The late Bill Walton has been praised by countless sports media members this week for his legendary basketball and broadcasting careers after his passing on Monday at the age of 71. But what some may not know is that Walton’s path to becoming an iconic personality in the sports media world was not always an easy one.
Walton openly spoke in the past about a lifelong stutter that he had since childhood numerous times publically, which he dealt with until around 30 years old.
He credited Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman for helping him embrace the stutter and grow from it, saying that Glickman told him the following advice that helped him greatly.
“Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill, not a gift or a birthright, and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business, or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice,” Walton previously said on his stutter.
This obviously didn’t make him the ideal candidate to one day turn into the broadcasting legend that he is today. But he did just that, and seemingly inspired others to deal with stuttering.
Walton seemingly never forgot about his struggles with his stutter early on in his life. In a recent article by Nadine Yousif of BBC News, Walton was praised by the likes of Jane Fraser, the president of the Stuttering Foundation, and Maya Chupkov, the Media & Democracy Program Manager at California Common Cause, for the advocacy that he did to help those who had stutters.
“I tried so hard to hide it, and it took a lot of energy out of me,” Chupkov told BBC referring to her own struggles with stuttering. “The fact that he (Walton) was so successful with a stutter just always kept me going.”
“People like Bill Walton are so important, because he’s like: ‘Look, I stutter sometimes, and here I am an announcer on NBC,’” Jane Fraser told BBC. “If someone contacted us and said they would like to reach out to Bill (for advice), we knew that he would always answer.”
Walton didn’t just help those already working in the space of helping people through outreach programs like Chupkov and Fraser. He also seemingly had an impact on former NBA player Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who had his own issues with talking to the media over the course of his career.
“It took its toll on me mentally at a young age,” Kidd-Gilchrist told BBC of his media interviews. “It was great for me to witness him. He (Walton) is a pillar for both basketball players and people with stutters. It’s not a bad thing. And I think Bill Walton is a testament to embracing stuttering.”
Since Walton’s death, we have heard countless stories that speak to his character in a truly awesome way. And these testaments on his behalf from Kidd-Gilchrist and others only add to Walton’s already larger-than-life legacy.
[BBC]
