Back from the Dead

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 682 ratings

Price: 17.71

Last update: 06-13-2024


About this item

This inspiring memoir from sports and cultural icon Bill Walton recounts his devastating injuries and amazing recoveries, set in the context of his UCLA triumphs under John Wooden, his storied NBA career, and his affinity for music and the Grateful Dead.

In February 2007, Bill Walton suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse - the culmination of a lifetime of injuries - that left him unable to move. He spent three years on the floor of his house, eating his meals there and crawling to the bathroom, where he could barely hoist himself up onto the toilet. The excruciating pain and slow recovery tested Walton to the fullest. But with extraordinary patience, fortitude, determination, and sacrifice - and pioneering surgery - he recovered and now shares his life story in this remarkable and unique memoir.

Walton grew up in San Diego in the 1950s and 1960s and was deeply influenced by the political and cultural upheavals of that period. Although he strongly identified with the cool people, particularly in music and politics, his greatest role model outside his family was super-straight UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, a thoughtful, rigorous mentor who seemed immune to the turmoil of the times. Although there was always tension and conflict between them, the two men would speak nearly every day for 43 years, until Wooden's death at age 99.

Despite a lifelong stuttering affliction, Walton chose a career in broadcasting after his playing days ended. He eventually won an Emmy Award and other accolades for broadcasting and was recognized as a leading media pundit.

John Wooden once said that no greatness ever came without sacrifice. Nothing better illustrates this saying than the real story of Walton's life. In his own words, Back from the Dead shares this dramatic story, including his basketball and broadcasting careers, his many setbacks and rebounds, and his ultimate triumph as the toughest of champions.


Top reviews from the United States

Richard Jebb
5.0 out of 5 stars Walton is a winner in anyone's book, and his book is a game changer. A must read!
Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2024
“Back From The Dead” by Bill Walton is a unique memoir that lands somewhere between a pleasure trip of nostalgia through the happy days of Walton’s childhood in the fifties, and sixties and subsequent career—and a Master Class about a person’s epic journey after finding pure joy in the life of a basketball hero at the top of the game, only to have it ripped away by a relentless sequence of debilitating injuries. At its core this is a story about how he faced his ultimate challenge—somehow rising above the agony of extreme physical and emotional collapse—to win the game of life. After being sidelined over and again mostly by debilitating foot injuries, later in life Walton must bring every particle of light from the corners of his darkened soul to escape the agony from his crumbling giant skeleton.

Bill Walton is a cultural icon with true countercultural sensibility. His persona and consciousness forged amidst the turbulence of a time when both America and Walton wrestled with social justice, the meaning of personal freedoms, and the war in Vietnam.

Walton recounts the highest highs and lowest lows from his remarkable career, with the color of a world class ABC, CBS, and ESPN sports commentator that he became. Recalling critical games, shots, and plays, as well as surprising antics and winning strategies of owners, coaches, teammates, and rivals, while generously sharing the ups and downs of his very personal relationship with Coach John Wooden, (voted the all-time greatest coach of all sports).

This book is not only a tour de force from an iconic champion of the worlds’ “most perfect game,” but an offering of wisdom told in play-by-play commentary through firsthand recollections of franchise-turnarounds and declines, big plays, and critical behind the scenes factors determining outcomes of play-off games across Walton’s remarkable career. A time when basketball was evolving from its more brutal roots. A time when professional basketball players were expected to just gut it out at all costs, before more thoughtful, sustainable injury protocols. Before the Jordan era.

This is a book that breathes with the highest spirit of athletic competition, the drive, the preparation, and the deep desire to dominate one’s adversaries and win by determination, better preparation, discipline, selflessness, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Waltons story is told through his riveting insight into team dynamics and camaraderie with other legends of his sport, and those true friends who looked right into Waltons soul at the perfect time offering redemption and rescue.

As I read Walton’s life story, a tempering overcame my pernicious self-deception, and I questioned if I had ever truly suffered or done anything remarkable. Bill Walton had, living with determination and class through his extraordinary blessings and curses. His purely driven life lifted and coached by the best, becoming a true leader by example.

