Cross Country, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Joel Embiid
Favorite team: 76ers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the district in the 800 with a 1:53 and getting my state medal for the 800.
Funniest/most embarrassing thing that has happened while competing in sports: Falling during indoor track this year after the handoff while splitting in 1:59. In the 4x800.
Music on playlist: Don Toliver, Lil Uzi Vert, Future, Gunna, Juice WRLD, Migos, Travis Scott
Future plans: Get through college and get a job right after
Favorite motto: “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.”
One goal before turning 30: Own a Porsche 991 GT3RS
One thing people don’t know about me: I recently got into tennis.
By Mary Jane Souder
It was a moment Robert Walton will remember for a lifetime.
Standing on the podium after receiving his fifth-place medal for the 800-meter run at the 2023 PIAA Track & Field State Championships at Shippensburg University. Winning a medal was undeniably reason to celebrate for the Bensalem grad, but it was much more than that, and Walton was overcome with emotion.
“On the podium, I was holding back my tears,” he said. “I don’t cry a lot – I remember pretty much every time I’ve cried. I’m not a big crier.
“When I was standing on the podium, all my memories from where I was back in July, it all came back to me at once, and it hurt. I was just kind of sitting there crying for 15-20 minutes. It just hit me all at once – where I started at the beginning of the year and where I was then. It’s just huge.”
Where he was in July of 2022 might well have been the low point of a remarkable journey by Walton, who was born with a severely cleft palate and – the summer before his senior year – had his 10th surgery, this one by far the most serious.
For most, this would have marked the end of any hopes for a senior cross country season, but Walton is not most. The Bensalem graduate is an advertisement for perseverance, determination and all the good things coaches look for in an athlete.
“He works so hard,” said Bensalem track coach Mary Ellen Malloy, who cannot hide her emotions when talking about Walton. “Last summer he was laid up – his face was all bandaged up, black and blue, and his biggest concern was – ‘I can’t eat solid food. I’m going to lose too much weight,’ so I got him protein shakes.
“He came back and said, ‘I can’t run until the end of August,’ so we started with – ‘Will the doctor let you ride the stationary bike?’ We started with 20 minutes on the bike. Whatever I told him to do, he’d do.”
Walton’s surgery last July 25 was – to put it mildly – the ultimate test for a student-athlete who had been through his share of surgeries.
“That one was probably the most difficult time I’ve ever had to endure anything,” he said. “It was around six weeks to two months full recovery. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk for a while – I had to use a white board to communicate with people or I’d text.
“I couldn’t really do anything. I lost 20 pounds. It was horrible. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”
Walton was back in school when it began in late August, but his recuperation was far from over.
“When I came back, I could talk a little bit,” he said. “I had to tell my teachers not to call on me because obviously my speech was a little impaired. I couldn’t really eat. I had to squish all my food down because my jaw was locking, so I couldn’t open it all the way.
“I knew the surgery was going to be at the beginning of my senior year, but I didn’t know it was going to handicap me for the whole year.”
Despite his limitations, Walton was determined to compete with his cross country team.
“When he first came back, he said, ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to run the whole race,’ so I said, ‘I’m going to be watching you. If I see you struggling, I’m going to pull you from the race, and if I pull you from the race, you’ve got to be willing to walk off the course,’” Malloy said. “We went to Neshaminy, and he was struggling. I said, ‘Come off,’ and he did, but he worked. He’s such a hard worker. He doesn’t complain – ‘What do you want me to do? Okay, I’ll do it.’ I could say, ‘Robert, we’re going to do a marathon today for practice,’ and he’d say, ‘Okay, what time do you want?’ It doesn’t matter.”
Coming as no surprise, Walton came back to contribute mightily to his cross country team, earning first team All-SOL Patriot Division honors.
He committed early to continue his track career at Eastern University, overcoming every obstacle that came his way during a remarkable career.
An unlikely track star
Because of his cleft palate, surgeries have been part of Walton’s life since birth.
“I was born and went directly into surgery,” he said. “(The cleft palate) didn’t really affect me too much.
