‘When I’d make enchiladas, I would make four dozen enchiladas. Then we would dash off to games.’

Gloria Walton, 5 feet, 10 1/2 inches tall, married a 6-foot-4 fellow member of the San Diego Tip Toppers Club in 1950, and, sure enough, they reared the tallest kids in the club. The librarian and social worker, with interests in literature and music, didn’t imagine the hours in bleachers, doctors’ offices and the kitchen that would accompany such auspicious growth. Gloria Walton was baking cookies and stirring Kool-Aid for a brood that included Bruce and Bill Walton. Her co-workers say that Glo and Ted Walton, who have been living in the same four-bedroom house for 33 years, are the Ozzie and Harriet of La Mesa. Gloria, 60, still follows the professional basketball games closely, records them on the VCR for family history, attends parent-player events with Bill and his family in Massachusetts , and commiserates from afar when he is injured. She hasn’t been a homemaker for several years--she is busy as a full-time librarian at the Oak Park Branch Library in East San Diego--but she remembers life with towering children who required specially made beds and the excitement of high school games where her famous son, now with the Boston Celtics, used to play ball. Gloria Walton was interviewed by Times staff writer Nancy Reed and photographed by Dave Gatley.

We have four children, and what we did was expose them to things we knew about, and we didn’t know anything about sports.

Neither my husband nor I are athletic. We are both large and both tall. They will say to my husband, “What sport did you play in college--football?” He will say, “No, I played the piano.”

One of the coaches at Helix High School saw Bill play when he was in the fifth grade, and he asked who is this kid who was out there shooting.

So he came over and spoke to us and said, “I can tell you have an outstanding athlete; he is going to be better than average.” Encourage him, the coach said, and Bill is very, very thin--he was just a stick--so work at his nutrition.

So I felt that health was a big factor. He was such an active athlete that he was prone to injury. Even when he was very young, before he was an athlete, he was prone to injury. He would have a lot of broken toes and fingers and hand cuts, and I once said to the pediatrician: “Is he accident-prone?” He said: “I don’t really think so; I think he is just 10 times more active.”

We went to a lot of games--twice a week in high school, and then summer leagues in the hot, sweaty gym. We had a lot of fun. Because we spent so much time in the gym, I started to knit. And the games were really tense, because high school games can be very exciting. It would help drain off tension.

Back then, we were directly involved. I had to cook big, huge meals and have everything done at an exact time, because they had to be in and out. And they would have friends come and they were tremendous eaters. When I’d make enchiladas, I would make four dozen enchiladas. Then we would dash off to games.

When he was disappointed with an injury, I think I went out and cooked something. It was a solution to a lot of problems. You just had to encourage him, and keep taking him to the doctor. He was a very fast healer. You could practically see the skin growing together when he was little.

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. When they were being recruited, the rules were very strict and the coaches can only come to your home once to visit.

The usual plan was that the coach would take the boy and a parent out to dinner. Well, the first time it happened was for Bruce. So one night, it was pouring rain, and Bruce had a terrible cold. So when the assistant coach came to take us for dinner--it was such a bad night--I said, “Why don’t I just fix dinner here?”

Well, the word got around to the different coaches. And so it was a wonderful experience for the rest of the family, too. The kids would sit around and listen to all this talk and everything.

From then on, we decided we liked it that way and we made our own rule. That was a busy time too, so I made up a coach’s dinner. It was a pot roast in the oven with potatoes and carrots and onions roasted around it, and the dessert was “make your own ice cream sundae.”

The big thrill came when the famous coaches would come. By the time Coach Wooden came, we were famous for our meals. And he loves potatoes.

People would say to us, “Oh, I am sure you have changed your telephone number,” but we never did. We enjoyed it.

Even now, if the phone rings a number of times in succession, we will say: “Is this coach’s night?”