Neal Eugene Walk (July 29, 1948 – October 4, 2015) was an American college and professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player who was a

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

(NBA) for eight seasons during the late 1960s and 1970s, playing overseas afterward. Walk played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

for the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, and remains the Florida Gators' all-time rebounds leader. The Phoenix Suns picked Walk second overall in the

1969 NBA draft The 1969 NBA draft was the 23rd annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on April 7 and May 7, 1969, before the 1969–70 season. In this draft, fourteen NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college ba ...

, having lost the coin toss with the

Milwaukee Bucks The Milwaukee Bucks are an American professional basketball team based in Milwaukee. The Bucks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded in 1968 ...

for Lew Alcindor. Walk played professionally for the Suns, the New Orleans Jazz and the New York Knicks of the NBA.

Early life

Walk was born in Cleveland, Ohio to a Jewish family, and moved to Miami Beach, Florida, with his parents Al and Sylvia at the age of 6.">"Former Florida Gators and NBA standout Neal Walk dies at 67" , ''Miami Herald''
/ref> He attended

Miami Beach High School Miami Beach Senior High School (Beach High, MBSH) is a secondary school located at 2231 Prairie Avenue Miami Beach, Florida, across from the Miami Beach Convention Center and Botanical Garden. It is located at the corner of Prairie Avenue and D ...

, and played high school basketball for the Miami Beach Hi-Tides, starting for the first time in his senior year. His high school team made the state semifinals and due to its makeup of mostly Jewish players, it sometimes was subjected to opposing fans yelling anti-Semitic comments at them.

College career

Walk accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the

in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach

Tommy Bartlett Thomson "Tommy" Bartlett (July 11, 1914 – September 6, 1998) was an American showman and entertainment mogul from Wisconsin. He is most often associated with the water skiing thrill show based in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, known as Tommy Bartl ...

's Florida Gators men's basketball team for three seasons from 1966 to 1969. In his junior season, Walk led the NCAA with 19.8 rebounds a game and average 26.5 points per game. As a senior

team captain In team sport, captain is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In eithe ...

, he led the Gators to the 1969 National Invitation Tournament—their first-ever post-season tournament. When Walk graduated from Florida, he was the Gators' all-time leading scorer, and still maintains the team records for career rebounds (1,181), average points per game (20.8), and rebounds in a single game (31), among others. His No. 41 jersey remains the only number to have been retired by the Florida basketball program.

Professional career

Walk was drafted in the first round (second pick overall) of the

by the Phoenix Suns, after they lost a coin toss with the

for the number one pick, which turned out to be Lew Alcindor (later known as

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Kareem (alternatively spelled Karim or Kerim) ( ar, کریم) is a common given name and surname of Arabic origin that means "generous", "noble", "honorable". It is also one of the Names of God in Islam in the Quran. Given name Karim * Karim A ...

).AJHS honors state's Jewish athletes
, January 5, 2001 In an interview with author

Charley Rosen Charles Elliot Rosen (born January 18, 1941) is an American author and former basketball player and basketball coach. Career The 6' 8" Rosen played college basketball at Hunter College in New York City for three seasons (1959–62), setting s ...

near the end of his life, Walk commented on his perception as one of the league's great "booby prizes," saying "I never paid attention to that bullshit. How many guys would love to be the second overall pick?" Milwaukee Bucks forward Curtis Perry, a teammate of Abdul-Jabbar's, described Walk's career high 42 point game against the Bucks on January 11, 1972, as “Talent meeting the moment, a harmonic convergence.“ He played for the Suns from 1969 to 1974, averaging a career best 20.2 points per game and 12.4 rebounds per game in the 1972–73 season. Walk was traded to the then New Orleans Jazz, and subsequently traded to the New York Knicks, where he played for two seasons. Afterward, he went to play in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, Italy, then in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

with Hapoel Ramat Gan, playing for the team for three seasons.All time scorers - Neal Walk
Walk is the only Suns player besides

Charles Barkley Charles Wade Barkley (born February 20, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player who is a television analyst on NBA on TNT, TNT. Nicknamed "Sir Charles", "Chuck", and "the Round Mound of Rebound", Barkley played 16 seasons ...

to average 20 points and 12 rebounds in a season.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

, - , style="text-align:left;", 1969–70 , style="text-align:left;",

Phoenix Phoenix most often refers to: * Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore * Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States Phoenix may also refer to: Mythology Greek mythological figures * Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...

