Former Iowa “Mr. Basketball” Justin Wessel talks about his friendship with Bill Walton

The only time I met Bill Walton was in Minneapolis in 2001, in the hour after the Arizona’s men’s basketball lost to Duke in the national championship game.

Walton was sad, yet able to smile as he waited to give Arizona player Luke Walton a parental greeting. I approached him because I’d been an admirer of him when he played the game so beautifully at UCLA and in the NBA as a member of championship teams at both levels, and I enjoyed his commentating on NBA telecasts for NBC.

That was before he embarked on doing color for ESPN’s Pacific-12 Conference basketball telecasts, a stream-of-consciousness feast for the ears.

It was long ago, but I never forgot how gracious and friendly Walton was during our brief conversation. It came back to me vividly after hearing the May 27 news that Walton had died of cancer at age 71.

Luke Walton was a starting forward for Lute Olson’s Arizona team in 2001. Justin Wessel, Iowa’s 1996 “Mr. Basketball” as a Prairie High School senior, played in the 120th and last game of his Arizona career that night in the Metrodome.

Wessel and Luke Walton both married former members of Arizona’s women’s volleyball team, and the couples were close friends. Which meant entrance into Bill Walton’s world.

The first of many visits to Walton’s San Diego house was when Wessel was an Arizona player. The house itself was unremarkable, but Wessel said the backyard resembled a jungle with a pool, waterfall and tepee.

Big gatherings of family and friends, meals at a large, round table, lively conversation, and lots of fun for kids and adults were the norms. Music, much of it from tapes of his beloved Grateful Dead, was a constant.

Walton had a drum set. He loved it when his little grandkids and their pals would bang on it even though they couldn’t play a lick.

“He was exactly the same person in his backyard with the pool and the barbecue as he was on TV,” Wessel said. “My dad (former Prairie High boys’ basketball coach Jeff Wessel) would tell me to ask Bill about some story and Bill would always talk about it, but he was more interested in talking about some plant not native to southern California that he just got in his backyard, or the pool’s filtration system.”

After his basketball days were done, Wessel and his wife moved to the San Diego area where she had grown up. He began a career in commercial real estate. They remained friends with all the Waltons, who in turn were friends with all the Wessels, including Jeff and his wife, Marla.

“Bill and his wife were so welcoming,” Justin Wessel said. “Our kids were about the same ages as Luke’s. They consider each other cousins. They called Bill ‘Grandpa Bill.’ They didn’t know him as some celebrity.”

No, he was the big guy who got on his knees on the ground with his famous huge grin as the kids built a human pyramid around and on top of him. He was the big guy teaching them to swim.

In 2008, Wessel was told he needed knee surgery. He told Walton he was getting a second opinion, and Walton replied “That’s very smart, Justin. Get a third opinion, and a fourth opinion …” He went all the way up to eight opinions.

“He was always looking out for a big guy like myself not to have to go through what he went through.“

You see, Walton had 38 orthopedic surgeries for various injuries.

The 6-foot-8 Wessel had taken to running when he could no longer play basketball. When he told that to Walton, he “lectured me that guys our size shouldn’t run. He said ‘Come with me, I’ll take you down to my bicycle shop and get you a nice bike.’ He takes me to nice places to ride, trails in the mountains out in the country.”

A common theme in the many stories and columns written about Walton in the days after his death was his support of countless San Diego charities and causes. Wounded Warriors, Table to Table, and more and more and more. He gave time. He gave money.

“I would text him that the kids were having a fundraiser at school and how could I get a signed ball?” Wessel said. “He said he’d text me when it was ready. Forty-eight hours later, I’d show up and there would be a ball, and five autographed pictures, and a poster signed by him.

“He never said no to anything.”

Walton championed sports and music and literature and cycling and nature and laughter, but most of all, people. It’s why Wessel and the rest of us who took the news about his death so hard still were able to smile through our sadness.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com