Star player of ’50s helped lay foundation for UCLA greatness

  UCLA Sports Information William Naulls,
No. 33, is one of only three Bruins ever to average a double-double
throughout his career as a player at UCLA.

By AJ Cadman
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

With the 11 national championships, 52 consecutive winning
seasons and 27 conference championships, it’s easy to
reminisce about the glory of the UCLA men’s basketball
program.

But with the success, it’s easy to forget those who laid
the bricks of Bruin basketball.

Sure, Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton are Hall of Fame centers who
helped lead UCLA to five national titles in the late 1960s and
early 1970s.

But only one other Bruin has averaged a double-double during his
career in the blue and gold ““ William Naulls. He nearly did
the same in a 10-year NBA career with four teams, during which he
helped the Boston Celtics to three of their record 16 titles, from
1963 to 1966.

On March 16, 1956, Daily Bruin basketball beat writer Chuck
Fenton wrote, “Of course replacing Naulls is like asking for
a miracle. It has taken Wooden 20 years in the game of basketball
to come up with a Naulls, who he called, “˜the greatest player
I ever coached.'”

Naulls was the first in a long line of Bruins to find their
place as a professional basketball star following a stellar
collegiate career in Westwood. In the mid-1950s, No. 33 helped set
in motion the succession of recruits that would make UCLA the
nation’s college basketball mecca.

But at 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, Naulls wasn’t exactly the
prototypical big man.

Playing back in the era where freshmen were forced to sit out
their first season, “the Whale” posted averages of 15.5
points and 11.4 rebounds per game over his three-year UCLA
career.

In 1956, when professional baseball grabbed headlines on the
Eastern seaboard, Naulls was transforming West Coast
basketball.

It was a senior season that saw him drop 23.6 points and grab
14.6 boards every night he took the floor. He helped the Bruins
garner a 22-6 overall record and the first of eight perfect
conference records (16-0 Pacific Coast Conference) under
Wooden.

Naulls, not exactly one the largest players in school history,
scored a personal-best 39 points on March 2 of that season against
California. Naulls held the UCLA record until Gail Goodrich had a
couple of 40-plus point games in the mid-1960s. With Alcindor,
Walton, Reggie Miller and Don MacLean to come, Naulls’ number
is now the 15th highest game total in school history.

“Naulls is the second best player in America,”
California head coach and Hall of Famer Pete Newell, remarked after
that game, referring to the Bruin center’s runner-up position
behind 6-foot-10 San Francisco shotblocker Bill Russell.

But perhaps his crowning UCLA achievement was set earlier that
year on Jan. 28. Naulls pulled down 28 rebounds in a 99-79 blowout
of Arizona State ““ a record that still stands in the Bruin
record books.

That year in the NCAA first round, UCLA would face Russell and
USF, giving the undersized Naulls an opportunity to go eye-to-eye
with the nation’s top player.

USF went on to win the national title that year, but the
match-up was repeated a year later during both centers’
senior seasons.

Russell scored 21 against UCLA in a 72-61 victory in Corvallis,
Ore. Naulls managed to lead the Bruins with 16 points to claim the
school’s career scoring record, but Russell went on to win
his second consecutive NCAA men’s basketball title.

Naulls earned first team-All-Pacific Coast Conference and
All-America honors for his amazing senior season in 1956. Then, the
National Basketball Association came calling.

What Russell saw from Naulls throughout their college showdowns
would resurface seven years later when he urged Celtic head coach
Red Auerbach to acquire Naulls.

A second-round draft pick by the St. Louis Hawks in 1956, Naulls
was dealt in midseason to the New York Knicks. St. Louis went on to
the NBA Finals in his first professional season, but Naulls
wouldn’t see a championship until 1964.

Naulls became a part of NBA lore on March 2, 1962. In Hershey,
Penn., Naulls held the dubious distinction of helping to defend
Wilt Chamberlain, when the Big Dipper scored 100 points in a single
game.

The Knicks assigned Darrall Imhoff initially to guard
Chamberlain, but he fouled out, as did forward Cleveland Buckner.
Meanwhile, Naulls’ 31 points on the offensive end was
overshadowed by the epic event that occurred that evening.

Naulls joined the San Francisco Warriors late in the 1963 season
and then Boston a year later. In 1964, the Celtics overpowered San
Francisco in the NBA Finals four games to one. With the right team
at the right time, Boston handled the Los Angeles Lakers the next
two seasons to give Naulls three world championship rings.

Joining the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986, Naulls finished
his NBA career with 11,305 points (15.8 ppg) and 6,507 rebounds
(9.1 rpg). He eventually became a minister, working extensively
with the non-profit group Concerned Parents for America at the
Willie Naulls Center in Hawthorne, CA. He still attends Bruin
basketball games.

With so many great UCLA players, it might be easy to forget
Willie Naulls.

But while his size might not have measured even to the shoulders
of Alcindor and Walton, the Whale provided the backbone for what
UCLA men’s basketball is today.