Bill Walton feels things more intensely than just about any human being on the planet. The former basketball star – a legend in college and the pros – communes with nature at almost a cellular level, taking in the beauty of his beloved Oregon, for instance, with rapt pleasure.
He can tell you perhaps every body of water in the state, and its metaphorical significance (a river he compares to a fast-break in basketball).
There’s his ardor for the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and many other musicians; fandom for Paul Krugman, Timothy Egan, Robert Reich – “everything they write.” It’s not just the present Walton feels intensely.
That goes for the past, too. For example, the January 19, 1974 game when UCLA lost to Notre Dame 71-70, ending the Bruins’ unprecedented (and still never matched) 88-game winning streak. “Worst game ever,” he tells me.
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