There were times when Woodstock Academy Gold prep basketball player, Dibaji Walker, felt like his dream of playing Division I basketball would never become reality.
But early last week, the 6-foot, 7-inch native of Columbus, Ohio, made a phone call to Cleveland State coach Dennis Felton to give him his verbal commitment to play for the Vikings next season.
“It’s a big dream, something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Walker said. “There were highs-and-lows and sometimes I didn’t think I was going to make it, but safe to say, I did.”
One of those times came early in the season. It was the seventh game of the year for the Centaurs. They were playing Hargrave Military Academy on Nov. 17 at Albertus Magnus College. “It was our first real big game and I probably played two or three minutes of the game,” Walker said. “I had missed a lot of practices because of injury. (Coach Tony Bergeron) felt I wasn’t quite ready. I hadn’t been playing that much. I thought I wasn’t playing because I wasn’t good enough. Come to find out, (Woodstock Academy coach Tony Bergeron) wanted me 100 percent for the rest of the season.”
Walker has picked up his game. He admits he wasn’t ready to when he first came to The Woodstock Academy campus late in the summer.
He came from a small-ish school in Columbus - Independence High School. “I was probably the least experienced player, basketball-wise. Everybody had played a lot more basketball than me. I had to put in a lot of extra work. I had to pay attention to the game and learned some stuff from my teammates and the coaches here,” Walker said.
What he meant by that, is that he didn’t feel his basketball prowess was up to par with his teammates. “We didn’t press in high school. We never play full court defense. I was in a zone all the time. I became one of the best on-ball defenders here,” Walker said. All that work paid off. He came into Woodstock Academy without any interest from a Division I school.
He made a commitment in the classroom, the weight room and on the court and he earned himself five committable scholarship offers,” Bergeron said.
“I didn’t know about Woodstock. I heard about it through an AAU coach. My mom and I did our background on Bergeron and he sounded like a really good coach – the type that I needed. I was inexperienced, I needed someone to learn from,” Walker said. Wyoming was the first to show interest. Cleveland State followed and never left.
Walker is a building block. “(Felton) was completely honest about recruitment. He wanted me so bad that he recruited no one else for my position. Normally, coaches recruit multiple players for a position and the first that accepts, goes. The class I will be coming in with want to work and develop the program because it’s not doing too well this year. But there are a lot of seniors going out,” Walker said.
The Vikings were 6-19 as of last week this season. “He wants me to come in and score. Even though there is 1-5 (positions), (Felton) likes everyone to be versatile in their position, everyone plays wing, everyone plays inside, including me,” Walker said. He becomes the fifth member of the Gold squad to commit to a Division I program. Two, Chaylyn Martin and Jeameril Wilson have already signed their National Letters of Intent.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director