Walter Alexander Torrence (July 31, 1937 – September 20, 1969) was an American

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player. He played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

for the

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) ...

. He earned all-conference honors in the

Pacific Coast Conference The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members (including a ...

(PCC) as a junior, and was named an All-American as a senior in 1959. After college, Torrence joined the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

. He was one of five Army members on the US national basketball team which won the gold medal at the

Pan American Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is hel ...

in 1963.

Early life

Growing up in

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

, at age nine, Torrence played basketball at Lincoln Christian Center after school. When the other boys went home for dinner, he would stay and practice, and still be there when they came back after eating. He would get back home around 8:00p.m., get in trouble and sometimes be spanked, but continue to stay out late anyway. Torrence later played basketball at Grant Union High, leading them to an undefeated season in 1954–55.

College career

Torrence attended the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

(UCLA), and played guard for the Bruins for three seasons (1956–1959). Despite not being exceptionally tall or strong at and , he led the team in rebounding for three straight seasons. As a sophomore in 1956–57 season, he was named the Bruins' top first-year

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player. He received honorable mention from conference coaches for the All-PCC team, and was named third-team All-Coast by

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the ...

(UPI). In 1957–58, Torrence averaged 12.4 points per game to finish second on the Bruins behind senior center Ben Rogers, who scored one more point (324–323). Torrence earned second-team All-PCC honors, and was also named second-team All-Pacific Coast by UPI. Entering the 1958–59 season, Torrence was the only returning full-time starter for UCLA. By then, he had also become a notable

high jumper The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...

on the Bruins' track team. UCLA basketball coach

John Wooden John Robert Wooden (October 14, 1910 – June 4, 2010) was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed the Wizard of Westwood, Los Angeles, Westwood, he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I men's basket ...

called him the best player on the team, which also included future Olympic gold medalist

Rafer Johnson Rafer Lewis Johnson (August 18, 1934 – December 2, 2020) was an American decathlete and film actor. He was the 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, having won silver in 1956. He had previously won a gold in the 1955 Pan American Games ...

and future two-time national championship coach Denny Crum. Torrence became the fourth player in UCLA history to score over 1,000 points in his career. He led the PCC in scoring with 344 points, averaging 21.4 points per game, and was the only unanimous selection for the first-team All-PCC. Torrence finished the season with overall averages of 21.5 points and 11.6 rebounds per game, which were both ranked second in school history at the time behind Willie Naulls. Torrence was voted a third-team All-American by UPI, and he was also a first-team selection by the Converse Basketball Yearbook and the

Helms Athletic Foundation The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his owners ...

. The

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Fran ...

system named him their athlete of the year for 1959. Torrence finished his UCLA career with averages of 15.3 points and 8.5 rebounds, leaving the school ranked second in scoring average, and third in both total points and career rebounds. He was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009. Through the 2017–18 season, his final season averages of 21.5 points and 11.6 rebounds still ranked fifth all-time among UCLA seniors. Wooden included Torrence among former players he would choose for his all-time 2-2-1

zone press A full-court press is a basketball term for a defensive style in which the defense applies pressure to the offensive team the entire length of the court before and after the inbound pass. Pressure may be applied man-to-man, or via a zone press us ...

unit.

US Army

Selected by the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associa ...

in the eighth round of the 1959 NBA draft, Torrence instead joined the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, c ...

. He was commissioned a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until 1 ...

in 1960, and was stationed at Angel Island in California in his first year. He was a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

by 1965, when he took command of Headquarters Battery, 5th Missile Battalion at

Olathe Naval Air Station Naval Air Station Olathe is a former United States Navy base located in Gardner, Kansas. On its grounds at one point was Olathe Air Force Station. After it was closed, it was redeveloped into New Century AirCenter. History Navy use The base o ...

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...

. Torrence competed in the 1962 Military Olympics in Germany. In 1963, he was the

of the

Armed Forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

team that won the United States trials for the

. It was the first time that the military services won the trials. Torrence was one of five Armed Forces members, all from the Army, who were selected for the 12-man US national team at the 1963 PanAm Games in Brazil. The US won the gold medal, but Torrence played in just three games after returning home due to the death of his father. He was also a member of the US squad which finished fourth at the 1963 World Championship.

Death

On September 20, 1969, Torrence died at age 32 in Mercy San Juan Hospital in

Carmichael, California Carmichael is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sacramento County, California, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Sacramento metropolitan area. The population was 79,793 at the 2020 census. Geography and geology Carmichael is located ...

, from injuries suffered in a car accident near Sacramento. He was a passenger in a car on

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one ...

about west of

Alta Alta or ALTA may refer to: Acronyms * Alt-A, short for Alternative A-paper, is a type of U.S. mortgage * American Land Title Association, a national trade association representing the land title industry * American Literary Translators Associatio ...

that went off the center divide, hit a concrete drain box, and glanced off an oncoming car. His wife Ada and four children—Sandra, Alex, Gregory, and Raymond—received a court-approved settlement of $25,000 from the driver and owners of the vehicle.

Notes

References

External links

College stats
at Sports-Reference.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Torrence, Walt 1937 births 1969 deaths All-American college men's basketball players American men's basketball players Basketball players at the 1963 Pan American Games Basketball players from Sacramento, California Guards (basketball) Military personnel from California Pan American Games gold medalists for the United States Pan American Games medalists in basketball Road incident deaths in California UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Army officers Medalists at the 1963 Pan American Games 1963 FIBA World Championship players United States men's national basketball team players