PHOTO COURTESY HAWAII PACIFIC ATHLETICS
Nic Walters is seventh in the conference in rebounding despite standing only 6 feet tall.
Through the first half of Hawaii Pacific's season, senior Nic Walters played out of his mind. He led the Sea Warriors in scoring, assists and rebounds and spent every second on the floor like it would be his last. HPU star aching to play
Nic Walters finally started to shine,
but now he must try to come back from injuriesBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comAnd it's a good thing, too, because it may have been.
Two weeks ago Walters got tangled up with Brigham Young-Hawaii's Alexus Foyle and came away from the scrape with a labral tear in his right shoulder and a bicep dislocation. Walters missed the second half of that game and hasn't played since, sitting on the sidelines as the Sea Warriors went 1-3 to put them in the position where they can't afford to lose another game the rest of the way if they hope to advance. HPU was 11-1 before Walters' senior season took a turn for the worse.
"I've never been hurt like this before," Walters said. "But it's not something that can keep me out, keep me from helping the guys. We already dug ourselves into a hole, now we are in a bigger hole and I've got to get out there."
So the Sea Warriors have their backs to the wall heading up to Laie tonight. They need Walters, and the senior captain needs them. But whether he finally gets onto the floor is totally up in the air. Walters says that he has about a 50 percent chance of playing; head coach Russell Dung says he is tempted, but Walters' probability of playing are between slim and none.
It is never an easy decision, weighing a player's future against a team's present. But both men are influenced by Walters' past. Because Walters has had to fight for playing time at every stop in his basketball journey, he has never really had the opportunity or supporting cast to shine until now, and Walters wants to take advantage of it.
Walters didn't know it at the time, but overseas scouts were keeping tabs on him before the injury. They are even more interested in him now, just to see if he is still worth the investment. Every minute on the bench is an opportunity lost, because Walters is packing an entire basketball career into one year.
Basketball at this level was not even an option until he met up with a man who believed in him more than he believed in himself. That man was Hartnell Community College coach Frank Carbajal, one of former HPU coach Tony Sellitto's closest friends and a taskmaster as fiery as the legend who brought Walters to Hawaii.
"He (Carbajal) said I had the talent and if I stuck with him he'd get me somewhere," Walters said. "That's probably the biggest thing: Even when I wasn't playing, they both let me know they believed in me and had faith in me."
This was not supposed to be Walters' coming-out party, last year was. But Walters had to learn a new system on a guard-heavy team and was expected to produce in limited minutes. But all of those are excuses. Life is the reason Walters hasn't been doing this all along.
Walters spent last season an ocean away from his 2-year-old son, DeAndre Jordan, and the separation hurt his game. Although he wants to see him just as bad - Walters plays every game with the tyke's initials etched into his shoes - he has come to grips with the fact that he has a job to do, and the better he does it the better it will be when father and son reunite.
That is part of why sitting on the sideline is so hard for Walters. He didn't come to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to be one of HPU's many cheerleaders. He came to play.
"It is the most frustrating thing in the world," Walters said. "You can see the mistakes you can't see in the heat of the battle and it becomes clear where you need to improve. I can definitely see why some coaches have to scream all the time now."
But Walters is not very good at sitting, and he seems to get worse at it the longer he is out. When he left because of injury, he thought only of himself until he glanced up and saw the members of "the closest team I've ever been on" coming back from a 20-point deficit against the best team in the league, BYUH, in their house.
"I think that shows the heart this team has," Walters said. "I left with 13 minutes left and was nervous for a while, worrying about myself, but the team didn't miss a beat. I got into it and was the one sitting there telling them, 'You don't need me.' "
During a recent loss at Montana State-Billings, Walters almost hurt his team for caring too much about a game he had no control over. He was threatened with a technical foul by the referees for cheering on the bench and decided to move to the stands with the paying customers, only to be told by the officials that he had to sit on the bench - much like a kid on time out - and watch his team lose without commenting.
For Walters, that was a slice of hell almost as bad as being able to comment during the team's next loss, an upset at the hands of previously winless Western New Mexico.
"That just showed what kind of heart he has," Dung said. "I told him I might have to leave him at the hotel if he can't control himself. But I understood, he really wants to play and wants the team to do well."
Although he hopes to play at least 10 minutes in the Cannon Center tonight, Walters has learned from the injury. He was always a silent leader, the kind who lets his game do the talking while someone like co-captain Nate Block does the talking and gets into guys' faces. Although they follow the same system, Walters is not afraid to let a teammate know he is letting the others down, especially now that he has tasted his basketball mortality. That is something he could not have done just two years ago, when he suffered through a losing season in which no matter how hard he played, no matter how many points and assists he put up, the team kept losing. It baffled him for so long, but now he thinks he has a handle on what went wrong.
"I thought it would get better if I just played my game and played it right," Walters said. "That team needed a vocal leader. That's the one place where I may have failed and one thing I've always regretted."
Walters doesn't want missing his last opportunity at the Cannon Center to be another of those regrets, but is bracing himself for the possibility. Whether Walters shuffles out of the locker room at half time with a big "S" on his chest and saves the game or sits the entire game in street clothes, he says he will certainly will be back.
"I'll try my hardest to play," Walters said, "even if I can only play 10 minutes, but I'm not going to do anything that hurts me for the long run. I know I'll be ready for Chaminade. I'm not going to miss any more games."
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