NTP-STAG Expo Speaker, NBA Legend Bill Walton Passes – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
Larger than life, only in part because of his nearly 7-foot frame, basketball legend Bill Walton, 71, died Monday, May 27, due to cancer, according to an Associated Press report.
Walton was a two-time NCAA champion at UCLA, a two-time champion in the NBA, a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, an on-court icon in every sense of the word. And off the court, Walton was a chronic fun-seeker, a broadcaster who adhered to no conventional norms and took great joy in that, a man with a deeply serious side about the causes that mattered most to him.
Walton also served as a keynote speaker at the NTP-STAG Expo 2024, presented by Airxcel, which was Jan. 15-16 at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center.
Walton, whose keynote was sponsored by Carefree of Colorado, spoke on the core values of NTP-STAG/SeaWide — commitment, customer, execution, integrity, team and fun. He said life’s greatest lessons come from failures and as the industry faces challenges it can’t control — inflation, rising interest rates — it needs to focus on the things it can control. “Every success in life can be traced to to leadership and so can every failure,” he said.
“Never measure yourself by what you have done, rather by what you could have or should have done. Those who are not willing to risk going too far will never know how far they can go. You’ll never lear what you don’t want to know. There are no rewards for settling for what you don’t want. Believe in yourself because if you don’t, who will? And when life looks like Easy Street, there’s danger at your door,” Walton said at the time.
He outlined his vision of leadership, saying a leader must illuminate the path forward and can never ask the team to do something he hasn’t already done himself or isn’t willing to do. Leaders have to be willing to do what others can’t or won’t do and then, “embrace and love the challenge, the risk, the fear, the failure, the pressure that everything may just fall apart.”
Walton later greeted attendees from the Carefree of Colorado booth on the Expo floor.
NTP-STAG expressed its sympathies on Walton’s death via a Facebook posting:
Today, we are saddened learning of the loss of NBA legend and a great man, Bill Walton.
He was a very gracious and engaging speaker at our 2024 NTP Seawide Expo in January. He made extra time to spend with customers and partners before and after his keynote address – he was one of the best we have ever had.
Truly one of the greats! #billwalton
