Bill Walton on Dave Pasch, ASU hoops, the Superstitions and Caliendo

We asked Bill Walton some questions.

The ESPN and Pac-12 Networks analyst joined Doug & Wolf on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station, but those questions don’t really matter.

What matters is that Walton on Tuesday talked: about the Arizona State Sun Devils leading the Pac-12 at this moment, about comedian Frank Caliendo impersonating him last week during the ASU game and about, well, life stuff.

Here is a transcription edited lightly with a few questions asked in bold for a little bit of context. Now if full context is something you really want from Bill Walton, you can kindly leave.

The other option: Just take a listen to the full interview on the player above.

Walton is asked about working alongside play-by-play man Dave Pasch, who is also the voice of the Arizona Cardinals:

“I have no idea who you’re talking about. My name is Frank Caliendo and I just got out of the hot springs underneath the Organ Pipe hoodoo and dove through the clear, green … pool at the base of the mountains on the Mogollon Rim, and here I am singing to myself while playing piano at the same time, the Moonlight Sonata on Beethoven’s 250th birthday this year, and then “Ave Maria,” and I’m trying to figure out the lessons of life through the wonders of nature and here I am and the first spoken words of my morning on a beautiful crisp, clear day, somebody is harassing me already. Why would I volunteer to do something like this? Please! Have you folks lost your mind over there? Now who is this person you’re talking about?”

On how a Pac-12 team can make a Final Four:

“When they win the first four games (of the NCAA Tournament). It’s very simple. Don’t over-complicate this. It’s hard. Sitting in a studio on a telephone, everything seems really easy … One of the fantastic things about Bobby Hurley is he is a champion.

“It always comes back to leadership. When you have the New American University with (ASU president) Michael Crow and (athletic director and VP for university athletics) Ray Anderson and (senior associate AD) Ken Landphere and all these people doing a remarkable job helping young people build their lives, create their dreams and world and then be able to go out there and deliver peak performance on command, that’s what we’re seeing right now. It doesn’t just happen because somebody says it’s going to happen. Talk is cheap but vision is true.

“When you’ve got anchors like Romello White out there, and when you’ve got the emerging Jalen Graham, you’ve got Kimani Lawrence making shots now, and you got Remy Martin and Rob Edwards and Alonzo Verge and Jaelen House, and then Mickey Mitchell, like me, is coming back from the dead, and how it’s all happening and you got the 942 student section over there in the Desert Financial building and it’s so fantastically fun and it’s an awakening and it’s like the dawn coming up there over the Superstition Mountains in the Valley of the Sun and it keeps warming up and warming up and you see the simmering volcanic lava waiting to explode and they come out and the band fires up and the refs put the ball out in the air with the known world in the balance and we can only hope, only hope the referee does not call a foul on the first play of the game. Please! We are trying to celebrate the wonders of nature here. Now what was your question, sir?”

On playing “Ave Maria” on the piano:

“I’m playing many different versions. I’m not a good piano player but I love the practice and I love to dream and I love the building and I love the trying to evolve and trying to develop. I grew up in a world of curiosity, exploration, experimentation — let’s try it all. So as I try to do it in different styles in different keys with different composers, then I try to get … mostly what I try to do is I try to feel. The feel that Bobby Hurley has for his team, and I love the fact that he was wearing his championship ring in the Oregon game over there. The game was just fierce as can be and Bobby was just into it and almost hoping he could get out there and play. But you get to the point you cannot play anymore yourself. So it’s very difficult. You think it’s just super easy: call a play, oh, yeah. Make a substitution: yeah, right. That sense of being able to create the culture, the identity, the style, the pace, all the different things that go in to winning the championship, to have your guys able to exhibit the skill and demonstrate the fitness and make that commitment to the team and use the contributions of (men’s basketball sports performance coach) Daniel Marshall, the remarkable team that they have there … Bobby was wildly gesturing and he hit himself in the head and he cut himself. Oh my gosh, the letting of the blood! That’s what we love because this is about the blood and thunder of the Arizona State Sun Devils coming to try and stick a fork in ’em.

“When you’ve come so far and the Sun Devils have to guard against, is the overconfidence. Yes, they’re in first place, but there are four games to go. Please! People get all excited when you’re ahead at halftime. The only thing more meaningless than the halftime score of a game is the final score of an exhibition game. Yes, the Sun Devils won seven straight and nine of 10. Yes, they hammered UCLA with an incredible three-point shooting display in the first meeting a couple weeks ago. This is about bringing it today and that ability to explode and ability to be a champion. Fortunately for the Sun Devils, everybody is playing well. But what happened yesterday, what happened last game, means nothing. You got to come out with an edge and Bobby Hurley, he has that edge and he brings that edge.

“But they better watch out those Sun Devils, because these Bruins, they’re on fire (Editor’s note: ASU visits UCLA Thursday at 9 p.m. for a game on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station). They just won at Colorado, they won at Arizona. It’s just remarkable what Mick Cronin has been able to do. The Bruins have got a lot of players — they’re big, they’re strong, they’re tough. What they’ve learned to do from Mick Cronin is to compete, they’ve learned to fight. You’ve got to bring the fight without resulting (in) a fight itself. Bobby Hurley, Mick Cronin — this is going to be a showdown for the ages and I am excited as can be. Mostly though, with all the things going on in my life, I’m just the luckiest guy in the world to be able to sit next to Frank Caliendo when I come to the Valley of the Sun, Desert Financial, and we all take our cues and instructions in life from the one, the only, the immortal (assistant AD) Doug Tammaro.

“We’ve got a game. It’s all right here. It’s all about the ball bouncing by the center circle and the referee is looking around to make sure everything is in order as he looks toward the heavens and delivers that ball, that perfect orb that will just be spinning, spinning, brightly — woo — dizzy with possibilities and the two hands go ever higher. Who will get there? Who will be the guy that can deliver? Wow, Frank Caliendo in the hot springs ready to dive through that clear, clean … water. Yes, the Salt River, the Verde River, meeting right there in the Valley of the Sun on their way, the marching army of the west heading to California. Meet me on the burned shore. Here we go. What was that guy’s name you were asking about?”

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