William Theodore "Bill" Walton III was born on November 5, 1952 in California. He is an American retired basketball player and television sportscaster. Walton achieved superstardom playing for John Wooden's powerhouse UCLA Bruins in the early 1970s, winning three successive College Player of the Year Awards, while leading the Bruins to two Division I national titles. He then went on to have a prominent career in the National Basketball Association (NBA) where he was a league Most Valuable Player (MVP) and won two NBA championships.
His professional career was significantly hampered by multiple foot injuries. Walton was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on May 10, 1993 and the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame that same year. His number 32 was retired by the Blazers in 1989 and later by UCLA. He is also enshrined in the UCLA Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was named as one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of all time. He was added to the San Diego Hall of Champions in 1990.
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