By Kyle Coppola
The Villages Sam Walters Nominated To McDonalds All-American Game!
The Accolades Keep On Coming!
Sam Walters is a lot of things but one of the things he isn’t, is a selfish player. Sam Walters who is a 6”9 Senior Forward and plays for The Villages Buffalo, has signed his commitment to play for The Alabama Crimson Tide. He will be joining a program that is potentially favored to make the NCAA Final Four this year!
Sam Walters recently made waves by being nominated to The McDonalds All-American Game in Houston during the NCAA Tournament. This is an accolade that only two Villages players have ever had. The first was Tre Mann in 2018 and he now plays for The Oklahoma City Thunder. This is a huge deal for the school but for Walters that was just the beginning of the accolades to come over the next few days.
(The Villages All-Time Blocks and Rebounder Leader!)
Walters Became The Villages All-Time Blocks Leader!
Walters recently smashed through the 1,000 point mark and is close to 1,300 points for his career and counting. Walters is one of the hardest playing offensive as well as defensive players in the state of Florida. His hard play and unselfish way of defending as hard as he plays offensively, earned him the right as the All-Time blocks leader with 98 blocks and counting. He has the opportunity to pass through 100 blocks this evening when the Buffalo play CFCA! Not only can this kid do it on the offensive side of the ball, doing it defensively is just as important. Great teams win with great defenses and that is what head coach Colt McDowell has tried to instill in his players heads.
(Walters Is One Of The Best Free Throw Shooters In The County.)
Sam Walters Became The Villages All-Time Leader In Rebounds!
Finally Walters was also awarded as The Villages All-Time Leading Rebounder! Walters currently has 561 rebounds and counting. That is a record that may stand for a long time. For High School Basketball those are impressive numbers and ones we do not often see in Lake & Sumter Counties.
The electrifying player has absolutely been the reason that The Buffalo sit atop the division and district rankings. At this current point The Buffalo look poised to potentially host all Regional games when the tournament starts in mid February. There is a good chance The Buffalo could go on a run to close out the year.
(Sam Walters Dunking Against Windermere.)
Head coach Colt McDowell presented Walters and his mother Heidi with a commemorative basketball before the Villages home matchup against South Sumter. This is The Villages final season in this gym as the team gets ready to move into a brand new facility next year. There may still be some more magic left at this arena as it gets set to hold it’s final regular season contest February 4th against Mount Dora which is the final day of regular season play.
Walters Closing Out His High School Career
Walters looks to close out the year strong with a Buffalo team that is thriving right now. It is not out of the question that The Buffalo could win out the rest of the season with the upcoming schedule of games. If Walters continues to stay healthy along with the rest of the team there is no telling what could happen the remainder of the year!
We want to congratulate Sam Walters, his family, coaches and teammates for these impressive accomplishments. We hope to see The Buffalo make a run in the playoffs and we certainly cannot wait to watch Walters play in The SEC for one of the best Alabama teams potentially ever!
(Walters Heads To The Alabama Crimson Tide Later This Year!)
Photos Courtesy Of
The Villages High School
Marty Dzuro
Heidi Walters
Jordan Nguyen
Jennifer Dzuro
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
