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  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.