SAN DIEGO — One year to the day after the passing of San Diegan and basketball legend Bill Walton, San Diego Sport Innovators announced Wednesday it was expanding mentorship programs in his name.
The Walton Innovation Network (WIN) is the first part of SDSI’s planned Bill Walton Legacy Project. Walton was chairman of the SDSI — a San Diego-based nonprofit focused on boosting businesses “dedicated to the San Diego lifestyle industry.”
“The Walton Innovation Network will be an expansion of SDSI’s current mentoring programs — dear to Bill’s heart — into a network of programs dedicated to his legacy of uplifting others, hard work and giveback,” said SDSI Executive Director Bob Rief. “WIN will support the entrepreneurs, innovators, athletes, and dreamers — in all stages of business from ideation, scale, through funding — who are changing the future of our industry.”
Walton died May 27, 2024, at his home in San Diego following a prolonged battle with cancer. He was 71.
Under Walton’s 14-year leadership, SDSI built a business community dedicated to the growth of “companies that help all individuals, not just San Diegans, get outside, get active and lead healthier lives,” a statement from the nonprofit read.
“SDSI is community, and community is people,” said SDSI Board member Mike Irwin. “What SDSI does best is equip people for success. Bill’s inherent curiosity about people is what made him such a natural helper. And with the announcement of WIN, we are just getting started, and when it comes to preserving Bill’s legacy, the future is full of possibilities.”
According to the nonprofit, SDSI’s business mentoring programs have helped to scale more than 150 businesses, 78% of which are still active or have been acquired. All of this has been made possible through the generosity of more than 100 volunteer executive mentors.
Walton was born on Nov. 5, 1952, in La Mesa, where he grew up and played basketball at Helix High School, leading the Highlanders to San Diego Section championships in 1969 and 1970 and a 49-game winning streak.
Walton was selected as Player of the Year in all three of his varsity seasons at UCLA — freshmen were ineligible to play on the varsity level when Walton entered UCLA in 1970 — and he led the Bruins to NCAA championships in 1972 and 1973.
He was the first player selected in the 1974 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers, but his professional career was marred by injuries, with him playing at least 60 games in only three seasons. He played only 14 games between the 1978-79 and 1981-82 seasons, missing three entire seasons due to a foot injury.
However, he did lead Portland to the NBA championship in 1977 and was selected as the NBA Finals MVP and the league’s MVP in the 1977-78 season, despite playing only 58 of 82 regular-season games.
After retirement from playing, Walton overcame a stutter to become an Emmy-winning broadcaster. He began his broadcasting career in 1990 as an analyst on Clippers’ telecasts, working alongside longtime play-by-play broadcaster Ralph Lawler.
Walton was also an analyst for CBS, ESPN, ABC, and the Pac-12 Networks, winning a Sports Emmy for Best Live Television Sports Telecast in 1991 and being selected as one of the top 50 sports broadcasters of all time by the American Sportscasters Association in 2009.
Walton considered himself a lifelong San Diegan and had lived in the same home near Balboa Park for more than 40 years.
