USC water polo plays for title with memory of fallen teammate

LOS ANGELES -- Maybe it says something about how deep the bond was between brothers Jon and James Walters that, even though Jon was a chronic insomniac and James was a sound sleeper, and even though they lived in a spacious house, they always stayed in the same bedroom.

"Joined at the hip," their father, Bill Walters, describes them.

"Like the same person," says their close friend and high school water polo teammate, McQuin Baron. "You'd never find one without the other. They did everything together. Everything."

Including, it turned out, going to the hospital.

It was Jon's insomnia that played a role in his death that was not only a heartbreaking blow to his family and friends but a huge loss to the tightly knit water polo community. Jon, after a tremendous freshman season at water polo powerhouse Southern Cal, was considered a rising star who probably would have been a significant player on the 2016 U.S. Olympic team.

Jon was prescribed Xanax to help him sleep. At a party last New Year's Eve, less than a month after he had helped lead USC to a sixth consecutive NCAA men's water polo championship, Jon drank champagne and also took Xanax. James was also at the party and they both spent the night there. When they awoke, Jon was barely breathing and was turning blue. James called 911.

When they arrived at the Chapman Medical Center, Jon was unresponsive. He was induced into a coma. For a few days, his condition fluctuated, and there were times when Jon was alert and responsive and the family thought he would be released. But about the third day, he developed pneumonia. His organs began to fail. Doctors could not find a solution. On Jan. 8, he died. He was 19.

In May, the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner's office released the toxicological report and ruled Jon's death an accident due to complications from Xanax and alcohol intoxication.

Eleven months after a memorial service that drew 3,000 people, after the numbness, the crying, the praying and also the laughs, it is James, 18, who is now the USC freshman trying to extend the school's water polo dynasty.

He'd love a visit from his brother.

"I had some dreams about him for a while," James says. "It was comforting, almost relieving, to see him in a dream. I could see his face in-depth, so clearly. We'd be talking. The worst part was waking up, because it all goes away. The last one was probably in May. We were in some random place, just talking, then all of a sudden I'm in another place and we're not talking, and I'm wondering where he is, why he is not here, then he walks in and we talk for a while, and then I woke up.

"I haven't had any recently. It's frustrating. I want another one, but I guess it doesn't work like that."

James still feels Jon's presence, though, as the Trojans head toward the climax of their season — the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament Nov. 21-23 in Long Beach, Calif., which USC might need to win to gain entry to the four-team NCAA championships held Dec. 6-7 in La Jolla, Calif.

His teammates feel Jon's presence, too, partly because it was at this time last year when Jon Walters cemented his place in water polo history. The Trojans were in a similar position as they are now, having uncharacteristically lost four games and needing to win the conference tournament to get into the NCAA championships.

Jon, a highly recruited freshman who had missed four weeks of the season after breaking his left arm, sparked the Trojans to a victory with dominant play at water polo's most difficult, most physical position — 2 meters, or center. That's where water polo's fiercest encounters take place, and the man who takes control there can steer the game in his team's direction.

That's what the 6-3, 240-pound, barrel-chested Jon Walters did.

"He played at 2 meters and he was dominant," USC coach Jovan Vavic says. "He comes back and in the MPSF final against Stanford he scores two goals and he dominates. He was outstanding. He had a great inspirational tournament and he carried us in many ways."

That momentum stuck with them. The following week, the Trojans went on to win their sixth consecutive national championship.

"Jon was the soul and the heart of our team, because he was such a warrior and, though he was young, he was so influential in so many ways," Vavic says. "He really made other people around him feel good."

Now the Trojans seek their seventh title in a row. They will play for themselves, for their families, for their school, for each other. But, as has been the case all season, they will have some of Jon Walters in their heart.

The USC motto is "Fight On."

This year, the USC water polo motto is "Fight On For Jon."

The Trojans have his initials – JDW – embroidered on their caps.

"There's not a day that goes by when he's not in our thoughts and on our minds," says Baron, now the USC starting goalie. "We're going for this championship for him."

'WHY DON'T WE DO THAT?'

Before Bill Walters got married and before he and his wife Jacque had four children, he was a football player at Kansas, and his sophomore year he had a teammate named Gale Sayers.

