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    Bill Walton, N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Broadcasting Star, Dies at 71

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    He won championships in high school, college (U.C.L.A.) and the pros (Trail Blazers and Celtics) before turning to TV as a talkative game analyst in the college ranks.Bill Walton, a center whose extraordinary passing and rebounding skills helped him win two national college championships with U.C.L.A. and one each with the Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Celtics of the N.B.A., and who overcame a stutter to become a loquacious commentator, died on Monday at his home in San Diego. He was 71.The N.B.A. said he died of colon cancer.A redheaded hippie and devoted Grateful Dead fan, Walton was an acolyte of the U.C.L.A. coach John Wooden and the hub of the Bruins team that won N.C.A.A. championships in 1972 and 1973 and extended an 88-game winning streak that had begun in 1971. He was named the national player of the year three times.Walton’s greatest game was the 1973 national championship against Memphis State, played in St. Louis. He got into foul trouble in the first half, but went on to score a record 44 points on 21-for-22 shooting and had 11 rebounds in U.C.L.A.’s 87-66 victory. It was the school’s ninth title in 10 years.Walton — not yet known for his often hyperbolic, stream of consciousness speaking skills — refused to say much after the game. As he left the locker room, he told reporters, “Excuse me, I want to go meet my friends. I’m splitting.”He played one more year at U.C.L.A. before being selected by Portland first overall in the 1974 N.B.A. draft. He weathered injuries, two losing seasons under Coach Lenny Wilkens and criticism over his vegetarian diet and his red ponytail and beard before winning the 1977 championship under Coach Jack Ramsay.“I think Jack Ramsay reached Walton,” Eddie Donovan, the Knicks general manager, told the columnist Dave Anderson of The New York Times. “Of all the coaches in our league, Jack Ramsay is the closest to being the John Wooden type — scholarly, available. I think Walton responded to that.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Caitlin Clark Hype Will Test the W.N.B.A.’s Television Limits

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      The docuseries “Full Court Press” closely tracked college stars like Clark and Kamilla Cardoso. Fans who want to follow elite W.N.B.A. rookies could have a tougher time.The decision makers for the docuseries “Full Court Press” chose wisely when selecting which women’s college basketball players they would follow for an entire season.They recruited Caitlin Clark, whose long-distance shots at the University of Iowa made her a lucrative draw. Kamilla Cardoso, a Brazilian attending the University of South Carolina, could provide an international perspective. Kiki Rice, from the University of California, Los Angeles, would be the talented but reserved young prospect.Those selections proved fortuitous when each player advanced deep into the N.C.A.A. tournament. Clark and Cardoso competed in the most-watched women’s championship game in history before becoming two of the top three picks in the W.N.B.A. draft.“The way that it turned out, it’s like, ‘This is not real life,’” said Kristen Lappas, the director of the four-part ESPN series that will air on ABC on Saturday and Sunday. “That just doesn’t happen in documentary filmmaking.”Interest in women’s basketball is surging because of young talent. Clark, Cardoso and other top rookies like Angel Reese and Cameron Brink are providing the W.N.B.A. a vital infusion of star power, quickly obliterating one record when 2.4 million viewers watched April’s draft.Now the league, whose media rights package expires in 2025, must capitalize by making sure fans can easily follow the players they grew to love during their collegiate careers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Is Greater Than Any Basketball Record

