JotBlog

SAN DIEGO -- Sometimes it's tough being a son of Bill Walton, what with the inevitable comparisons and expectations that come with following in the size 17 footsteps of a Hall of Fame father.

Then again, there are nights when the family gene pool still runs deep.

Chris Walton is the last of Bill Walton's four sons to play Division I college basketball. His career nearly ended because of injuries -- sound familiar? -- but the fifth-year senior at San Diego State managed to salvage it with a couple of noteworthy performances.

There was his buzzer-beating, fadeaway shot that hung on the rim before dropping to give San Diego State a rare road win against BYU to open Mountain West Conference play. And the night he scored a career-high 23 points against Colorado State, keeping his father busy cheering from his third-row seat at Cox Arena.

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"I hoped at the beginning it would have been better than it was, but that's just the way life goes," said Chris Walton, a 6-foot-8 forward and Aztecs' co-captain. "I've been blessed to have the opportunity to come back and play and finish off this year. It's great to play well and it's great to win games, but for me, the biggest joy just comes from being on the basketball court with my teammates and being able to go out there every day."

Bothered by nagging groin and hip injuries, Walton went scoreless in 29 minutes in the season opener, then sat out the next nine games. He came back in late December and wasn't a factor in the last three nonconference games.

Walton was questionable for the BYU game. Coach Steve Fisher hoped he could at least suit up for team morale. Walton did more than that, coming off the bench to score 12 points in 30 minutes, including the game-winner.

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"For whatever reason, I think mentally he just said, 'I have to do whatever I have to do to be able to play,' " said Fisher, who recruited Walton not long after taking over the previously moribund Aztec program in March 1999.

Following the win at BYU, Walton visited a specialist in Philadelphia who told him that while he may one day require surgery, he won't do any more damage by finishing the season.

"He's done a real nice job and we're extremely proud of him," said Bill Walton, who uses his SDSU season tickets when he's not on the road working as an NBA analyst for ESPN.

If anyone can feel Chris Walton's pain, it's his father. During his NBA career, Bill Walton dealt with a string of stress fractures and one operation after another.

"Every parent would do anything in the world to take pain and adversity away from their children's life and alleviate that," said the big redhead, who these days shows more than just a touch of gray. "But that's really where you learn life's greatest lessons. While it's been tough and frustrating for him and while we always hope for the best, he's got to learn how to deal with those obstacles in his life. That's what going to college is about. That's what growing up is all about."

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Growing up a Walton meant being exposed to basketball and to their father's favorite band, the Grateful Dead. Bill Walton's house, which borders Balboa Park and has a teepee in the backyard, is practically a tie-dyed shrine to the Dead.

Not surprisingly, the Walton boys gravitated toward hoops and became Deadheads. On his left shoulder, Chris has a tattoo of the Dead's terrapin logo, circled by lyrics from "Estimated Prophet."

Adam Walton played at LSU, finished his career at Notre Dame College and now works for a San Diego entertainment company. Nathan played at Princeton and is working on an MBA at Stanford. Luke played at Arizona -- his Wildcats lost to Duke in the 2001 NCAA championship game -- and is in his second season with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Although Bill Walton didn't push his boys into basketball, it came naturally. Two key factors, Chris Walton said, were grade-school growth spurts that made them the tallest kids in their class, "and just growing up and watching basketball like the Boston Celtics, and sitting in the locker room and sitting off the bench with my dad and Larry Bird and Robert Parish.

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"It's just something that you dream about as a kid, that one day you can go out there and do the same thing. We all made the choice to play basketball. My two oldest brothers are now done with basketball and they're doing great. Basketball was always a part of our family."

So were comparisons with their father. Bill Walton was one of the greatest players in college basketball history, winning two national championships under John Wooden at UCLA and being named national player of the year three times. He won two titles during his injury-plagued NBA career, and was named one of the 50 greatest players in league history.

Like his brothers before him, Chris Walton, who's averaged 11.5 points and 3.7 rebounds in six conference games, hears endless trash talk at road games.

"Growing up Bill Walton's kid and playing basketball, it's always kind of been a lose-lose situation in everybody else's eyes," said Walton, who turned down UCLA to stay in San Diego and play for Fisher. "Because if you go out and play really well, everyone says, 'Oh, he's Bill Walton's son, it's in the genes, he's supposed to be a great player.' If you go out and don't have such a great game or you don't perform to a level that people expect you to, then they'll say, 'Well, he's not as good as his dad was, he'll never be as good as his dad was.'

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"But you can't let that get to you. That's just people who don't understand. Me and my brothers, we're all our own people. We're all individuals. We all chose to play basketball and we worked really hard to get where we were."

Within the family, there are no expectations.

"We were all there for each other, four brothers always there for each other, our parents supporting us. The personal life of our family is peace, love, happiness, tolerance and acceptance and all that good stuff," Walton said with a laugh.

Fisher calls Chris Walton a "coach's delight" and appreciates Bill Walton's support as a fan and father.

"I want to be my sons' dad," Bill Walton said. "I don't want to be their coach, I don't want to be their agent, I don't want to be their promoter. I want to be there to enjoy their successes, but I also want to be there to console them and support them when things don't go well. Because that's the toughest part. Because when you're the agent, the promoter, it's a different relationship, and I want to be their dad."

Chris Walton, a 6-foot-8 forward, is a fifth-year senior at San Diego State and is the last of Bill Walton's four sons to play Division I basketball.Bill Walton, right, has beat the drum for son Chris, left, who has fought several groin and hip injuries to finish his career with San Diego State.

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