WEST PALM BEACH — John Cartwright remembers speaking with Fanny Walker three years ago this month. A week earlier, Fanny’s 19-year-old son, Tony, was killed in a Boynton Beach shooting accident.
Fanny Walker met with Cartwright, the Twin Lakes basketball coach, to discuss her youngest son, Eric. She had just one request. She asked Cartwright to do all he could to make sure Eric would graduate from high school.
One week later, Fanny Walker was dead. She was killed in a car accident on the Florida Turnpike. Eric’s father had died in a shooting accident in 1978.
Cartwright and several members of the Twin Lakes administration have taken a special interest in Eric Walker.
“That’s what she wanted,” Cartwright said. “The last time I talked to Eric’s mother, she told me she wanted him to get an education. He’s really improved this last year. We got together to help Eric get through this mess. Not just because of basketball, but for him as a person.”
Cartwright has played a large role in making Fanny Walker’s dream a reality.
It’s a dream Walker, the youngest of 12 children and a Twin Lakes senior, keeps alive today.
Basketball is the tool with which he plans to forge his dream. Walker, at 6 feet 6, 180 pounds, has recovered from a series of tragic events that could have destroyed his life. He left home but returned a better person.
“My mother taught me to be the best person I could be, to never quit,” Walker said. “Basketball is going to give me the chance to get out and do something. I want to help the community and put something back into it because the community put a lot into me.”
Walker’s soft brown eyes and ever-present grin offer no clue to the pain he has endured. He’s a once-bitter person finally at peace with himself.
Walker was a 15-year-old freshman at Twin Lakes when his mother and brother died. He was the starting center on a 19-2 junior varsity team.
“We did our best to talk to him and keep him calm,” said Dennis Hill, who is now Walker’s roommate and was his teammate and closest friend in the ninth grade. “It’s tough when you lose somebody you love, but to lose two people in that short time really hurt. Eric always kept to himself, but he needed someone to talk to.”
Walker played out the junior varsity basketball season, but he didn’t finish his freshman year at Twin Lakes. He went to live with his sister Joy in Chantilly, Va.
“When it first happened, I was hurt and just wanted to be by myself,” Walker said. “I don’t think I could have handled it without basketball. There is the possibility I could have. I was on top of the world when everything happened. Then it let me down. Imagine a 15-year-old having to deal with that. I got depressed and wandered off. I went to Virginia to get away.”
Life in the rolling hills of Virginia wasn’t Walker’s idea of living. The small town about an hour from the nation’s capital couldn’t offer a movie, McDonald’s or Burger King. Worse, it didn’t offer a pickup basketball game unless you had a car and a full tank of gas.
“I hated it,” Walker said. “It was so different from living here. I just wanted to get back home. It took about an hour to go anywhere. Think of going from West Palm Beach to Miami to play basketball. I didn’t have a license and had to count on rides from people.”
Walker attended Chantilly High his sophomore year. He was ineligible for basketball because he hadn’t lived in Virginia long enough. He decided to return to Florida in October 1985.
“I felt I was ready to handle things back home,” he said. “I wanted to finish high school with the kids I started with.”
Walker returned to West Palm Beach and moved in with his sister Janice. He enrolled at Twin Lakes and petitioned the Florida High School Activities Association to allow him to play his junior year. FHSAA’s bylaws require a player to live in a school’s district for one year before participating in athletics.
Cartwright and Twin Lakes Principal Norm Shearin appeared before the FHSAA Executive Committee Dec. 7, 1985. The committee waived the rule.
“He’d been through hell,” Shearin said. “He had to deal with an awful lot of grief. He went berserk. He wasn’t doing well in school, but ever since he came back he’s been doing great. He still needs guidance.”
A self-professed troublemaker, Walker had never played organized basketball until he was in the eighth grade at Roosevelt Junior High. He was more interested in football and track. Robert Miller, a member of the Twin Lakes Booster Club, convinced Walker, 6 feet 2 at the time, to give basketball a try.
“I never liked basketball when I was growing up,” Walker said. “I thought the game was boring. Just a bunch of people running up and down the court. Now, it’s the biggest thing in my life. The main character of the soap opera.”
