OLDS — During their Nov. 17 awards banquet, the École Olds High School Spartans football team heard from a guy who made it the pros – but not in football, in baseball.
And he now lives in Olds.
Walton had a fairly lengthy pro baseball career, but he’s best known for his 18-year career as a bullpen coach and pitching coach for the Toronto Blue Jays.
During that time, Walton coached players such as Cy Young award-winning pitchers Roy Halladay, Pat Hentgen and Chris Carpenter.
He now works for the Miami Marlins, developing players in the minor leagues.
Born in Bakersfield, California in 1962, Walton was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in 1985.
He played eight years in the minor leagues before making his major league debut on May 11, 1991 in Yankee Stadium.
Walton pitched in the major leagues from 1991 to 1996 for the Oakland As, Montreal Expos and the Colorado Rockies.
He joined the Blue Jays in 1996 as a pitching coach for the Medicine Hat Blue Jays. In eight years, he vaulted all the way to the big club in Toronto.
Walton moved to Calgary in 2015.
He jokingly told the crowd that his wife persuaded him to move to Olds.
“I ended up in Olds because I have in-laws in Olds. My wife made me move here,” Walton said, sparking laughter.
“It’s cold here,” he said, sparking more laughter. "And those roads are really icy.
“I’ve lived in Alberta for over 35 years, so I’m used to the weather and I’m really happy to be part of the Olds community and I'm glad to be out here tonight,” he said.
Walton’s message to the crowd was simple: if you want to succeed, you have to know yourself – your weaknesses and your strengths.
You also have to build on a foundation of love and knowledge from your family, friends, teachers, school staff – even the team medical staff .
Internalize and make use of the things you learn along the way, Walton advised, because you’ll have to fall back on that foundation to get you through the inevitable tough times that will occur.
“Right now you're building foundation and those are building blocks to success in life. And I didn’t really understand it when I was in high school, going through all this, but I understand it now,” Walton said.
Walton said if he hadn’t built and relied on that foundation, he never would have had the chance sit next to Blue Jays head coach Cito Gaston.
“I used all that information, all those resources to define me.”
Walton recalled a time when Gaston sent him out to the mound to deal with a pitcher who was having a tough time.
“He’s like, ‘go to the mound.’ I’m like, ‘why?’ He’s like, ‘just go to the mound and talk to the guy, he’s not throwing strikes,’” Walton recalled.
Walton indicated the experience and knowledge he’d gained via his foundation gave him the insight to be able to calm that pitcher down.
Walton predicted that some day at least some of the Spartan will want to be coaches too.
“I loved my time as a player, but I cherished my time coaching. It was a passion. And going into each season you didn’t know what it was going to be like,” he said.
“You’re working your butt off every day and you’ve got a new group of kids and the next thing you know you’ve got them all working together and it’s so much fun. Each season to me was the best season.”
Good things can happen if you work hard enough and believe in yourself, Walton indicated.
“If I can go from Medicine Hat to Toronto, anybody can do it, I’ll tell you right now,” he said.
Walton said he’d watched the Spartans in action.
“You’ve had a really, really strong spirit and I congratulate that.”
