Football, Baseball
Favorite athlete: Joel Embiid
Favorite team: Sixers and Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: First defensive play sophomore year of varsity football I recovered a fumble.
Most embarrassing moment competing in sports: AAU basketball 10 years old scored on my own basket.
Music on mobile device: Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar
Future plans: Play Football at Ithaca
Favorite motto: “Always finish your dinner.”
One goal before turning 30: Skydive
One thing people don’t know about me: My friends call me Wilbert
By Mary Jane Souder
Council Rock North's football program has gone through a rough patch in recent years.
Two years ago, Brandon McIlwain guided the Indians to an SOL Continental Conference title and a spot in the district playoffs. Since then, the Indians – who returned to the SOL National Conference - have won just two games. If it sounds like the kind of thing that might take the joy out of the game for some athletes, you haven’t met Jason Walter.
“It was definitely a struggle the past two years facing adversity and playing teams that are bigger, stronger and faster than us,” the Rock North senior said. “But if anything, it actually made me grow to love the game of football even more rather than go away from it.
“My sophomore season we had a great season and a great quarterback. Our coaches left, and our program completely changed, so I was able to watch and be a part of a completely different culture coming in, and it was actually a neat experience to be a leader in a new situation within the school program. I guess it was a growing and learning experience for me in that aspect.”
Make no mistake about it – the senior captain is fiercely competitive and was by no means content with losing.
“To start each week with practice, you had to get everyone motivated and let everyone know the season is 10 weeks,” Walter said. “It’s not getting any shorter, and we have to do everything we can to get better. The best thing to do was get all the troops behind you and say, ‘We’re not going to give up.’
“Definitely motivating kids was the hardest part because there were some kids that with each loss it would get harder and harder for them to get to practice, but that’s just part of being a captain on the football field and taking that leadership role.”
Matt McHugh uses the phrase “true leader” repeatedly when talking about his senior captain, who will be taking his talents to Ithaca College this fall.
“Obviously, we struggled the past two years, and he’s been the signal caller on our defensive side of the ball,” the Indians’ football coach said. “He cares about the game, he’s passionate about the game of football.
“He has some physical attributes – he’s strong, he’s big, and he can run a little bit, but the reason he’s playing college football is because he has a strong passion for the game and he has some strong leadership qualities.”
So when the going got tough – and it got tough, McHugh knew he had a leader he could rely on to keep the program heading in the right direction.
“When you get a kid like Jason, it makes it a lot easier because you always try and put it back on the players,” the Indians’ coach said. “You want to teach them as much as you can, but essentially, they’re the ones out on the field, they’re the ones playing. Jason always has great questions, he’s always well prepared, and his passion is just contagious and his leadership is just contagious and players follow him.”
And even though baseball is Walter’s secondary sport, he has had an equally positive impact on that program as well.
“He’s the hardest worker out there,” coach Matt Schram said. “He’s a competitive, passionate player.
“You could be playing a ping pong game with him, and he’s just into it, but it’s a good competitive. He’s like that on the baseball field. You hear people say – he gives 110 percent. Jason gives you everything. He will take the shirt off his back for anybody. He’s the dirtiest one out there from sliding all over the dirt, he’s the sweatiest, and he’s the bloodiest. You know when he walks away from the baseball field that he gave it everything he had every time and not just for himself. He does it for the team.”
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Ask Jason Walter where he got his competitive nature and passion for sports, and he points to his mother, Holly Walter, who lost her six-year battle with breast cancer on Dec. 26, 2016.
Holly didn’t just love sports - competing in basketball, volleyball and softball, she excelled. Her high school basketball team won a state title.
“She loved sports,” Jason said. “She would be the one that threw me batting practice. She would be at every game all the time since I started.
“My dad could definitely do that stuff, but she was the person who always wanted to do it. I get my competitive nature from her. She would not let me beat her in ping pong ever. Until I was 11 years old, I don’t think I won a game. I could never pull out a win if I didn’t earn it.”
According to Schram, Holly’s death was a loss to more than just her immediate family.
“They’re both great parents,” he said of Jim and Holly Walter. “She was the biggest baseball fan. She loved baseball, and she had a great arm.
“Not that his dad wasn’t or isn’t a baseball fan, but you can tell he got the baseball skills from her. Many of the kids he grew up with are on the team now, so they all knew Holly. Everybody knew Holly. She was very personable. When you think of the little league fields, you think of her there. It was clearly a loss for the family, but it was a loss for the community as well. It affected everybody.”
It also affected Walter’s junior baseball season.
“It definitely wasn’t easy last year,” he said. “It was the first real season without my mom being at any events, and definitely as I was doing worse (on the diamond), I got inside my own head. It definitely wasn’t easy.”
So far this season, Walter is excelling.
“He’s having a great year – he’s swinging the bat real well,” said Schram of his first baseman. “Obviously, he struggled last year, and everybody knew he was struggling, but he never really lost his temper or anything like that, but you could tell there were some emotions there.
“It was one of those things – everybody just wanted to give him a hug like ‘we get it,’ that kind of thing. This year he’s managing the whole loss of his mom and now he’s back to his old self of being the baseball player that he is.”
And that baseball player has a whole lot of Holy Walter in him. And always will.
“She was a fighter, and I think of myself that same way, especially with the football season,” said Jason. “She never gave up – her actions have never given up. She taught me to not give up and not put your head down when things are going bad. Just always fight and see the best in things and opportunities.”
For now, Walter – who said his mother is always in his thoughts - is enjoying his final high school baseball season.
“I really do enjoy baseball,” he said. “A bunch of my best friends are on the team, and the camaraderie of the team is fantastic.
“Many kids on the team I’ve been playing with since I was eight years old for Newtown Little League. Baseball is a different type of sport than football mentally and physically, and it gives me two major perspectives of how sports can teach you things.
“Baseball is more a game of failure so last year I didn’t have my best season stats-wise, and I continually failed, and it just motivated me to work harder this season.”
Walter – who has played football, basketball and baseball since he was a youngster – continues to play basketball for a St. Andrew’s CYO team that won the city championship and advanced to states.
An honors student, Walter plans to major in business.
“He’s a 4.0 student, takes AP classes – he’s a bright individual,” McHugh said. “That’s another reason Ithaca wanted him because he’s a bright young man.
“He does everything right. His passion and his ability to lead is by far one of the best I’ve seen coming through in my head coaching experience at Council Rock and my coaching experience in general. He’s just a phenomenal young man.”
