We lost a good person last night... RIP- Bill Walton
I posted this article when we first heard about Eli, possibly coming to the Dukes. Check out the second photo of Eli Wilborn with Bill Walton... What a awesome role model for Eli to emualate  !!!!

https://www.middletownpress.com/gametimect/article/eli-wilborn-nec-st-francis-pa-men-s-basketball-18608560.php

Eli Wilborn got to meet him last year when St. Francis played UCLA in LA...I hope that he had, the same positive experience, I had with meeting him. I had the pleasure of having my company ( video) cover him for about half a day for the Rotary South in Ft. Myers FL, in the (mid-80's)...Every year they would have an annual sports banquet that honored the best ( Lee County) High School Scholar Athletes of that year. They would invite a different sports figures to speak to the 300 or 400, annaully assembled audience. I would produce a (3-camera) coverage of the entire 1-1/2-hour long banquet. Other prominent sports figures I covered for them, were sports figures like (Bobby Knight, Dick Vital)...All these guys were sports heavy weights at the time... Every year, I would cover the pre-event also, which was a 30-40 minute meeting beforehand, in his hotel room, with that years selected speaker (Bill Walton) and the honored high school athletes ...This is where Bill Walton really excelled, in these one on one, human to human interactions...That year he gave a very inspirational speach at the banquet... many times speaking of his relationship with the legendary John Wooden and the many life lessons he learned from him...

Of all the guest speakers, I covered for them... I was the most impressed with Bill Walton, more than any other person !! He was probably the most unpretentious...pretentious person, I have ever met...He always seemed, that when he was talking to you, that you were the most important person in the world... He was more concerned about you, than he was about himself...A truly genuinely nice person, in every sense of the word... Contrast this, with a person like Bobby Knight , which I also covered.... it was like a "night and day" difference, between the two...Try experiencing a crowded elevator ride with a person like Bobby Knight, standing next to you ?! .. I felt like at any moment, Bobby Knight (could or would)... reach-over and rip-my-heart-out, as the floors are slowly ticking off... It was truly one of the most uncomfortable elevator rides, I have ever taken, with another human being.... 

I hope Eli was able to (bend his ear), so to speak...and learn a few things, from a very wise man.

Go Dukes !!!
 

Last edited by CalDuke (5/27/2024 7:42 pm)