LAKELAND, Fla. – When
Walter Clayton Jr. was agonizing last spring whether to transfer to St. John's (where his famous coach, Rick Pitino, was headed) or Florida (two hours from his hometown), both Clayton and his mother kept going back to the close-knit, family atmosphere they experienced during their official visit to the UF campus. That was in May.
Last weekend, with Clayton's girlfriend approaching the due date of their baby, there were signs the child might arrive early. UF coach
Todd Golden excused the team's scoring leader from practice to go home to Lake Wales. When things were deemed back to normal, Clayton met up with the Gators for a practice in Boca Raton on the way to their date against Richmond in the Orange Bowl Classic at Sunrise, Fla.
Clayton played in the game, a UF victory, then zipped back to Lake Wales. That was Saturday night.
Leilani Leigh Clayton (6 pounds, 7 ounces) arrived Monday at 1:04 p.m. – five days early – while the Gators were in the middle of individual shooting groups. The team's newest father also missed Tuesday's workout to be with Tatiyana Burney and their daughter. He rejoined the team Wednesday afternoon for practice, then boarded a buss headed for Lakeland, about 25 miles from Lake Wales, where UF (6-3) will take on East Carolina (6-4) Thursday night at RP Funding Center.
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
"A lot of joy, but also a lot of thinking about the future. I mean, she's depending on me now,," Clayton said of his life-changing state of mind that now has him playing basketball and going to school for three. "The last few weeks, all I wanted was for everything to go all right."
Everything did. And as if the orange-and-blue guardian angel gods were watching over it all, now comes a Florida basketball game in Polk County that will double as a homecoming (maybe even a glorified baby shower) for one of the area's biggest stars of the last decade. Clayton's mom, dad, sister and a bunch of relatives will be in the house, not to mention dozens of others from the area who he touched during his athletic ascension. All of this at Christmastime, no less. How's that for a cool story and family affair?
Just the way mother and son envisioned it.
On Wednesday, mere moments after Clayton walked out of the training room from his ankle-taping Wednesday, he was met in the hallway by a conga line of players and coaches – Leilani's de facto uncles, if you will – offering congratulatory new-daddy hugs. The smiles were priceless.
"I think I'm going to be clear-headed by game time," said Clayton, who's averaging a team-high 15.9 points, plus 3.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists. "I guess we'll see."
Added Golden, with a laugh: "Yeah, we will!"
Clayton's mother (and Leilani's "Granny"), Cherie Foster, has been mostly parked at the hospital the last few days, alongside her son. She was proud of how her boy handled it all.
"I've been pretty much on edge the last three weeks, but Walt has been calm, cool and collected," Foster said. "I was really impressed."
Walter Clayton Jr. (1)
On Monday, Clayton sent a photo of his daughter to his teammates via a group chat. The reaction was pretty much what you'd expect.
Junior
Will Richard: "She's beautiful. Looks just like him."
Grad-transfer
Julian Rishwain: "He'll probably come back a changed man."
Freshman
Kajus Kublickas: "I can't imagine being a father. It must be the most amazing feeling."
While on the topic of amazing feelings, get a load of the reception Clayton receives when he takes the floor Thursday night at RP Funding for the Gators.
His time as a local youth football prodigy was the stuff of legend, well before Clayton became one of the top-rated safety prospects in the nation – wanted by Florida, Florida State, Miami, Georgia, Alabama, etc. – while starring in two sports at Lake Wales High. But (and also the stuff of legend, if not disbelief), Clayton dropped football cold turkey to focus solely on basketball, a sport where his state scholarship offers came from only Jacksonville and Florida Gulf Coast, despite transferring to Bartow High and leading that school to back-to-back Class 6A state championships.
Worth repeating: Neither UF, FSU nor Miami were ever in the picture. Didn't want to be, either.
[Read about Walter Clayton Jr.'s Polk County roots here]
John Frost, a prominent Bartow trial attorney, past president of the Florida Bar Association and longtime generous Gator booster, watched Clayton's exploits in high school and begged the previous UF coaching staff to recruit him, but was told Clayton was not a Division I prospect. In fairness to that staff, every other high-major program in the nation made the same assessment. So did UCF (just one hour to the east) and USF (an hour to the west).
If it was any consolation (and it wasn't), Dan Mullen offered him a scholarship.
Clayton spent the last two years playing and starring for Pitino at Iona, where he was named 2023 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Player of the Year before hitting the transfer portal, where he was instantly one of the most sought-after guards. None of the coaches who bypassed him the first time got return phone calls. Because Golden wasn't the UF coach at the time, he listened to what the first-year Gators coach had to say.
Walter Clayton Jr. in his Bartow High days.
"Florida was his dream school and had been his dream school all along. He'd have gone there in a second," said Frost, whose name is on the UF practice court's floor. "It's just really something that he's there now and coming back home to play. I think [Lake Wales and Bartow] are really going to turn out well for him."
Foster believes that will be the case, as well. All the texts, DMs and emails she's been getting say so. All the local support will do her heart good, but it's the support Golden and his program have heaped on their new (and growing) family that has meant the most these last few weeks.
Though none of it was a surprise.
"The emphasis on family was why we went to Florida," Foster said.
And now Florida is bringing
Walter Clayton Jr. home to take a bow. The new dad, fittingly, will be patriarch to his Polk County family for a day.
"Hopefully, we can put on a show," Clayton said. "But getting that W is all that matters."
Father knows best.
