Walt Hazzard

Mahdi Abdul-Rahman (born Walter Raphael Hazzard Jr.; April 15, 1942 – November 18, 2011) was an American professional basketball player and college basketball coach. He played in college for the UCLA Bruins and was a member of their first national championship team in 1964. He also won a gold medal that year with the US national team at the 1964 Summer Olympics. Hazzard began his pro career in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the Los Angeles Lakers, who selected him a territorial pick in the 1964 NBA draft. He was named an NBA All-Star with the Seattle SuperSonics in 1968. After his playing career ended, he was the head coach at UCLA during the 1980s.

College career

Hazzard attended Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, where his teams went 89–3 and he was named the city's player of the year when he was a senior. Seattle traded him to the Hawks during the off-season for Lenny Wilkens. Hazzard's career-high average in assists came during the 1969–70 season, when he averaged 6.8 assists per game while playing for the Hawks.

Coaching career In 1980, Hazzard took a part-time position paying $1,500 annually to be the head coach at Compton Community College. He coached for four seasons, winning 77 out of 125 games. The 1984–85 UCLA Bruins basketball team won the NIT championship. The 1986–87 Bruins won both the Pac-10 regular season championship as well as the inaugural Pac-10 tournament. However, after the 1987–88 Bruins finished only two games above .500—the closest they had come to a losing record in 40 years—Hazzard was fired.

He later spent a number of years working for the Los Angeles Lakers, first as an advance scout on the west coast and later as a special consultant.

Career statistics

Playing statistics

Regular season

Playoffs

Coaching statistics

Personal life and death In the summer of 1972, Hazzard embraced Islam, and started going by the name "Mahdi Abdul-Rahman" in 1972–73, his eighth season in the NBA. By 1980 when he joined Compton, he changed his name to Abdul-Rahman Hazzard. One of the reasons he cited was the recognition of the name Hazzard. He felt that the name change was poorly received in basketball circles, believing that it cost him opportunities, both during and after his playing career. Although he remained a Muslim, he chose to return to using his original name professionally. In 1984, UCLA introduced him as Walt Hazzard when they hired him as their coach.

Hazzard and his wife Jaleesa had four children: Yakub, Jalal, Rasheed, and Khalil, the latter being a record producer, well known in hip hop circles by the stage name DJ Khalil. Hazzard's grandsons, Jacob and Max Hazzard, also play basketball. Jacob is a former walk-on basketball player at Arizona, and Max played basketball for UC Irvine and Arizona.

On March 22, 1996, Hazzard was hospitalized following a stroke. Although he made a substantial recovery over the ensuing years, his health never returned in full and subsequent to his illness he was much less active in the public sphere. Shortly after the stroke, Lakers owner Jerry Buss promised Hazzard's family that he would remain on the team's payroll as long as Buss owned the team; Hazzard remained a Lakers employee for the rest of his life. By the middle of 2011, his health had deteriorated significantly and he was hospitalized in intensive care. On November 18 of that year, Hazzard died at the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center due to complications following heart surgery. He was 69. Walt Hazzard is interred in the Muslim section at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Los Angeles.