JAMESTOWN, N.D. — Anthony Walters grew up in the Rosedale neighborhood of Queens, one of New York City’s five boroughs. If you know anything about basketball and New York City, playgrounds fill a large role for young players. It was no different for Anthony.
“Everybody is familiar with the parks, right? My neighborhood was pretty reserved and I was outside all the time, so I’d go to a park near our house and try to play with the older guys,” Walters said. “I’d have my little lunch box and my big bottles of water and try to get games with the older guys, but they were just looking for me for food. They weren’t trying to get me on the court, because I was just a chubby little kid growing up. They just wanted me for my food. I’d come to the park with my lunch box and they’d be going, ‘Oh, man, here comes the kid with the food,’ and they’d be trying to get my food.”
Walters laughed as he told the story during an engaging conversation this week.
About that self-description of being “chubby.” Walters is now listed at 6-foot-3, 225 pounds, and the coach of his college team, the University of Jamestown Jimmies, calls him “a tank.” Surely Walters can’t go by that definition any longer.
More laughs.
“No. I suppose I started to change about my freshman year of high school. I was probably 5-10 or 5-11 by then so my body naturally started to change shape,” Walters said. “I’d always been a big kid, but growing up and getting in the weight room made me solid.”
Walters is one of the better stories in regional college basketball this season. He was named the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference North Division player of the year for Jamestown, which was in its first year in the league and first year transitioning to NCAA Division II. Walters averaged 20 points and 4.4 rebounds in 22 NSIC games. He shot 41% from 3-point range and was 88% from the free throw line. There were 10 games of 20 points or more and two of 30 or more.
University of Jamestown guard Anthony Walters.
Contributed / Kadin Neppl Photography
Jamestown finished 12-10 in the NSIC, 14-14 overall and — being ineligible for postseason play as a transitioning team — had its season end two weeks ago.
“I think the cool thing about Anthony is that last year was his first year with us and we felt it was best have him come off the bench to give us a little more pop. He never said a word about it. Never said a word about starting. Never complained. He averaged 14 points off the bench and probably would’ve had quite a bit of interest in the portal last spring, honestly, had he started and put up bigger numbers for us, but he really felt comfortable and was willing to trust his teammates and the coaches that things were going to work out,” said Jimmies coach Casey Bruggeman. “And this season, I don’t know if I could’ve even predicted this because he was such an efficient scorer, but I didn’t know how it was going to work when we went up against NSIC teams that had a little more size, more length, a little bit more athleticism. And he really put together a great body of work. He produced consistently and he did it at all three levels. He can shoot it, yes, but smaller guys had a tough time keeping him out of the lane.”
This question needed to be asked of Walters, too: How in the world did a New York City kid end up playing college basketball in Jamestown, of all places?
Turns out it was sight unseen, first of all. But it was helped by a stop in between.
After playing high school ball at Holy Cross High School in Queens, in the highest division of New York City’s Catholic schools system, Walters committed to a Division III college in upstate New York. He left there shortly after arriving and enrolled instead at Queensborough College, a junior college in Queens. Walters thrived there, leading NJCAA Division III schools in scoring at 24.9 per game and being named second-team All-American in 2022-23.
“I had a lot of coaches reaching out to me after that season, but most of them were like, ‘Well, we’d like to see you do some things in a better conference. Maybe even a Division I junior college conference,'” Walters said. “I had a lot of contact with Division I junior colleges and one of them was Frank Phillips College in Texas. The coach was Jay Bradley. He had a lot of experience and said he could help me develop my game, especially defensively. He was like, ‘I’ll help you become a Division I player. I have a lot of contacts.’ I said sure, and ended up going down there. Well, he got fired before the season even started and I was kind of stuck. It was a pretty tough year.”
University of Jamestown guard Anthony Walters, left, elevates for a shot against the University of Mary on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, at Harold Newman Arena in Jamestown, N.D.
Contributed / Kadin Neppl Photography
Frank Phillips went 5-24 that season and Walters’ scoring average dipped to 10 points a game. But, a couple of good things happened. Walters got his associate degree and he was introduced to small-town America. Frank Phillips College is located in Borger, Texas, an extremely rural part of the Texas panhandle 50 miles northwest of Amarillo. Borger’s population is about 12,500 with little diversity. Queens has 2.2 million people — part of NYC’s 8.5 million souls — with lots of diversity.
“That was a culture shock. That was even smaller than Jamestown,” Walters said. “It was like, dang, I don’t know about this coming from New York. But once I got used to it and figured out my plan and my routine, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.'”
Bruggeman was hired in March 2024 and needed players, knowing the Jimmies would be transitioning from the NAIA to Division II. He had developed some recruiting ties in Texas as an assistant to Eric Peterson at South Dakota and found out about Walters that way.
There were phone calls and Zoom meetings in July 2024 — even a virtual tour of Jamestown’s campus — but no visit to North Dakota. Walters committed to the Jimmies without setting foot on the campus. The first time Bruggeman and Walters met face-to-face was in August when Walters was unpacking his belongings in Jamestown with his father.
“It seemed like the right place and the right community. The people are great, the facilities are great, the professors are great. I mean, I’ll never forget these past two years. I’ve grown so much. The scoring and the basketball got better, but just my ability to communicate with people and build connections and friendships that are going to last a long time,” Walters said. “I’ve been put in a position to be successful, but the people in this community and my teammates are what I’m going to have forever.”
Walters will graduate in May with a degree in health and fitness administration. He has a 3.5 grade-point average. He intends to hire an agent this spring and try to play basketball overseas. Whenever that venture ends, Walters want to coach or be a basketball trainer.
“It’s been pretty cool what he’s been able to do for the university,” Bruggeman said. “It’s been challenging for our athletic department to make this transition, and we knew it was going to be hard, but everyone is taking it head-on and Ant has been a big part of that. He plays with so much joy and passion that he’s the perfect guy to represent Jamestown. We were kind of the little engine that could in NSIC men’s basketball this year and he was the driver of that. He has that spirit that we’ve needed as an athletic department and basketball program.”
University of Jamestown’s Anthony Walters prepares a launch to the basket over Rysley Borman of Dakota State on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025, in Harold Newman Arena.
John M. Steiner / The Jamestown Sun