Journey To Jadwin - Nate Walton
5/28/2020
There have been just seven players in the history of Princeton men's basketball to have more than one season with at least 100 assists. Nate Walton ‘01, who was part of three Ivy League championships, is one of them. Walton had exclusive access to one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history early in his Journey To Jadwin and has applied valuable lessons learned on team basketball and competitiveness ever since.
“I was about eight years old when we moved to Boston for my dad to play for the Celtics and we were starting to watch a lot of Celtics' games, they were the champions and Larry Bird was the best player,” proclaimed Walton. “He was my favorite player growing up.”
I personally loved the way he played the game, the way he always showed up in the clutch moments but could also do everything beside scoring; passing, rebounding, trash-talking, he was my favorite player.Nate Walton
As a child, the Walton brothers would attend the Celtics’ practices.
“We would throw basketballs at each, cause havoc,” said Walton. “Years later they said they stopped letting kids go to the practice facility because we were so bad.”
Despite his youth, Walton picked up on the winning habits of those legendary Boston teams.
“I remember my dad, whether he had Kevin McHale or Robert Parish, they would be going at it like they were playing for the NBA Championship. Larry Bird would always be challenging Danny Ainge to see who was a better shooter and Dennis Johnson would be the referee and elder statesmen. Those guys were all so competitive and they thought they were the best player, they’d bring their best game every day in practice. They had guys like Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting and Rick Carlisle on the bench, all these really good players. They treated the practices often times as tougher competition than some of the games they were playing. That stuck in my head, those guys weren’t just in there messing around. They were having a good time, joking and laughing, but they were also testing themselves."
The competitiveness and intensity of those practices rubbed off on Walton and it was clearly on display during the driveway battles he had with his brothers.
It was our place to learn how to play and had big walls and fences around it, when the game got physical and we got bigger we kept running into the fences and the walls, it was kind of like a cage match.Nate Walton
“It was always how do you get the ball down low, how do you back the guy down, how do you try and get a jump hook in the lane," proclaimed Walton. "It wasn’t probably until I went to Princeton as a freshman and the game became you had to shoot from the outside. We always thought the objective of the game was to get a layup, so you had to figure out way to pass and screen, get closer to the hoop versus also learning to shoot from 20 feet.”
As Walton progressed through high school, a man by the name of Jim Tomey took over as his head coach at the University of San Diego High School. Tomey would become a highly-influential figure in Walton's life.
“He was a great guy and found that balance of pushing you but keeping it fun,” proclaimed Walton. “When I was 16 I found a coach who was willing to push me, challenge me, but always remember this is about fun.”
Under Tomey's guidance, Walton went head-to-head with some of the best players California, and the country, had to offer.
“The biggest star in San Diego basketball was a guy named Jelani McCoy who was about 6’11, was on the way to UCLA, was a starting center and probably a top-10 recruit in the country,” said Walton. “He played at the all-boys catholic school (Saint Augustine), they were probably our rival and the first time we played them there was all this hoopla about Jelani going to UCLA, being the City Player of the Year and we were fired up to play him."
We beat them by like 20 points and I had something like 20 points and 10 rebounds, Jelani had six points, a career low, and 15 rebounds. We won and our fans rushed the court. The next day the newspaper in San Diego said Jelani McCoy outplayed by Nate Walton, held him to a career low.Nate Walton
That game was just the beginning of Walton’s rivalry with McCoy and Saint Augustine. In their next matchup, McCoy went off for 30 points and had several thunderous dunks to even the series. Walton and McCoy would meet again in the city playoffs that summer, with Walton’s squad coming out on top in the rubber match.
Ironically, McCoy was part of the 1995-96 UCLA squad that the Tigers defeated in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
“I remember going out to watch the game in Indianapolis because I was going to Princeton,” explained Walton. “I was like here’s how you beat Jelani, you’ve got to keep him away from the basket, you’ve got to get in his head and make him shoot. Don’t let him get a couple dunks, he’ll get rolling.”
Walton also had a unique and impactful AAU experience.
“There was this team in LA set up by this guy Roger Milstein, didn’t know anything about basketball but was an older gentleman and wanted to help people,” explained Walton. “Roger set up a team called Team Avia, because Avia game him some sponsorship money. It was a hodge-podge group of kids, some were really talented and our best player was Baron Davis. Cash Warren, who went to Yale, was also on the team. Cash and Baron were best friends. This guy Erik Chenowith, who went to Kansas, was on the team, we had good players."