“Obviously, it was part of my whole life, so I didn’t really know the difference until I got surgery last July. Now I see the difference. My breathing wasn’t the best. I would always have trouble breathing because of the way things were lined up. Air wouldn’t pass through correctly.
“Eating was a little iffy. Some things like pizza I couldn’t really eat because it would slide through my teeth – it was weird things like that.”
All of this put the Bensalem graduate on the receiving end of some less than kind treatment.
“I did get made fun of a lot for things like - my nose looked kind of weird, my mouth was a little smaller, so I would get made fun of for that, but I didn’t really pay too much mind to it,” he said.
When it came to competing in sports, Walton grew up committed to basketball but also got an introduction to running.
“I started running in fourth grade because of jogging club at Valley Elementary,” he said. “I would do that, and we would always ramp up for the Sesame 5K every year that was always at the end of the school year.”
Walton competed in the 5K from fourth through sixth grade, and then in middle school at Snyder, he ran for the track team for two years.
“I think I was undefeated in the 800 my eighth grade year,” he said. “Nobody really knew what they were doing, so it was kind of like a free for all.
“I just did track to stay in shape because I was always more geared into basketball. (Coach Malloy) would yell at me to get out of basketball because she thought I had more potential in track. I would always be like, ‘I’m a basketball player.’”
That mindset changed after a sophomore year that saw Walton receive limited playing time for the basketball team, and he walked away from the sportl to focus on track. He began competing in spring track and competed all four years in cross country.
In outdoor track this spring, Walton earned first team All-SOL Patriot Division honors in the 800 meters, posting a time of 1:56.1. He went on to capture gold at the District 1 3A meet with a time of 1:53.78, setting the stage for his fifth place finish at the state meet.
This past June, Walton competed in the New Balance Nationals at Franklin Field.
“I didn’t perform the way I wanted to, but the experience was great,” he said. “Great energy and being around such great talents reminded me of the potential I have.”
Not bad for someone who wasn’t sure he was cut out for track.
“I actually didn’t know if I wanted to compete in track,” Walton said. “I remember the high schoolers coming down to the middle school, and I hated the workout they had us doing.
“I wanted to play varsity basketball because that was my whole life at the time. I was gonna quit cross country after the first workout freshman year but decided to stick around. Keeping up with the seniors was a huge confidence boost.”
The next chapter
This past March, Walton had his 11th and what should be his final surgery.
“March surgery wasn’t as bad, but it was still rough to come back from it because they had to do a skin graft on my right hip, and I couldn’t really walk for a while,” he said. “It hurt a lot to walk. They had to do some things with my nose, so I had to do walking/jogging exercises. I couldn’t get around the track too much.”
True to form, Walton didn’t let it keep him down for long.
“We had a meet at Council Rock South, and it was kind of on the fence whether I should run in that or not,” he said. “It was the day before I was technically supposed to come back, and I ran at it and did pretty well.
“The next week we went to Hatboro, and I ran a 1:55.80 (in the 800), which was way better than my PR. That was my goal going into the season – to run a 1:55, and I did it in the first meet. I just ran my heart out.”
It was quite an ending to a remarkable high school journey, and listening to Walton tell it, being part of the track team changed his life.
“I went into high school thinking I was going to be on the varsity basketball team,” he said. “I was going to be the next big guy because I was on the undefeated eighth grade basketball team.
“I was their third option all year, and I was like, ‘I’ll just be basketball. I’ll do a little bit of running here and there.’
“I didn’t really think I was going to take off with it. Track completely changed my life. I didn’t think I was going to get to this point. I didn’t think I’d be going to states or nationals. It’s been a big part of my life and I love it so much.”
This fall, Walton will be competing at Eastern University where he will major in finance.
“He wanted a smaller school, and they are getting an absolute gem,” Malloy said. “He doesn’t miss practice. He’s upset when he has to go down to CHOP for a follow-up appointment.
“He’ll say ‘My appointment’s at three o’clock – what do you want me to do?’ I’d say, ‘I’ll wait for you. When you get here, I’ll give you a practice. He’s such a sweetheart, such a sweetheart. I’m going to miss him so much.”