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      His N.B.A. career scoring record has been broken, but his legacy of activism and his expansion of Black athlete identity endure.Some athletes live swaddled in their greatness, and that is enough. Others not only master their sport but also expand the possibilities — in competition and away from it — for generations to come. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did just that, including for LeBron James, who has laid claim to the N.B.A. career scoring record that Abdul-Jabbar had held so tight for nearly 39 years.It is easy to forget now, in today’s digitized world where week-old events are relegated to the historical dustbin, how much of a force Abdul-Jabbar was as a player and cultural bellwether. How, as the civil rights movement heated to a boil in the 1960s and then simmered over the ensuing decade, Abdul-Jabbar, a Black man who had adopted a Muslim name, played under the hot glare of a white American public that strained to accept him or see him as relatable.It is easy to forget because he helped make it easier for others, like James, to trace his path. That is what will always keep his name among the greats of sport, no matter how many of his records fall.Guided by the footsteps of Jackie Robinson and Bill Russell, Abdul-Jabbar pushed forward, stretching the limits of Black athlete identity. He was, among other qualities, brash and bookish, confident and shy, awkward, aggressive, graceful — and sometimes an immense pain to deal with. He could come off as simultaneously square and the smoothest, coolest cat in the room.In other words, he was a complete human being, not just the go-along-to-get-along, one-dimensional Black athlete much of America would have preferred him to be.James has run with the branding concept that he is “More Than an Athlete.” Fifty-plus years ago, Abdul-Jabbar, basketball’s brightest young star, was already living that ideal.“He is more than a basketball player,” a Milwaukee newspaper columnist wrote during Abdul-Jabbar’s early years as a pro. “He is an intelligent, still maturing man, who realizes some of the individual and collective frailties of human beings, including himself.”James’s ability to make a cultural impact off the court is the fruit of the trees Abdul-Jabbar planted decades ago.Abdul-Jabbar, front right, was one of the prominent Black athletes at the Cleveland Summit in June 1967, with Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics, front left; the boxer Muhammad Ali, front row, second from left; and the N.F.L. star Jim Brown, front row, second from right.Getty ImagesAs a star at the basketball powerhouse U.C.L.A. in June 1967, a 20-year-old Abdul-Jabbar was the only collegian with the football legend Jim Brown at the Cleveland Summit, a meeting of prominent Black athletes who gathered in support of Muhammad Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.The next year Abdul-Jabbar shunned the Summer Olympics to protest American prejudice. “America is not my home,” he said in a televised interview. “I just live here.”In those days, Harry Edwards, now a University of California, Berkeley, sociology professor emeritus, led a new wave of Black athletes in protests against American racism. Abdul-Jabbar was a vital part of that push. He also converted to Islam to embrace his Black African heritage, and changed his name from Lew Alcindor to Kareem (generous) Abdul (servant of Allah) Jabbar (powerful).“You have to understand the context,” Edwards told me recently. “We’re still arguing over whether Black lives matter. Well, back then, Black lives absolutely did not matter. In that time, when you said ‘America,’ that was code for ‘white folks.’ So, how do those folks identify with a Black athlete who says I am a Muslim, I believe in Allah, that is what I give my allegiance to? They didn’t, and they let him know.”Edwards added: “What Kareem did was seen as a betrayal of the American ideal. He risked his life.”Black athletes still face backlash for standing up to racism, but their voices are more potent, and their sway is mightier now because of Black legends like Ali, Robinson, Russell and Abdul-Jabbar.You saw their imprint when James wore a T-shirt that said “I Can’t Breathe” for Eric Garner, or a hoodie for Trayvon Martin, or when he joined an N.B.A. work stoppage for Jacob Blake. When right-wing pundits attack James and his peers for protesting, remember that Abdul-Jabbar has been in the hot seat, too.The message here isn’t “Been there, done that, don’t need to hear it anymore.” No, that’s not it at all.What I am saying is this: No one rises alone.In this moment of basketball celebration for James, think about what he shares on the court with the 7-foot-2 center whose record he is taking: a foundation of transcendent, game-changing talent.Nowadays, a younger generation might know Abdul-Jabbar mainly as the sharp-eyed commentator and columnist on the internet — or simply as the guy whose name they had to scroll past in the record books to get to James’s. But his revolutionary prowess as a player can never be diminished.He led U.C.L.A. to three national titles in his three years of eligibility, his teams accumulating a scorched-earth record of 88-2. Along the way, the N.C.A.A. banned dunking, a move many believe was made to hinder his dominance, and U.C.L.A. came to be known as the University of California at Lew Alcindor.Abdul-Jabbar’s signature shot was the sky hook, which no one else has been able to perform quite like him.Rich Clarkson/NCAA Photos, via Getty ImagesSoon, there he was, dominating the N.B.A. with his lithe quickness and a singular, iconic shot: the sky hook. Athletic beauty incarnate.The balletic rise from the glistening hardwood; the arm extended high, holding the ball well above the rim; the easy tip of the wrist, as if pouring tea into a cup, while he let the ball fly.Swish.In his second professional year, he was named the N.B.A.’s most valuable player — the first of a record six such awards.That season, he led the fledgling Milwaukee Bucks to the 1971 N.B.A. championship. It would be the first of his six titles, two more than James.The pressure he was under as a player was immense for most of his career.He said he faced death threats after boycotting the 1968 Olympics.A phalanx of that era’s reporters, almost all of them white men, failed to understand Abdul-Jabbar and took to pat, easy criticism. He did himself no favors, responding by essentially turning his back, often literally, on many of them.He also absorbed blow after blow on the court. Fights were frequent then. Sometimes it was too much, and he snapped.He contained the multitudes, all right. Aggressive frustration included.As the years passed, Abdul-Jabbar evolved. He grew happier, less strident, more content and more open. His advocacy came to focus on human rights for all who are marginalized.And ultimately, fans who once held him with disregard began to warm up.Abdul-Jabbar’s jersey was retired at a ceremony on April 24, 1993, in Milwaukee. He spent six seasons with the Bucks.John Biever/NBAE, via Getty ImagesLeBron James now holds the crown as the league’s greatest scorer with 38,390 points. Well earned. He remains something to behold at age 38. Still, his Lakers are so disjointed they would need Abdul-Jabbar in his prime to make a serious run at an N.B.A. title this year.Then again, Abdul-Jabbar at 38 would work. That Abdul-Jabbar, in the 1985 postseason, took his championship series lumps during a Game 1 loss to Boston and then came back as if launched from a Bel-Air springboard.He ripped off a string of the finest games of his career, grabbing the championship trophy and the finals M.V.P. Award.There has never been a finals series run like that from a player with as many miles on the legs.It was just another way that Abdul-Jabbar stretched the meaning of greatness in the N.B.A., leaving the next generation and James to expand it even further.Sheelagh McNeill More

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      U.C.L.A. Adds a Title to the ‘Conference of Champions.’ Will It Be Its Last?

