People and Pop Culture
Closing Shot: Executive in training
Rick Welts has a seat at the table among basketball elite. Who knew that it was a seat next to a classmate in high school that would start his path to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
A teenage Rick Welts joined the 1971-72 Sonics for the team photo. Other future hall of famers in the shot include Lenny Wilkens (front row, center) and Spencer Haywood, (back row, third from right).Courtesy of Golden State Warriors
Rick Welts reaches the pinnacle of his remarkable career this week with his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, but the distinguished NBA executive has been around hall of famers since his youth.
Consider the team photograph of the 1971-72 Seattle SuperSonics that features Welts, kneeling on the far right, who then was a 17-year-old assistant trainer.
“Today, you’d need three or four graduate degrees for that job,” said Welts, president and COO of the Golden State Warriors. “I had to know how to use both the washer and the dryer. That was the skill I had to have.”
Standing directly behind Welts is assistant coach Rod Thorn, who became a longtime NBA executive and is also entering the Basketball Hall of Fame this year. Also in the photo are hall of famers Lenny Wilkens (front row, center) and Spencer Haywood (third from the right in the back row).
Welts first landed the job at age 16, not through any inside family connection but rather through a lucky seating assignment at Queen Anne High School in Seattle. Welts sat next to a classmate named Earl Woodson, who was a ball boy for the Sonics before his family moved out of the area.
I swear to this day, it was some of the most valuable experience I ever had.
Rick Welts
President and COO, Golden State Warriors
“We’d sit back in English Lit classes and gossip and I would drain him for all Sonics-related information,” Welts said. “Then he said his family was moving. I tried to pretend like I felt sorry for him and I convinced him to introduce me to the Sonics trainer and I scored my first NBA job that way.”
Though just a ball boy, Welts was treated well by the players, particularly Wilkens, who was also the head coach, and Thorn.
“Those guys went out of their way to pay attention to me and engage with me as a kid just there to hand them a towel,” Welts said. “It’s an awesome life lesson to pay attention to somebody when you don’t have to and how much it can mean to a kid to have an interaction that is meaningful with someone they admire when that person doesn’t really have to do that.”
If not for Haywood, Welts wouldn’t even be in the Sonics’ team picture.
“Spencer occasionally could be a little difficult to deal with at that point in his life and he proclaimed that he wasn’t going to stand in the team photo unless I was in it,” Welts said.
Welts’ days working as a ball boy-turned-assistant trainer would serve him well throughout his life.
“I was the fly on the wall, the guy locking and unlocking the locker room door,” he said. “I was in there pregame, during the coach’s pregame talks. I was the guy opening the locker room when the media came in afterward. I swear to this day, it was some of the most valuable experience I ever had. You’d see the interaction between players, between players and coaches, between coaches and owners, between players and medical staff, the media. Not much has changed.”
