How the Grateful Dead Made Bill Walton an NBA Champion

About this episode

Bill Walton saw the Grateful Dead over a thousand times. The first was Mother's Day 1967 — he was fifteen, broke, no ticket, already six foot eight. He never left. This is the story of how the Grateful Dead made Bill Walton the basketball player he was and saved his life when his body destroyed everything he'd built. From UCLA's Pauley Pavilion — where the Dead set up gear on the same floor Walton practiced on — to thirty-eight surgeries, two years on the floor unable to walk, and searching for bridges, to an eight-hour spinal fusion that gave him his life back. Coach Wooden preached structure. The Dead preached discipline through chaos. Walton made both work. When the Grateful Dead…