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      The Bruins beat North Carolina in the women’s soccer final as officials are set to weigh in next week on whether to allow the university’s planned move to the Big Ten from the Pac-12.With its run of men’s basketball dominance under John Wooden, a five-peat in women’s water polo and three-peats in sports like softball and men’s volleyball, U.C.L.A. has long given credence to the Pac-12’s claim as the conference of champions. With the Bruins set to leave for the Big Ten Conference, pending an intervention from the University of California Board of Regents, they made sure they would add at least one more title before they go.U.C.L.A.’s women’s soccer team staged a rousing comeback to beat North Carolina, 3-2, in two overtimes to take the Division I national championship on Monday in Cary, N.C. The program won its second championship, after having won in 2013, and the 120th in the university’s athletic history.Bruins goalkeeper Lauren Brzykcy held the ball as the final seconds ticked down, then punted it down the field and ran toward her teammates, who came rushing from the sideline. Margueritte Aozasa received a bath from a water cooler after capping her first season as a head coach with a championship.But as late as the final minute of regulation, it looked as if North Carolina, playing a 30-minute drive from its campus, would be the team celebrating with its fans.The Tar Heels had taken a 2-0 lead by the 75th minute on two second-half headers by Avery Patterson. The Bruins scored in the 80th minute to cut their deficit in half, but they still needed a goal to force overtime as the clock wound to zero. (The clock counts down in N.C.A.A. Division I soccer rather than up, as in the World Cup and other professional ranks.)A corner kick in the final 30 seconds would most likely be U.C.L.A.’s last chance. Brzykcy joined her attacking teammates in the penalty area. With 20 seconds on the clock, Ally Lemos struck a ball with her right foot that headed toward the back post, where Reilyn Turner headed it past the keeper.The first 10-minute overtime period passed without a goal. A second scoreless period would have sent the game to penalty kicks — just like last year’s final, when Florida State topped Brigham Young, and just like in the second round of this year’s tournament, when No. 1-seeded U.C.L.A. nearly fell to Central Florida.U.C.L.A. narrowly managed to avoid leaving it up to the shootout this time, though. With less than four minutes remaining in the second overtime, Maricarmen Reyes raced to the rebound after a save by North Carolina’s Emmie Allen and slid it underneath Allen’s dive into the goal.It was the first time in Women’s College Cup history that a team overcame a two-goal deficit to win a title, according to ESPN Stats and Info. And Aozasa became the first N.C.A.A. women’s soccer coach to win a title in the first season as a head coach.The Bruins’ win came after the school’s football team finished the regular season in the top 20 of the College Football Playoff rankings and with both basketball teams in the top 20 of the Associated Press poll. It’s the type of success U.C.L.A. hopes to continue heading into its planned move to the Big Ten in 2024. Because U.C.L.A. is a public school, unlike Southern California, which also announced it would leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, the California regents could block the move.Regents have expressed concerns over how traveling to states like Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania for competitions could affect athletes’ academics, and they have worried that U.C.L.A.’s departure would adversely affect Cal-Berkeley, which is also in the Pac-12. The regents said last month that they would have a special session on Dec. 14 to resolve the matter. More

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      Greg Lee, a Key Member of Two U.C.L.A. Title-Winners, Dies at 70

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      A master of the assist, he played alongside Bill Walton and Jamaal Wilkes on teams that John Wooden led to the N.C.A.A. championship in 1972 and 1973.Greg Lee, the point guard for Coach John Wooden’s unbeaten U.C.L.A. teams that captured the 1972 and 1973 N.C.A.A. basketball tournament championships, died on Wednesday in San Diego. He was 70.His death, at a hospital, was announced by the U.C.L.A. athletics department, which said the cause was an infection related to an immune disorder.At 6 feet 4 inches, a good size for a guard of his era, Lee became a starter in his sophomore season.He joined center Bill Walton and forward Jamaal Wilkes, U.C.L.A.’s stars, on the Bruins team that defeated Florida State for the 1972 tournament championship. Concentrating on a playmaking role since U.C.L.A. had a sharpshooting frontcourt, he handed out 14 assists in 34 minutes on the court while Walton connected on 21 of 22 shots, scoring 44 points, in the Bruins’ victory over Memphis State in the 1973 title game for their seventh consecutive national championship. Both those teams went 30-0.By U.C.L.A’s standards, the 1973-74 season, when Lee was a senior, proved something of a disappointment. The Bruins’ winning streak ended at 88 games when they were edged by Notre Dame, 71-70. They were defeated in double overtime in the N.C.A.A. tournament semifinals by North Carolina State, which went on to capture the title, and they finished with a record of 26-4 — impressive for almost any team, but not U.C.L.A.Lee averaged only 5.8 points a game for his three varsity seasons, but he averaged nearly three assists a game as a senior. His U.C.LA. teams had an overall record of 86-4.He was named a three-time academic All-American.Lee was selected by the Atlanta Hawks in the seventh round of the 1974 N.B.A. draft and by the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association in its draft. He played briefly in the A.B.A. and, after becoming a free agent, reunited with Walton on the N.B.A.’s Portland Trail Blazers, who obtained him in a trade with the Hawks. He got into only a few games with the Blazers.Lee later played pro basketball in Germany for several seasons. But if his basketball career was over when he returned to the United States, his athletic career was not.He hadn’t played volleyball at U.C.L.A., but he joined the professional beach volleyball circuit in Southern California and went on to enjoy success in both singles and, teamed with Jim Menges, a former volleyball player for the Bruins, doubles. In their 30 matches between 1973 and 1982, Lee and Menges won 25 doubles titles and finished in second place three times and in third place once.Gregory Scott Lee was born on Dec. 12, 1951, in the Reseda neighborhood of Los Angeles, the youngest of three brothers. He starred in basketball at Reseda High School, where he was coached by his father, Marvin, who had played for U.C.L.A. in the 1940s under Wilbur Johns, the Bruins’ coach before Wooden. He was named the Los Angeles city player of the year during his junior and senior seasons at Reseda, when he averaged close to 30 points a game.He later earned teaching credentials from U.C.L.A. and taught mathematics and coached basketball and tennis at Clairemont High School in San Diego, whose 1979 class inspired Cameron Crowe’s 1981 book “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and its 1982 movie adaptation.He is survived by his wife, Lisa; his son, Ethan; his daughter, Jessamyn Feves; his brother, Jon; and two grandchildren.Lee was grateful to Wooden for his guidance.“He did the same things with his stars as he did with his scrubs,” he was quoted as saying in “How to Be Like Coach Wooden: Life Lessons From Basketball’s Greatest Leader,” by Pat Williams with David Wimbish (2006). “He always focused on the details. He was a teacher who happened to be a basketball coach.” More