Said Miller: “He had so much raw talent. He was a good kid. He never got into trouble, but he had no direction. He never had leadership or guidance. His love of basketball kept him going through the tough times.”
Even after a successful season at Roosevelt, Walker still wasn’t convinced basketball was his sport. He believed his future was as an end in football or a distance runner. During a track meet for Roosevelt, Walker was approached by Cartwright.
“I told him he should be talking to Dennis (Hill),” Walker said. “He got all the attention then. But Coach said he wanted to talk to me about playing basketball. I told him I wasn’t a basketball player.”
Cartwright didn’t accept Walker’s assessment. He got Eric to come out for summer camp. It was at this camp that Walker began to work on his game.
Walker worked on fundamentals with junior varsity coach Bruce Anclade. Nothing else. An outstanding athlete, Walker needed to learn the proper release on a jump shot.
“He was the fastest learner I ever had,” Anclade said. “He hadn’t played a lot of basketball, but he had a ton of desire. I’d spend five minutes showing Eric something and then he’d work on it for 15 minutes and we’d go on to something else.
“Eric is energy plus. As long as that energy is pointed in the right direction, he’s great. Without basketball, Eric would be in jail right now.”
Walker remains close to Anclade, now the varsity coach at Boca Raton.
“Coach Anclade worked with me a lot,” he said. “I appreciate that. I still like to go down to Boca and run with him. He’s still part of the Twin Lakes program to me.”
A bit rusty after returning from Virginia, Walker didn’t start for Twin Lakes as a junior. He was an outstanding defender and averaged about eight points and six rebounds per game in a sixth-man role.
“The coach changed my role this year,” Walker said. “I still have to play defense and rebound, but he wanted me to score more. It’s a challenge and I like challenges.”
The Twin Lakes co-captain is now the most dominant defender in Palm Beach County. He blocked seven shots against Spanish River and four times was called for goaltending.
“He comes out of nowhere to block shots,” said junior guard Lorenzo Hands. “That’s why I like playing with him. I might be going up for a rebound and all of sudden he comes right over me and gets it.”
Walker, averaging 8.5 rebounds per game, has lifted his scoring average to 13.5. His quickness and versatility are his biggest assets. He’s quick enough to play the point on a full-court press and strong enough to be inside covering a 6-9, 240-pound center.
“Eric is the ideal center,” Anclade said. “He plays great defense, blocks the shot and then busts his butt to fill the lane to get the stuff on the fast break. You just don’t have that many kids willing to do that.”
Walker has struggled recently, scoring 10 points in two games. It’s reminded him that he still has a lot to learn.
“Eric’s a hyper person and player,” Cartwright said. “He gets so high for games that sometimes he overreacts. He was getting into early foul trouble in the season’s first few games because of it. He’s getting better at controlling it, but he’s not there yet.”
Walker’s high point came in the Governor’s Cup in Tallahassee just before New Year’s. The Rams finished fifth with Walker scoring the winning basket in a 73-71, nine-overtime victory over Martin County. It was the longest high school game in Florida history.
“I was sitting on the bus coming back from Tallahassee,” Walker said, “I made the all-tournament team and I just wondered how good I could have been if I had put everything into basketball earlier in life. It was really a good feeling.”
Anyone planning to watch Walker should be aware he wears different numbers. He has worn 44, 45 and 55 this season. This practice hasn’t thrown off the opposition — Walker always jumps the opening tip-off.
He should graduate from Twin Lakes with a 2.1 grade-point average this spring. He may have to play in junior college for two years before going on to a bigger school. He’s been visited by Miami, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Stetson, Central Florida and the University of Tampa.
In an effort to stabilize his home life, Walker moved in with Hill at the beginning of the school year. Walker now has a stable family unit.
Aside from minor problems like leaving the cap off the toothpaste and not putting the milk back in the refrigerator, the arrangement is working well.
“It’s one thing to be someone’s friend on the street,” Hill said. “But it’s something else to live with him. We had our problems at first, but we sat down and talked everything out. We’re closer because of it. We have a good time together.”
“It’s worked out well,” Walker said. “I wanted to get out on my own and give it a shot. My family supported me for the longest time and I didn’t want to burden them any longer.”
Walker believes he’s back on top of the world.
