April 6, 2024
The Villages Community Ready To Root On Alabama’s Sam Walters In Final Four
By Kyle Coppola
The Villages Community Ready To Root On Alabama’s Sam Walters In Final Four
The Villages is a special place. Not only is it one of the number one retirement destinations, but it also boasts one of the top charter school programs in the United States. The Villages Charter School has become one of the premier places in the state to play the sport of basketball and learn. It’s also one of the newest high schools in the USA, with the new Middleton campus opening in August of last year.
With that in mind, Sam Walters has come a long way from his humble days as a student in The Villages. Last year at this time, he was getting ready for high school graduation. This year, he is about to take on UConn in the Final Four in Arizona. Sam is about to live out a childhood dream. Very few players ever get to reach this stage. Making the Final Four is one of the hardest things to do as a program. Many have done it, but no student-athletes at Alabama ever have, and no student-athlete at The Villages has ever made it to this big of a stage. Now they have.
Until 2024, Alabama had never made a Final Four. As good as the football program is, it’s hard to believe the basketball program has never tasted the success of the NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament. Yet here we are with Mark Sears, Grant Nelson, Nick Pringle, Mouhamed Dioubate, and of course Sam Walters, who has been a great player off the bench.
Walters is just a freshman and has gotten a ton of playing time this year, averaging 12.5 minutes and 5.6 points per game. Very respectable numbers as a freshman. Walters led The Villages to their first-ever state championship appearance in 2023. Just a year later, here he is with Alabama experiencing The Crimson Tide’s first Final Four appearance. While we don’t know how Walters will be utilized in the game, we should expect to see him get some playing time off the bench as has been the case most of the year.
Regardless of what happens in the game, we are proud of Sam Walters and that he represents Sumter County. He’s a great young man with a good head on his shoulders. One thing is for sure, Walters is used to the media. The Daily Sun is always at all The Villages basketball games. The Daily Sun is The Villages Newspaper and is widely distributed. One aspect The Daily Sun prepares many of these kids for is how to conduct themselves with the media at the next level. We have certainly seen that during Sam’s media availability this week.
We wish Sam the best of luck tonight. We are so proud of him and can’t wait to see him on the floor this evening.
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.