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      Across Town, Tony Bland Is Adjusting to a Different World

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      Bland, a former U.S.C. assistant coach arrested in 2017 as part of an F.B.I. investigation, is now coaching at a Los Angeles-area high school. He still hopes he can return to the college level.PLAYA DEL REY, Calif. — In an alternate universe, Tony Bland might have been a world away on Tuesday night, on the sideline at the University of Southern California’s sold-out Galen Center, coaching the home team in a nationally televised, high-stakes men’s basketball game against Arizona.Instead, Bland was in a well-worn high school gym about 20 miles away with the St. Bernard High School boys basketball team in a state playoff game.He is trying his best to, as he says, plant himself where his feet are, to think about where he is and not stew about what he once had — a college career that had him on the fast track to possibly becoming a head coach.Still, the reminders are hard to miss: After St. Bernard dispatched feisty Long Beach Poly, 52-40, Bland was congratulated by Wyking Jones, a University of Washington assistant recruiting one of his players. In the stands was the U.C.L.A. assistant Rod Palmer, whose son Joshua is a freshman at St. Bernard. One of his team’s leaders is Jason Hart Jr., whose father was on the U.S.C. coaching staff with Bland and now coaches in the N.B.A.’s G League.The triggers are particularly strong in March, when college basketball takes center stage in the American sports landscape and deep N.C.A.A. tournament runs, like U.S.C.’s to last year’s regional final, can be springboards for coaches with aspirations.“It’s the competitive itch,” Bland said. “The what if? Ascending the college coaching ranks to maybe soon be a head coach. How I would have done it. I remember when I used to do this. It’s the whole thing.”Everything changed for Bland on Sept. 26, 2017, when armed federal agents — their weapons drawn — stormed into his hotel room in Tampa, Fla., and arrested Bland as part of a nationwide college basketball corruption scandal. Bland was one of 10 people arrested that day as a result of an investigation that targeted some of the nation’s most prominent programs and that federal prosecutors boasted would expose the sport’s shady underbelly.“We have your playbook,” the F.B.I.’s William Sweeney thundered, sending a chill through the college basketball world when he added that the investigation, which had been fortified by wiretaps, was ongoing.Now, some four and a half years later, it has long been clear how empty those overinflated proclamations have been. (The same can be said for the breathless exclamations that a sea change in the sport was at hand.)The N.C.A.A. has done little more than slap a few schools on the wrist, and Rick Pitino is the only head coach who was fired in 2017 — a result less of his culpability than that the investigation was the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents during his tenure at Louisville. (Pitino now coaches Iona).Federal authorities fought in court in 2019 to keep Louisiana State Coach Will Wade off the witness stand. Wade is in his fifth year at L.S.U.Jeff Blake/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAnd the Feds, rather than exposing top college coaches, went lengths to shield them. They fought in court in 2019 to keep Louisiana State’s Will Wade, Arizona’s Sean Miller — who was fired last year — and other coaches off the witness stand. They also fought to keep an undercover agent from testifying, the reasons for which became clear last week: An F.B.I. agent pleaded guilty to gambling with $13,500 in government money at a Las Vegas casino in late July 2017, dates and circumstances that coincide with the sting operation that nabbed Bland and others.So, the head coaches who were accused in court of having known about — or even having facilitated — payments to players have almost all continued to collect million-dollar salaries, and business has proceeded as usual. (Arizona, Auburn and Kansas — all implicated in the scheme — are ranked second, fifth and sixth, respectively, in this week’s Associated Press poll.)“If anyone thinks that there is such a thing as a clean big-time program, they need to wake up and smell the donkey” manure, wrote Merl Code, a former shoe company employee, in his recently published book, “Black Market: An Insider’s Journey Into the High-Stakes World of College Basketball,” using an expletive. “Somewhere along the line, even the so-called cleanest of programs has some dirt if you look close enough.”Code, like Christian Dawkins, an aspiring agent, was sentenced to prison for his role in shunting money to top high school prospects and/or their families — a practice that has long been against N.C.A.A. rules, but one that has looked far less illicit as schools have made millions off the backs of an unpaid, largely Black labor force.(Code said Pitino and Kansas Coach Bill Self knew about payments he facilitated to players; both have denied any involvement.)Lamont Evans, Emanuel Richardson and Chuck Person were all fired from their assistant coach roles for accepting bribes.USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe case has only underscored the racial dynamic that is coming under greater scrutiny in major college sports: Coaches and top administrators, most of them white, enriching themselves thanks to the athletes, largely Black, who power their team’s success. All but one of the nine people who have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the corruption case are Black.Chuck Person (Auburn), Emanuel Richardson (Arizona), Lamont Evans (South Carolina and Oklahoma State), Preston Murphy (Creighton), Corey Barker (Texas Christian and New Mexico State) and Bland were all fired as assistants for accepting bribes. Murphy and Barker were not charged with crimes because they had returned the bribes.All have also been hit with show-cause penalties ranging from two years to 10, meaning that any college that wants to hire them has to explain to the N.C.A.A. why it wants to do so.The penalties effectively serve as a ban, and so many of the coaches are working as trainers, running workouts and camps for anyone who will pay them. Bland seems to be the only one coaching at a school.“I’m not saying these guys did anything wrong,” Bland said of the head coaches. “But what the assistant coaches went down for, I don’t know if they anticipated something more coming from it. I don’t know if there was supposed to be a Part B. This whole scheme and TV and bust for that? I don’t understand it.”Bland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery — accepting $4,100 from Dawkins to steer players to a financial adviser — and received two years probation.Bland said he accepted only $2,100 from Dawkins, a friend for about a decade who told him to enjoy a night out in Las Vegas as a thanks for meeting with the financial adviser. He said, though, that he had little choice but to accept the plea deal because, if his case went to trial, it would be lumped in with those of four other defendants. “It was a business decision,” said Bland, who said he was so traumatized by the arrest that he couldn’t sleep in a hotel room. “I had to protect my family.”Bland, 42, said his wife urged him to think beyond basketball and reminded him that he had much to offer, but a few decades ago, the game is what carried him from South Los Angeles to Westchester High, the powerhouse public school that’s just around the bend from St. Bernard. A state championship helped earn him a scholarship to Syracuse and San Diego State.Bland felt at home in those same Los Angeles gyms when he returned to recruit one of the nation’s most fertile talent grounds, first as an assistant at San Diego State and then at U.S.C. He volunteered at St. Bernard, then took over as coach before last season.“We had a team, but he’s building a program,” said Jamie Mark, the athletic director, who had spent most of her career working for a sports agency. “And I think Tony likes the idea of building something.”The opportunity to coach has meant something for Bland, too. He has not given up hope of returning to the college game and one day being a head coach. “The people in college basketball understand my situation,” he said, later adding that his former boss at U.S.C., Andy Enfield, remains one of his biggest supporters. (Enfield is recruiting one of Bland’s best players, Tyler Rolison, a junior guard.)But he also knows there is more to the equation. A college coach is going to have to sell his athletic director on hiring Bland, and the athletic director will have to explain it to the university president. And so, with two more years left on his show-cause penalty, Bland said he knew better than to look too far down the road — or even across town.“This right here,” Bland said Tuesday night, sitting on the bleachers of a nearly empty gym, “has been helping to rehabilitate my soul.” More

