On the latest episode of Listen In With KNN on Fox Sports 1340AM, host Kelsey Nicole Nelson welcomed former NBA player and Senior Career Counselor at the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Dr. Lloyd Walton to the show.
Speaking of his journey, he grew up in a tough neighborhood in Chicago Heights, Illinois and didn’t love school. However when it came to basketball, Walton was motivated to go to class or he wouldn’t play.
“Growing up, I think all of my friends that I grew up with had all the same desires to get a diploma from high school. I was given a scholarship to go play basketball and be educated at Mount Carmel High School about 25 miles where I lived,” he said. “A man who saw me playing basketball in the neighborhood at the park district picked me up everyday and drove me to school and brought me home after practice.”
After graduating from Mount Carmel, Walton attended Marquette University where he played under the legendary head coach Al McGuire. He was a part of that 1974 team that reached the National Championship Game where they lost to North Carolina State.
Getting to the national championship, we all thought we were supposed to be there. We played North Carolina State and their star David Thompson was a combination of LeBron (James) and Zion (Williamson). It was the journey that meant more than anything else,” Walton said. “I really wished I had won and it took me 36 years to actually watch the tape.”
He got his undergraduate degree in speech communication from Marquette and was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in the third round in 1976. When Walton got to the Bucks, they had six guards on their roster.
“I just kept believing in myself. What I didn’t understand was the business of basketball on how organizations are going to rebuild if they’re not where they want to be. I made the team and that was really special because that was my dream to make it to the NBA,” he said.
After his short stint as a player, Walton developed an interest in education. As a result, he went back to school and got his Masters degree in Human Services from Spertus College. Then the Chicago Heights native became the third player in NBA history to earn a doctorate degree, which was the greatest accomplishment in his life.
Walton became the senior career counselor at the National Basketball Players Association in 1999 and has been there for two decades. His responsibility is to look out for the players and help them go where they want to go during and after their careers, especially while they’re in the Bubble.
“We also talked about creating opportunities and education around things that they can take advantage of since they didn’t have a whole lot to do. We came up with all these virtual programs from real estate, technology, entertainment, art, etc. We took the experts from those respective fields and did them live so players can join.”