This is an elevating book, filled with encouraging recollections of Walton’s wonderful family, friends, and coaches. His story shines with revelation and countless examples of love in action, his outpouring of personal accountability, gratitude, and appreciation. His recollections inspire us with a parade of wonderful characters, those extraordinary people who shared not only their keys to success, but the face of love which Walton progressively reflects back into his world from his early childhood until now. And despite Bill’s many successes, and battles not only with physical torment, his persistent other centered focus shines through and lifts us up. Walton shows how in the end, life is all about how we make people feel, about human kindness and loyalty, helping to shape one another—and about love.

If there was one person, I would nominate for the role of the big brother I never had, or the perfect mentor, Bill Walton would be at the top of that list. A guy who’s life has been an example of living with full intention, integrity, determination, and true grit; the self-proclaimed “luckiest person in the world…” Walton is a winner in anyone’s book and his book is a game changer! A compelling read for the broadest audience.
Eric R. Futterman
4.0 out of 5 stars J and Sixers fan when Walton and the Trailblazers beat them for the NBA title and I hated the Celtics when Walton teamed with La
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2016
I have to admit I rooted against Bill Walton all of his career. I was a David Thompson fan who cheered when NC State beat UCLA. I was a Dr. J and Sixers fan when Walton and the Trailblazers beat them for the NBA title and I hated the Celtics when Walton teamed with Larry Bird to win Walton's NBA title.

After reading this book I am a huge fan of Mr. Walton as a wonderful human being. His ability to see sunshine in the darkest of times, his internal strength at overcoming devastating injuries that only great athletes who play for decades can really experience, are truly inspiring. And while I've always like the music of the Grateful Dead, Walton does a better job than anyone I know to explain why the Dead phenomenon exists.

This is also a fantastic history of the game of basketball. Walton's expression of respect from teammates and opponents alike also show that he's just a good guy.

Great read by a guy who I will root for from this point on.
Brad Feld
5.0 out of 5 stars It was a good one and does a great job of capturing a ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2016
I read Bill Walton's autobiography Back from the Dead on Saturday after my long run. It was a good one and does a great job of capturing a complicated life filled with super high peaks and extremely low valleys.

I was into basketball as a pre-teen. I played forward for a little while but really settled into my role as a guard. I played until junior high school when I stopped playing soccer and basketball and focused entirely on tennis, which lasted until high school when I smashed my last wood racquet on the court. After that, I ran track and cross country and really began my love of long distance running.

I dug Bill Walton when he played for the Trail Blazers. My team as a little kid was the Dallas Chaparrals until the ABA blew up. I didn't really have a team again until I moved to Boston to go to college, so I just liked individual players. When I eventually stopped paying attention to basketball in high school, even though the Dallas Mavericks were now my home town team (and I won a Dallas Mavericks college scholarship for $1,000 for some reason I can't remember), I lost touch with pretty much all the players. So it was fun to see Walton re-appear in my junior and senior years at MIT on the Boston Celtics, which re-energized my interest in basketball a tiny bit (it didn't hurt that the Celtics were completely dominant in that time period.)

In Back from the Dead Walton covers his years playing at UCLA, Phoenix, and Boston in great detail. He also talks about his time on the San Diego - and then LA Clippers - which includes some scathing commentary on the craziness and misery that was the team under Donald Sterling in its early years.

The basketball stories, especially some of the detailed history, is fun to read. I've always enjoyed sports history from a first person point of view of a player, and Walton doesn't disappoint. But that's simply the foundation for the book.

Walton's basketball brilliance is interspersed with endless injuries. He talks about them in detail - initially the physical struggles, but then the mental struggles as the pain as well as the time recovering and rebuilding grows. He doesn't complain, but shows a vulnerable side in his description of his struggles. For a period of time, he's at the top and bottom of the game at almost the same time, fighting through the injuries until they overwhelm his ability to recover and he finally retires.

He then goes through his career as a sportscaster. Mixed throughout is his love for and journeys with the Grateful Dead. And then his spine breaks, ESPN fires him gratuitously (they eventually rehire him under new management, but he skims over this), and a very long recovery begins.

At this point, you can feel Walton's pain. Sure - the physical pain is there, but the emotional pain is profound. And his writing about it is powerful. And clean. And clear.

He gets through it and ends the book filled with love and joy and the energy that bubbles throughout his early playing days. Overall, the book is a powerful reminder of this complicated thing we call life and how hard it can be, even when you are at the top.

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