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      His N.B.A. Dream Was Right There. Then He Couldn’t Move His Legs.

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      On June 20, 2019, Kris Wilkes awoke in an Airbnb near downtown Indianapolis. He was happy. Next to him was the woman he was falling in love with. Scattered throughout the rest of the rooms of the rented house were friends and family members who had supported him throughout his budding basketball career. It was the morning of the N.B.A. draft, and Wilkes was on the cusp of achieving a childhood dream.Just a few miles up the road at North Central High School, Wilkes had become a coveted basketball recruit. He got his first scholarship offer, from Indiana, when he was in eighth grade. He ultimately committed to U.C.L.A., where he became known for his high-flying, rim-rattling dunks. He made the Pac-12 all-freshman team, and after his sophomore season, he was projected to be selected in the N.B.A. draft, near the end of the first round.Now, more than two years later, he hasn’t made it onto an N.B.A. roster. He has never even appeared in a G League or summer league game.Moments after waking up on draft day in 2019, Wilkes discovered something startling: He couldn’t move his legs. He tore off the bed covers and stared at his lower body. He tried to fire every muscle from his hips to his toes, but nothing happened. He had no feeling below his waist.He called his father, who was at home nearby, and asked him to drive over right away.“Dad,” he said. “I’m scared.”‘I felt like I was 80.’Wilkes initially declared he would enter the draft after his freshman year at U.C.L.A., but he returned for his sophomore season to try to prove he should be a first-round pick. In March 2019, he declared for the draft again. He signed with the Wasserman management and marketing company, and his agents there arranged private workouts with teams. For players projected to be picked outside the top 14, those workouts can be the difference between starting a pro career in the N.B.A. or in the developmental G League. Wilkes wasn’t worried.“I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to be a first-round pick,” Wilkes said. “I was in the best shape of my life. Unfortunately, it was short-lived.”Kris Wilkes playing at U.C.L.A. his sophomore season.Tim Bradbury/Getty ImagesBy the time he reached his seventh workout, with the San Antonio Spurs, he felt sluggish. Near the end of the workout, Wilkes almost collapsed, and a trainer pulled him aside to take his temperature. It was 103 degrees. Team staff members walked him to a nearby hospital, where he was diagnosed with strep throat. Wilkes called his agent, who canceled his next workout, with the Atlanta Hawks, and he returned to his childhood home in Indianapolis to rest and recover for draft night.Within days, his fever had disappeared and his throat felt better, but he started to notice other disconcerting symptoms. His limbs would feel as if they were coated in glass. Sometimes, he wouldn’t be able to feel a hand touching his arm. Other times, he felt an almost unbearable tingle. At night, he couldn’t sleep with a blanket on his legs because it was too irritating. Then his back began to hurt. As an athlete, Wilkes was used to a certain amount of joint pain and muscle stiffness, but this was different.One night, the pain got so bad that his father, Greg Wilkes, took him to urgent care. There the doctor asked Kris if he could remember the last time he had urinated. It had been more than a day. The doctor told him to rush to an emergency room because his bladder was at risk of ripping.In the emergency room, Wilkes received morphine and a catheter, and he was released with the catheter still connected. “Here I was, days before getting drafted, and I was shuffling around my house with bad back pain and a catheter in,” he said in a series of phone calls from his home in Los Angeles last month. “It didn’t feel like I was 20. I felt like I was 80.”Two days later was the draft. Kris awoke, couldn’t move his legs and called his father. Greg Wilkes has spent the past 25 years with the Indianapolis Police Department and is trained in emergency medical response. “I wasn’t a police officer or a first responder in that moment,” he said. “I was a father, and my heart and nerves were shot. I was thinking, ‘What is going on?’ My 20-year-old son is one of the most athletic people I’ve ever met in my life, and he can’t move. How could that be possible?”Wilkes scored over 1,000 points in his two years at U.C.L.A.Alicia Afshar for The New York TimesGreg called an ambulance for Kris and followed it to St. Vincent Hospital. That night, the family crowded into Kris’s hospital room and tuned the TV to the N.B.A. draft. Word had gotten around to teams that Wilkes wasn’t well, and he watched as all 60 N.B.A. draft picks came and went, his name uncalled. For a few moments afterward, the beeps of an electrocardiogram machine were the only sounds in the room.“I was in the best shape of my life, hooping at the highest level of my life, looking good, getting ready to get drafted,” Wilkes said. “And then I was in the hospital, struggling to breathe, barely able to move my legs, and wondering if my career was over.”Then Wilkes’s agent called and told him that the Knicks wanted to sign him to a two-way contract, which would make him primarily a G League player but allow him to play in some N.B.A. games. The family erupted in celebration.But there was a problem: Kris would have to go to New York for a physical. And the doctors in Indianapolis still didn’t know what was wrong with him — or if he would ever walk again.