In recent years, Bill Walton, an eccentric man with a love of nature and the Grateful Dead, has often been seen appearing on Pac-12 broadcasts wearing tie-dye shirts and finding new ways to make his broadcast partner Dave Pasch laugh.
The UCLA legend, two-time NBA champion and basketball Hall of Famer, who died Monday at age 71 after a battle with cancer, was a standout announcer for CBS and NBC before joining ESPN and ABC as an NBA game commentator in 2002.
But some of his most memorable moments as an announcer came when he transitioned to broadcasting college basketball in 2012, and a supercut of the funny soundbites was posted to social media on Monday after Walton’s death.
The video shows Pasch instructing Walton to remove a small piece from the cake while the cupcake’s candle is still lit, and Walton doing just that.
At one point, the two were joined by Jay Bilas, who was wearing a tie-dye shirt that Walton complimented by saying, “I have one too.”
“This is your shirt,” Bilas replied.
Walton once brought back soil from Temecula, smeared it on his arms and face, and then said, “Now I’m ready to go.”
During one Oregon game, Walton enjoyed Popcorn Day, pouring popcorn over Pask’s head and also putting popcorn in the Ducks mascot’s mouth.
“Please keep the party going,” Walton said. “It’s a beautiful day. This is Oregon and the sun is out.”
During a 2020 Oregon-Arizona game, Walton was carrying a large rock and told Pask, “I was just carrying it around, wondering if anyone had ever thrown a rock at me,” before handing it to him.
Other memorable moments included him briefly going shirtless to change his shirt, playing a glockenspiel and saying, “I’ve found that mushrooms only work for me.”
He once said to Jason Benetti when he came to a White Sox-Angels game, “I’m not a very good catcher. I’m better at catching the ball high than I am at catching the ball low.”
And at one point, as he placed a Hawaiian lei around his neck, Walton said, “It doesn’t get any better than this. I got a lei.”
Walton struggled with an occasional stutter and was unsure whether he could succeed as an announcer, but he went on to win an Emmy Award.
