College Sports Information Directors of America

The Wisdom of Bill Walton

A ‘Cool Uncle’ and the Lessons of Life He’s Shared with Arizona’s Matt Ensor 

As told to Doug Vance by Matt Ensor.
 

Bill Walton is renowned for a hall of fame basketball career and his role as a college basketball broadcaster with a unique and spontaneous flare when behind the microphone.

For Matt Ensor, Walton is much more than an iconic basketball personality. He’s become a special friend.

Ensor, director of communication services at Arizona, has forged a close friendship with Walton that has gone beyond the typical SID and television announcer relationship.

Ensor describes his relationship with Walton is like that of “a cool uncle” in the family. As their relationship has grown, Walton has invited Ensor to be his guest over the past four years at summer tour stops for Grateful Dead concert performances.

Ensor agreed to provide an insight into the experience of getting to know Walton who is easily one of the strongest advocates of CoSIDA’s Academic All-America® program.

I started working at Arizona as the men’s basketball SID before the 2015-16 season. Because Bill (Walton) is the ESPN analyst for the Pac-12’s Thursday and Saturday games, he is assigned to 13 or 14 Arizona games a year. So, throughout our first season working together we really hit it off and always stayed in touch.

At the Pac-12 Tournament, Bill was calling our quarterfinal game and asked about my plans for the summer. He then invited me to the Dead’s show in his hometown of San Diego. I brought a coworker and a friend along and Bill invited us to his house for lunch before the show and then we were part of the four-car caravan from his house to the show. It was as special of an experience as I’ve ever had and I’ve been eternally grateful ever since. We’ve met up for shows during each summer tour ever since in the west in San Diego, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

Accompanying Bill to a Dead show is truly an experience. He’s been to about 800 shows and is lifelong friends with many of the band’s original members. Arriving with Bill is awesome because you park behind the stage next to the band and then go backstage before the show.

Once, Bill invited myself and a friend into drummer Mickey Hart’s dressing room before the show. We met Mickey, Bill shared how he and I met and became friends and then had about a 20-minute conversation about life. It was surreal to me, and I was sitting there wishing I could record the entire conversation so I could remember it. After the show, Bill walked me up to Mickey’s drum kit at the back of the stage and he gave me a pair of drum sticks and a set-list from the show. In classic Bill fashion, he gave it to me and said, “Matt, thank you for everything you do for me, thank you for accompanying me on this fantastic journey, and thank you for my life.”

Part of how my relationship was built with Bill was going through a personal crisis during my first year at Arizona. Two nights before my second game ever working with Bill, which was Oregon at Arizona in what was called the Pac-12 game of the year, my mother passed away unexpectedly in Oregon. I was out of the office for two weeks and missed a few games with Bill.

When I returned to work there was an email from Bill in my inbox with a very nice message of him thinking about me and passing along his condolences, including a couple of perfect Grateful Dead lyrics for the situation. I didn’t know him very well at the time but the email really touched me. I kept that email and still have it to this day.

The one thing that always strikes me about Bill are his positive attitude and his generosity. Bill always lets you know that you are his guest and is very hospitable. He just wants you to enjoy the show. In fact, the one time Bill actually got mad at me was when I paid for him.

When he is in town, Bill and I go out for breakfast at the Baja Café the day of the game. I wanted to pay Bill back by picking up our breakfast tab one time. He got this really stern look on his face and said, “Don’t you ever pay for me. My job is to help you in life, not the other way around.” He was legitimately upset. He got that upset over me picking up a $25 tab and it shows you how sincere his generosity is.

Bill’s positivity and zest for life are the same on the air as they are off the air. Whenever you’re around Bill, it’s all about enjoying life.

I’ll never forget at shoot-around of our game at Utah in 2018-19 when we were going through a tough stretch. I went to Bill at that shoot-around with a matter-of-fact demeanor. Bill got on me, telling me that “life is way too short and it has too many things to enjoy to sit around and not be happy. Negativity never leads to anything positive.” Then, Bill and I spoke for 25 minutes about life. It was nothing sports related but a heart-to-heart talk about our lives. 

And, in classic Bill fashion, he ended it with the perfect Grateful Dead reference; “And that’s why Matt Ensor, we just keep truckin.”

That conversation is still one of my favorite “Bill Walton” moments.

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