Bill Walton Once Claimed He Found a Pterodactyl in His Closet and Rode It to the Top of a Mountain
Bill Walton has said and done some outrageous things on air during his prolific broadcasting career. The UCLA legend and NBA Hall-of-Famer has a unique style of color commentary that even his ESPN play-by-play partner can’t keep up with.
Whatever your opinion is of Walton in the booth, you can’t deny that he makes college basketball games far more interesting. Of the countless unbelievable stories he’s told since becoming a broadcaster, the most insane involves a pterodactyl that jumped out of Walton’s closet and flew him to the top of a mountain. Yes, you read that right.
Bill Walton is the most colorful commentator in basketball
There’s color commentary in college basketball, and then there’s colorful commentary. Bill Walton represents both for ESPN. From taking off his shirt on camera to spewing nonsense about rainbows and volcanoes to popping a whole cupcake with a lit candle into his mouth, you never know what Walton is going to do next during his broadcasts.
It might be tough to focus on the actual game when Walton’s on the call, but boy is it entertaining.
Bill Walton once claimed he rode a pterodactyl to the top of a mountain
Most of Walton’s best content comes from his college basketball broadcasts, but his most insane story actually comes from a podcast. Earlier this year, Walton appeared on The Frank Caliendo Cast and told a possibly mushroom-induced tale about an encounter with a dinosaur.
In my life, I am rarely home. But I am home now, safe at home. So I open the closet door, and bam! This big, giant pterodactyl just came flapping its wings… While I had been learning to fly all week long, I grabbed onto the back, the back of his spine, the back of his shoulder and his wings, and we took off and we soared… I sorta realized the pterodactyl was getting tired, he had his lunch and he wanted to take a nap, but I kept kneeing him right in the kidney. We just kept going and going, and we finally got to the top of Mt. Laguna. When we got to the top of Mt. Laguna, we could see everything and beyond. I looked back, ‘Wow. We came that far?’ I looked forward, ‘We still have more to go! Let’s get going!’ I went back and I checked the schedule of the next departure of the Peace Train, and I figured that if I got on the phone with somebody named Walt Billton, I would be able to find my way home and be able to continue a conversation with myself that I’ve been having for all these years.
Bill Walton
It truly sounded like Walton believed every word of his story, so who are we to dispute it?
You can hear more of Walton’s madness on ESPN
Somehow, Walton still has a job at ESPN despite his constant ramblings and distractions from the game on the court. Walton is handling color commentary duties alongside Jason Benetti at the 2020 Camping World Maui Invitational, and he’ll spearhead ESPN’s Pac-12 coverage when conference play starts to heat up.
If you’ve never heard Walton call a college basketball game, do yourself a favor and give it a try. You might have to be under the influence of an illegal substance to understand what the heck he’s saying, though.