"Being a football player, I wanted Jon and Jim to be football players," Bill says.

So he hauled Jon and James to the local Pop Warner signups.

"They had to make a certain weight to be in a certain group," Bill recalls. "Well, Jon was always a big kid. For his age group, he had to be 98 pounds. He weighed 135. They wanted to put him up two age groups. I didn't think that was a good thing, so I said, 'Jon, I hate to tell you this, but you're too big to play football.'"

As they walked away from the football field, they walked past a pool, and there were kids playing with a ball in the pool.

"So we walked in and watched," Bill says. "It was water polo. Jon said, 'Why don't we do that?'"

Jon was 8. James was 6. They played water polo almost continuously — and on the same teams — since then, at elite youth clubs, at prestigious Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, Calif., then at USC.

Jon was held back a year in school in eighth grade so they could play one year apart in high school and college. When first Jon and then James were high school seniors, they were each arguably the No. 1 water polo recruit in the country.

Jon, who outweighed James by about 20 pounds, seemed larger than life, a force of nature in and out of the pool.

"Jon, if I do say so myself, was the most competitive person I think I've ever known," his father says. "He just wasn't going to lose. Whatever it took, you were not going to beat him."

With his incredible strength, Jon had the ability to dominate high school opponents. James says every game he ever played with Jon, "he was the strongest player in the water."

But he had an endearing sympathy for his victims, James recalls. In the aftermath of Jon's death, James heard stories from players who had played against Jon, and one in particular stuck with him.

He tells it in the voice of the player, who was guarded by Jon: "The first quarter, he hurt me. It was horrible. I had never been so miserable in my life. I just wanted to get out. I couldn't get anything on him. I couldn't get a goal. I couldn't get a pass. He just wouldn't let anything happen with me. In the second quarter, his team is up five or 10 goals, and he starts teaching me stuff. He's like, 'Next time, try this.' He's actually helping me."

James says he never resented being the younger Walters, of being in Jon's shadow.

"He was my idol," James says. "Completely, 100% my idol."

'JON WAS INVINCIBLE'

For a week, in two different hospitals, Jon Walters fought for his life, his vital signs a roller coaster, in and out of consciousness, one complication after another.

Eventually, he could not survive a series of heart attacks.

"I don't wish this on anybody," Bill says, his eyes welling as he sits with Jacque on the patio of their dream house on a hillside in exclusive community of Newport Coast in Newport Beach, Calif. "We watched Jon have three heart attacks. The whole medical team was working on him, the paddles, everything. After the second heart attack, Jon came to in about 10 minutes. We were just elated. Then one of the doctors walked up to us and said, 'This isn't going to last. He's going to die.' "

Twenty minutes later, after a third heart attack, Jon's heart stopped.

As a kid, Jon was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and was prescribed the drug Adderall. Later, he developed severe insomnia, like his father and his older brother Matt. And he was prescribed various anti-anxiety and sleep-inducing drugs.

He frequently took pills, including Xanax, a powerful sedative that comes with the warning not to combine it with alcohol, because the interaction can result in a dangerously low heart rate and impaired breathing functions and can be fatal.

But Jon did sometimes combine the two, James says, even though he had been warned against doing so by his parents.

"They used to tell him, 'It's dangerous. Don't do it. We trust you not to do it,'" James says. "But Jon was invincible. He had this feeling about him and everyone else had this feeling about him, too. I mean, it's Jon. He can drink and take whatever he wants and he's going to be up before all of us."

'STILL PLAYING WITH HIM'

One night in the hospital, when Jon was awake and his mother was in the room, he told her he was going to learn from his mistake.

"He said, 'I was really stupid but God has given me a second chance, and I've got really big work to do now,'" Jacque recalls.

James loves this story. He tells people that he knows Jon is in heaven, smiling, making friends, trying to arrange a pool party.

And still fighting on for USC.

"You could say that Jon is gone, but 'gone' is a relative term, I guess," James says. "I don't look at it that way. I still think I'm playing with him, playing for him. There isn't a 30-second period in the day when I don't think of him. OK, he's not on my team any more. But I still see him as my motivation. And I still see him in the pool with me."