Roger’s goal was always to get everyone to go to college…Everybody went to college, everybody got jobs and some of the kids who were on his team have said point blank, I was headed to prison until I got on this AAU Team. That was an example to me of someone who was doing more than just basketball.Nate Walton
Walton’s success on both the AAU circuit and in high school helped him earn a spot at the ABCD Camp the summer leading into his senior year. At this camp he was placed in the same group as Kobe Bryant and it’s where his recruitment to Princeton began.
“I left the camp thinking that I didn’t play very well; I scored a couple points, had a couple rebounds then went back to my AAU Team and my coach called me,” said Walton. “He said Princeton would like to talk to you, they’re really excited about you and think you play the right way.”
As attending Princeton became more of a realistic option for Walton, he decided to take a visit and had an incredible experience.
“I took my recruiting visit in September of 1995, showed up on campus and Sydney Johnson was my host, Mitch was my host, Brian Earl, Steve Goodrich and Gabe Lewullis and all those guys,” explained Walton. “We just had the best time, Coach Carril was there and we had Conte’s Pizza and pancakes at the Pancake House."
We kept talking about basketball and life, what I found was everyone on the team was a great person. These were really interesting people, campus was beautiful but the team, culture and camaraderie was fantastic.Nate Walton
“Coach Carmody called me and said we’re at the airport, Coach Carril would like to speak to you,” said Walton. “Coach Carril got on the phone and said ‘hey, heard things are going well and you’re thinking about coming’. I said yeah coach, I’m thinking about coming. He said ‘that’s great news! I’ll go tell everyone you’re coming.’ He handed the phone back to Coach Carmody who said ‘Coach Carril said you just gave a commitment’ and I was like I think so, if I get into school I’ll come…I went downstairs to my brother and my dad and said I think I just committed to go to Princeton.”
After starting at Princeton, Walton noticed similarities between the culture of those Celtics’ teams he grew up being around the Tiger squad he was now part of.
“We had very good teams,” proclaimed Walton. “We had a lot of pride around the second unit trying to beat the starters. We’d get heated and start talking trash, sometimes we’d have to get separated for fighting and those were the best practices. That’s when we knew we were trying to get better and weren’t just coasting, those were really good teams."
It stuck with me that good teams practice hard.Nate Walton
Walton breaks his time at Princeton into two different phases; his underclassmen years and his upperclassmen years.
“My freshman year I was out of shape and still coming back from an injury, we had a great team,” explained Walton. “My sophomore year I cracked the rotation for what was probably our best team, we were top-10 in the country that year, 27-1. That was the year we played North Carolina and Vince Carter dunked on me so hard, that was our only loss during the regular season. The first two years was all about being a supporting team member to what was already a great team when I showed up.”
Walton’s role on the team, both on the court and in the locker room, would evolve over time.
Going into his senior year, the team's roster looked vastly different. Chris Young, who was the team's starting center and an All-Ivy honoree the season before, had signed a professional baseball contract. Bill Carmody had accepted the head coaching position at Northwestern and Princeton was entering its first year under rookie head coach John Thompson III.
Picked as low as fifth in the league, the Tigers clinched the Ivy League title with a 68-52 win over Penn where Walton, who was named first team All-Ivy League that season, stuffed the stat sheet with nine points, eight rebounds, seven assists and six steals. The Tigers had shocked the world and accomplished something that nobody, outside of themselves, believed they could accomplish.
Along with his two seasons with over 100 assists, Walton would end his time at Princeton with 270 career assists, which currently ranks 11th all-time in school history on a list that is dominated by guards.
Since graduating, Walton played professionally in France for one season, got his MBA at Stanford then began working for an investment firm in Los Angeles called Ares Management, where he has worked for the past 14 years.
Along with his basketball experiences, Walton also credits his experiences in the classroom as being essential to his success post-graduation.
“The academic aspect of Princeton was really special,” said Walton. “I studied politics there but I also took classes in East Asian studies and film. The things you’re exposed to intellectually there, the professors and the other students.”
I couldn't imagine what my life would be if I had not gone to Princeton. Less interesting, less opportunities. It’s opened up a whole new world for me around finance, international cities, travel, friendships, things that Princeton really unlocked for me.Nate Walton
While Walton learned valuable lessons on success early in his life, it was his time at Princeton that opened his eyes to a world he could not have previously imagined.
It gave me the confidence to say hey, there’s a big world out there. It gave me the confidence I could try anything and compete with anybody. I viewed Princeton as having the smartest kids in the world, the most successful people in the world and I felt after four years of being there I could hold my own. There’s nothing I can’t do if I try to put my mind to it.Nate Walton
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