, 82 , , – , , 17.0 , , .470 , , – , , .640 , , 5.5 , , 1.0 , , – , , – , , 8.2 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 82 , , , , 24.8 , , .451 , , , , .765 , , 8.2 , , 1.4 , , – , , – , , 12.9 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 81 , , , , 26.4 , , .479 , , , , .744 , , 8.2 , , 1.9 , , – , , – , , 15.7 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 81 , , , , 38.4 , , .466 , , , , .786 , , 12.4 , , 3.5 , , – , , – , , 20.2 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 82 , , , , 31.1 , , .460 , , , , .791 , , 10.2 , , 4.0 , , 0.9 , , 0.7 , , 16.8 , - , style="text-align:left;" rowspan="2", , style="text-align:left;",

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, 37 , , , , 23.0 , , .422 , , , , .800 , , 7.1 , , 2.7 , , 0.8 , , 0.5 , , 9.9 , - , style="text-align:left;", New York , 30 , , , , 9.1 , , .409 , , , , .880 , , 2.6 , , 0.7 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 3.9 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;", New York , 82 , , , , 16.3 , , .432 , , , , .798 , , 4.7 , , 1.5 , , 0.3 , , 0.3 , , 7.4 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;", New York , 11 , , , , 12.3 , , .491 , , , , .857 , , 2.5 , , 0.5 , , 0.4 , , 0.3 , , 5.6 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan=2, Career , 568 , , , , 24.4 , , .459 , , , , .758 , , 7.7 , , 2.1 , , 0.6 , , 0.4 , , 12.9 , - class="sortbottom"

Playoffs

, - , style="text-align:left;",

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...

, style="text-align:left;",

, 5, , , , 12.6, , .395, , , , .750, , 7.0, , 0.4, , – , , –, , 8.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 1975 , style="text-align:left;", New York , 3, , , , 13.0, , .500, , , , , , 1.7, , 0.7, , 0.3, , 0.7, , 3.3 , - , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 8 , , , , 12.8 , , .415 , , , , .750 , , 5.0 , , 0.5 , , 0.3 , , 0.7 , , 6.3

Life after the NBA

After Walk retired, he legally changed his first name to Joshua. In 1988, while Walk was living in

, it was discovered that Walk had a benign

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

enveloping his spine. Following surgery Walk was left in a wheelchair, from which he played

wheelchair basketball Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing a non-disabled sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations (of ...

for the L.A.-Phoenix Samaritans in the Southern California league of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association. In 1990 Walk was honored at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

by U.S. President George H. W. Bush, as the "Wheelchair Athlete of The Year." He later worked for the Phoenix Suns in the Community Affairs department. Walk is featured in the Miami Beach Senior High School Hall of Fame, a "Gator Great" in the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the

National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, in Commack, New York, is dedicated to honoring American Jewish figures who have distinguished themselves in sports. Its objective is to foster Jewish identity through athletics, and to commemo ...

in 2006. On October 4, 2015, Walk died of an unspecified blood disease.

References

External links

Article at jewishaz.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walk, Neal 1948 births 2015 deaths 21st-century American Jews All-American college men's basketball players American expatriate basketball people in Israel American expatriate basketball people in Italy American men's basketball players American men's wheelchair basketball players Basketball players from Florida Centers (basketball) Florida Gators men's basketball players Israeli Basketball Premier League players Jewish American sportspeople Jewish men's basketball players New Orleans Jazz players New York Knicks players Phoenix Suns draft picks Phoenix Suns players Reyer Venezia players Basketball players from Cleveland Sportspeople from Miami Beach, Florida