‘It’s as rare as hen’s teeth.’When the neurologist Adam Fisch saw Wilkes’s symptoms, he ordered a series of tests — X-rays, spinal fluid sampling, magnetic resonance imaging — but was cautious with both his diagnosis and his prognosis. Fisch, whom Wilkes authorized to speak with The New York Times about his medical history, said he began to suspect that Wilkes had acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, an autoimmune disorder otherwise known as ADEM.The disorder has a small but poorly understood association with inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s, which Wilkes had been diagnosed with during medical testing months before the draft. ADEM often follows a viral infection, like Wilkes’s strep throat. The body confuses its own brain tissue and spinal cord with the infection and begins to attack itself. ADEM affects between 1 in 125,000 and 1 in 250,000 people around the world every year. An overwhelming majority of those cases are found in children.Making matters more difficult, Wilkes appeared to have a rare combination of ADEM and Guillain-Barré syndrome that involved the brain, spinal cord, nerves and nerve roots, Fisch said.“It’s as rare as hen’s teeth. One in a million doesn’t even do it justice. The odds are infinitesimal,” he said.New Williams, left, a former Fresno State player, training with Wilkes at Academy USA, a sports club in Southern California.Alicia Afshar for The New York TimesFisch treated Wilkes with high doses of steroids and two different blood therapies. “Some patients with ADEM will get just one of those treatments,” Fisch said. “Kris’s case was so severe that we decided it was imperative to use all three at once.”Fisch didn’t make any long-term predictions, but other hospital staff members told Wilkes to prepare for the possibility of having to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. His mother, Ahkisha Owens, rejected that right away.“I wouldn’t let myself even have a single thought that my baby wasn’t going to walk again,” she said. “I looked at him and I said, ‘God didn’t get you this far only to take your legs out from underneath you.’”After a week in the hospital, Wilkes regained feeling in his lower extremities, but he had lost more than 20 pounds and didn’t have the strength to walk. When he was discharged a week after that — the staff recommended inpatient physical therapy, but Wilkes insisted on returning home — Wilkes was expected to be in the wheelchair for at least two months.The next morning, Greg was at the stove cooking a big breakfast to welcome Kris back home — French toast, eggs, bacon and sausage — when he heard a sound like deflated tennis balls bouncing down the hallway. He turned and saw Kris out of the wheelchair, holding himself up with a walker. “Dad, what are you cooking?” he asked. “It smells good!”By August, Wilkes had progressed enough to take his first flight. He went to Palm Springs, Calif., to see Lexie Stevenson, the woman who was with him the morning of the draft. “As soon as he could walk, “he walked to me,” Stevenson said. “And we’ve been walking together ever since.”“You manifest it, you work hard, and you don’t let anyone tell you, ‘You can’t,’” Wilkes said.Alicia Afshar for The New York TimesIn September, Wilkes flew to New York to try to pass a physical for the Knicks. He had to be careful about how much water he drank because his bladder control hadn’t fully returned. Near the end of the workout, he was so dizzy from running baseline sprints that he ran into a wall. Nobody had to tell him that he had failed the physical. He knew.In October, after the Knicks signed Ivan Rabb to fill the two-way roster spot they had been saving for Wilkes, David Fizdale, the head coach at the time, said Wilkes “came down with a serious illness. I don’t know what it was, but it was pretty severe. So right now we’re not going down that road.”‘I was right there.’In the past two years, Wilkes has had health scares, such as when he got a cold and felt the glassy sensation return to his skin. And there were sleepless nights when he woke up Stevenson to talk — or to ask her to hold him while he wept.“I was able to cover the depression, but I had it,” he said. “I’d been working my whole life to get to the N.B.A. And I was right there. To go from that to paralyzed with no money and back home in Indiana, it sucked.”He resolved his money issues with a payout of “several million dollars” from a school-sponsored loss-of-value insurance policy he had signed up for at U.C.L.A. He quit his job as a Postmates delivery driver and started a company called Origyn Sport, which introduced its first product, a training basketball, in September.Wilkes used the time while he was recovering to create a company called Origyn Sport, which makes basketballs for training.Alicia Afshar for The New York TimesThough Wilkes has regained most of his muscle mass, he can sense that he is still not as explosive as he once was. He knows that making it to the N.B.A. now is a long shot. But he has faced long odds before.“Maybe most people don’t think I can get to that point, but why would I bother listening to them?” he said. “I didn’t listen to the doctors who told me I wouldn’t walk again, and I’m not going to let anyone talk me out of my goals now.” More

