Walton a star at the game she learned from her late father
Versatile captain developing as vocal leader for Western
Western’s Jasmen Walton loved basketball from the moment her father began teaching her the game when she was a firstgrader.
The sport showcased her natural speed, quickness and agility and the shy, quiet girl had a knack for understanding the game. By the time she joined her first Amateur Athletic Union team in the fourth grade, her skills and game sense ranked well ahead of those of most girls her age.
“She was so quiet, but her IQ, to me, was mind-blowing,” said Walter Roman, her coach with the AAU Maryland Lady Tigers. “Her focus was always beyond herself. She would pass the ball and if they didn’t get it, she would go over to them and show them things.”
By that time, basketball had taken on a deeper meaning for Walton. Six weeks before her 10th birthday, her father, Marcal Walton, was found shot to death near their West Baltimore neighborhood.
She was devastated, but kept playing the game her father taught her, the one he loved to play on the neighborhood courts, the one that will eventually earn her a Division I scholarship. Basketball remained her connection to her father.
“I really fell in love with it after my father’s passing,” said Walton, 17. “I started taking it more serious, just because my John Carroll’s Savannah Simmons is fouled by Western’s Jasmen Walton during the Patriots’ 51-49 win Monday. Walton, an All-Metro forward-guard, started playing basketball in first grade.