stephenPE;n292158 said:
I saw him in Alligator Alley. One year ave. 27 pts and almost 20 reb. a game. Great player and from what I read a great man. Dooley does him justice in the Sun today.
That's good that Dooley wrote a good tribute to him because I remember when he was going through his back surgery that left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, someone at the Sun - either Hairston or Dooley - wrote a piece that berated Walk for not returning their calls. They obviously didn't know the ordeal Walk was going through, but they could have made a couple of calls to the Phoenix Suns front office and found out pretty quickly. That was was some mighty fine journalism, right there. What an embarrassment. It reminds me of the time Dooley made fun of Frank Beamer's facial deformity.
From what I'd read about Walk, he was a pretty interesting guy. He went on some kind of spiritual journey in the 70s that may have coincided with the end of his professional career. He became a vegan, lost weight because of it, began experimenting with drugs and changed his name to Joshua Hawk. I never saw Neal Walk play, but I wish I had. It would be good if the UAA would post some of the old Gator games from his era on YouTube so those of us who were too young to have seen him can watch him play. Most of what I know about his playing career I read about in a small pamphlet about Jewish Sports Legends I once got on an airplane.