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      Terry Donahue, Who Led U.C.L.A. to Bowl Victories, Dies at 77

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      Over 20 years, he had more wins than any football coach in the school’s history, including seven consecutive bowl championships.Terry Donahue, who became the face of football at U.C.L.A. as a player and coach, staying in the latter position for 20 years and leading the school to seven consecutive bowl-winning seasons in the 1980s, died on Sunday at his home in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 77.The cause was cancer, U.C.L.A. said.Donahue won more games than any other coach in the school’s and the Pac-12 Conference’s history, and he ended his career with a winning record against each of the conference’s teams, including the Bruins’ crosstown rival, the University of Southern California Trojans.Overall, he won 151 of the 233 games he coached, and 98 of those victories were in the Pac-10 (as the conference was known before adding two teams in 2011). His eighth and final win in a bowl came in the 1991 John Hancock Bowl.Donahue’s streak of bowl victories included Rose Bowl wins in ’83, ’84 and ’86. He was the first person to appear in the Rose Bowl as a player, an assistant coach and a coach.On the field, Donahue played in 1966 in U.C.L.A.’s first Rose Bowl victory. The team earned the nickname “Gutty Little Bruins” because nobody on the defensive line weighed more than 225 pounds. Donahue, a walk-on, weighed just 195 pounds.He brought the same overachieving spirit to his tenure as a coach. Some of U.C.L.A.’s best players in the Donahue era, like the future Hall of Famer Jonathan Ogden, came from regions far from California. The famed quarterback Troy Aikman transferred to U.C.L.A. from another college football program.Donahue talking to his quarterback John Barnes in 1992.Otto Greule Jr/Allsport, via Getty ImagesIn an article last year about how Donahue’s successors have not measured up to the standard he set, The Los Angeles Times attributed Donahue’s success to his being “a pioneer in national recruiting,” in part by having a scout “scour the country for talent.” N.F.L. teams chose 14 players from the Donahue era in the first round of professional drafts.In a 2011 interview with The Los Angeles Times, he discussed the level of commitment required to discover and woo young quarterbacks. “You need money, access to an aircraft if possible,” he said. “I went and got players from Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Hawaii, Texas, Oregon.”A news conference where Donahue announced his retirement in 1995 became a spectacle. The Los Angeles Times said that a U.C.L.A. spokesman prepared two news releases in case Donahue changed his mind. As he began to explain his decision, hundreds of reporters and friends “leaned forward at the same instant,” The Times reported.“I can’t believe I’m holding this press conference,” Donahue said. “What are you all doing here?”But he did retire. Twenty-five years later, The Times would write that the U.C.L.A. football program had been “tormented” since Donahue’s departure.Terrence Michael Donahue was born on June 24, 1944, in Los Angeles to Betty (Gantner) Donahue and Bill Donahue, a physician.He was a starting linebacker at his high school in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, but he struggled to establish himself in college, failing to gain a steady position at San Jose State and Los Angeles Valley College before getting a tryout at U.C.L.A. in 1964. He was taken on as a reserve lineman and worked his way up to starter.“Terry didn’t have a lot of ability, but he had a lot of character, high intelligence and seldom made a mistake,” Jerry Long, a former U.C.L.A. line coach, said.Donahue graduated from U.C.L.A. in 1967 with a bachelor’s degree in history. He also earned a master’s from the university in kinesiology in 1977.Donahue in 2013. He struggled to accept his own decision to retire as U.C.L.A.’s coach. “I can’t believe I’m holding this press conference,” he said during the announcement. “What are you all doing here?”Stephen Dunn/Getty ImagesHe got his start as a coach by asking a former mentor, Pepper Rodgers, to take him on as an unpaid assistant for the University of Kansas Jayhawks. When Rodgers became head coach at U.C.L.A., Donahue followed him. Rodgers’s successor, Dick Vermeil, left to coach the Philadelphia Eagles in 1976, and Donahue took over, even though he was in his early 30s.After leaving U.C.L.A., he worked in the front office of the San Francisco 49ers from 1999 to 2005.Donahue’s survivors include his wife of 52 years, Andrea (Sogas) Donahue; three daughters, Nicole, Michele and Jennifer; and 10 grandchildren.In 1976, Donahue’s first season coaching U.C.L.A., the Bruins went 9-2-1. An article in Sports Illustrated said he “may be the best young coach in the country.” Known to be relaxed and well tanned, Donahue was asked if he ever felt nervous.“We’re prepared and we’ve worked hard, so there’s nothing to worry about,” he told Sports Illustrated. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go throw up.” More

