Chester "Chet" Walker (February 22, 1940 – June 8, 2024) was an American professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA), and was selected in 2012 to become a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He was a seven-time NBA All-Star. He played 13 seasons in the NBA, seven with the Philadelphia 76ers, and he helped lead the 76ers to an NBA championship in 1967. He played his last six seasons for the Chicago Bulls from 1969 to 1975. He played college basketball for the Bradley Braves, twice earning first-team consensus All-American honors, and was famously "hijacked" to Bradley to keep him from attending the University of Nebraska instead. He also won an Emmy award as a television producer.
Early life
Walker was born in Bethlehem, Mississippi on February 22, 1940, the youngest of John and Regina Walker's ten children. He lived and worked on the family's small cotton farm, until his mother moved with her youngest children to Benton Harbor, MIchigan after the death of Walker's sister and to escape his abusive father.[1][2] Walker played high school basketball for the Benton Harbor High School boys basketball team, and earned a scholarship to Bradley University, where Walker was a two-time consensus All-America in 1961 and 1962, averaging 24.4 points per game and 12.8 rebounds over three years.[2][3][4]
However, prior to attending Bradley in Peoria, Illinois, he and his mother had agreed Walker would attend the University of Nebraska. In one version of events, disc jockey Al Benson went to Walker's home and agreed to take Walker to the airport in Chicago to head to Nebraska, but instead Walker wound up with Bradley's head coach and athletic director who flew him to Peoria to commit to Bradley.[5]
He is the only Bradley Braves player to be a two-time All-America player, and his number 31 was retired by the school in 1976.[6] He graduated from Bradley in 1962 as the school's all-time leading scorer, and is still its fourth all-time scorer (as of June 2024).[6][7] Bradley won the National Invitation Tournament championship in 1960.[8] They shared the Missouri Valley Conference title in 1962, Walker's senior year.[6] Walker's speed and agility on the court earned him the nickname "Chet the Jet."[9]
Chet Walker of Bradley University during the 1961–62 season
Chet Walker in the 1969–70 team photo of the Chicago Bulls
Walker played his final six seasons with the Chicago Bulls, and never averaged less than 19.2 points and 5.0 rebounds a game. In his 13-year career, Walker scored a total of 18,831 points.[14] The 6–6 forward was an outstanding free-throw shooter, especially in his later years with the Bulls.[15] He led the NBA with an accuracy rate of 85.9 percent in 1970–71, and ranked among the top-10 free-throw shooters five other times. On February 6, 1972, Walker scored a career-high and then-team-record 56 points during a Bulls win over the Cincinnati Royals.[16]
Walker was the Bulls representative to the NBA Players Association in 1970, and was a plaintiff in a federal antitrust lawsuit filed against the NBA. The case settled in 1976, but Walker refused to go along with the settlement. Walker had left the Bulls in the 1975–1976 season over a salary dispute, and continued to litigate individually. In a meeting with the Bulls owner, Walker was informed that if he chose to play again, the NBA took the position that Walker was the Bulls "property", a concept that repulsed Walker. He chose never to play again.[2]
Post playing career
After his playing days, Walker became a moderately successful TV movie producer. He is the author of a memoir entitled Long Time Coming: A Black Athlete's Coming-of-Age in America (1995).[17] He was executive producer of the 1979 television miniseries, Freedom Road, that starred Muhammad Ali and Kris Kristofferson.[2] He co-produced the 1989 television series A Mother's Courage starring Alfre Woodard, based on the life of Mary Thomas, mother of NBA hall of famer Isiah Thomas, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program.[2] Walker also appeared in The White Shadow in season 3's "If Your Number's Up, Get it Down" as a former Chicago Bulls teammate of Coach Ken Reeves (Ken Howard).[18]
