gone so bad.

The Eden started to dissolve with the coming of the rainy season. He had been warned about the rain. In a last-ditch effort to sway him, the ABA representatives had prepared a chart of Portland's massive annual rainfall and told him jokes about people in Oregon rusting rather than tanning. But in the grandeur of spring and summer he had forgotten.

"Bill has a real thing about the sun," says Wicks. "He feels he actually gets energy from its rays. But up here when the sun goes away you don't see it for five months. When Bill finally realized that, he was crying."

As his depression deepened, and his injuries lingered, the Blazers continued to play without Walton, and his relations with his teammates worsened.

At one practice on the morning after a game—in which he, of course, had not played—Walton came to the gym full of pep and proceeded to block his tired teammates' shots in layup drills and make a general nuisance of himself. "Why don't you run by yourself, Dollar?" snapped John Johnson. Other Blazers tried to ignore his presence. But when Wilkens left the floor to go to an appointment, the players suddenly surrounded Walton, grinning slyly. "Let's take our frustrations out on Captain Flake," someone said, cocking a ball behind his ear. "Yeah, give me your paychecks, too," shouted Walton. "You already got 'em!" answered Johnson, and the first ball whistled past Walton's head. Another caromed off his leg. Soon the air was filled with sizzlers as every player blasted away at the dodging, swearing center. They chased balls into the stands, laughing like maniacs, and returned to throw them at Walton, again and again.