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      Mark Eaton, Shot-Blocking Star for the Utah Jazz, Dies at 64

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      At 7-foot-4, Eaton was a two-time N.B.A. defensive player of the year, and his career shot-blocking average was the best in league history.Mark Eaton, the 7-foot-4 shot-blocking king who twice was the N.B.A.’s defensive player of the year during a career spent entirely with the Utah Jazz, died on Friday night in a bicycle accident near his home in Summit County, Utah. He was 64.The team said he had left his home for a bike ride, and shortly thereafter someone called 911 to report seeing him lying on a roadway and unconscious. He died at the hospital.The county sheriff’s office said, “It appears the man was riding a bicycle and crashed,” adding that there was no reason to believe a vehicle was involved.Eaton led the league in blocks per game four times, and his average of 5.6 per contest in 1984-85 remains the highest average since the N.B.A. started officially tracking that statistic. Eaton’s career blocks average of 3.51 per game is the best in league history, and his career happened almost by accident.Eaton blocking a shot by Otis Thorpe of the Houston Rockets. He credited Wilt Chamberlain with inspiring him to focus on defending the basket.Getty ImagesHe was working as an auto mechanic in 1977 when a community college basketball coach persuaded him to enroll. From there, he went to U.C.L.A., and his stint with the Jazz followed.“I had an unusual background,” Eaton said for a story published two years ago on the Jazz’s website. “It’s an unlikely story to be sure. I basically came into the N.B.A. with two years of junior college experience and sat on the bench at U.C.L.A. for two years. And Frank Layden gave me a chance and the team was in a space where they could afford to let me make some mistakes out there and get my feet underneath me. It worked out well for both of us.”The Jazz described him in a statement as an “enduring figure in our franchise history.”Eaton had been, among other things, a restaurateur and motivational speaker in his retirement.Mark Eaton was born on Jan. 24, 1957, in Inglewood, Calif. Information on survivors was not immediately available.In recent years, he served as a mentor to Jazz center Rudy Gobert — the only other player in the team’s history to win the defensive player of the year award.His 11 playing seasons with the Jazz are third most in team history, behind the longtime Utah cornerstones Karl Malone and John Stockton. Eaton’s durability was noteworthy, with him once appearing in 338 consecutive games. He finished with career averages of 6.0 points and 7.9 rebounds.Eaton shooting against Nate Johnston of the Portland Trailblazers. He spent his entire N.B.A. career with the Utah Jazz.Getty ImagesBut his best skill was defending the rim, and he once told a story about how Wilt Chamberlain offered him advice about his career. He shared the tale during a motivational speech, telling others that Rule No. 1 for success is to “know your job.”“Wilt grabbed me by the arm, took me out on the floor, positioned me right in front of the basket,” Eaton said. “He said, ‘You see this basket? Your job is to stop players from getting there. Your job is to make them miss their shot, get the rebound, throw it up to the guard, let them go down the other end and score, and your job is to cruise up to half-court and see what’s going on.’”“When Wilt shared that with me, everything changed,” he said. “I understood what I needed to do. I understood what I could be great at. Wilt showed me what my job was, and how doing what I did would benefit my team.”Eaton’s No. 53 was one of the first jerseys retired by the Jazz.He was the defensive player of the year in 1984-85 and 1988-89, was a five-time All-Defensive team selection — three first-team nods, two second-team picks — and was an All-Star in 1989. He retired in September 1994. More