In honor of Homecoming week, The Point talked to two former Point Loma Nazarene University student-athletes about their experiences, career accomplishments and general reflections on their time at PLNU.
Jordan Robinson
By the age of five, Jordan Robinson, class of 2016, was dribbling a basketball, hoping to be as good as her older brother, Shon. Her love for competition fueled her and was enhanced by being raised in a sports-loving family. Robinson said middle school is when she started taking the game really seriously.
Robinson grew up in Sacramento, Calif., where she attended River City High School, played basketball, and even won conference MVP and Female Athlete of the Year at RCHS in her junior year.
The following summer, she hit the road with her father to visit colleges. While in San Diego, the two found out about PLNU by happenstance, through a Google search, looking for colleges in the area.
“We drive there in the summer,” Robinson said. “Nobody’s on campus, and it’s right on the ocean, and we are like, ‘What? Is this school real?’ … the fact that it was NAIA [National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics], it was basketball, they had a journalism program, which was huge for me. It kind of checked all of these boxes.”
After leaving a highlight tape for PLNU’s basketball head coach at the time, Bill Westphal, one of the assistant coaches, Alan Nakamura, reached back out to Robinson and facilitated an official visit.
“Coach Alan really knew how important academics was to me,” Robinson said. “So yes, I was going to be there to play basketball. But he set up a meeting with Dean Nelson, who’s over at the journalism program … I loved Dean, and I wanted to get a degree in journalism. That’s what really put it over the edge.”
In high school, Robinson decided to take the newspaper as an elective. After a writing test led to her becoming editor-in-chief and running the paper, she fell in love with journalism and storytelling.
“Going to Point Loma, I did not want to do sports [journalism] at all,” Robinson said. “I had played basketball my whole life. I am in basketball and practice six days a week. I do not want to write about basketball as well.”
Fast forward to today, and Robinson hosts her own women’s basketball podcast for Audacy, with guests like three-time WNBA MVP and Hall of Famer Sheryl Swoopes. In March, her book about the history of women’s basketball, “Queens of the Court,” co-written with Emma Baccellieri, a Sports Illustrated staff writer, will be released.
Robinson applied many of the philosophies of sports to her career. Just like a player gets better by putting up shots, Robinson got more comfortable behind a microphone through getting reps; she even recorded fake podcasts with her husband. In the same way that competitiveness propelled her to a college basketball career, those competitive juices have led to a flourishing career as a basketball journalist.
In her four years at PLNU, the Sea Lions went 71-45. In her third season, PLNU made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament as a No. 8 seed, upsetting the No. 1 seed in their region, Alaska Anchorage.
One of the memories that stands out most from Robinson’s PLNU career? The homecoming games.
“The hype is real,” Robinson said. “All the students are fresh on campus, and they’re ready to cheer everyone on. It was just a different vibe, and it was always so fun.”
Jessica Walton
Jessica Walton is one of the few athletes to have multiple stints as a college athlete throughout her life.
Walton, similar to Robinson, fell in love with basketball at a young age and was driven by an insatiable desire to compete.
“When I was, I want to say, in fifth grade, I always wanted to compete with the boys, and then I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to beat you guys in basketball,’ so I would play with them at recess, after school, any moment I got, and I just fell in love with the game,” Walton said.
Walton grew up in a single-parent household, raised by her mother, who couldn’t afford to put her on club basketball teams. But she continued to play pickup during her childhood. When the WNBA launched while Walton was in middle school, she realized playing basketball is what she wanted to do with her life.
Following high school, PLNU was one of the only schools to offer her a full-ride scholarship. Initially, she only focused on basketball. Despite living 10-15 minutes from campus, she’d never heard of PLNU. She took an opportunity to be a first-generation college student and fulfill her dream of playing college basketball.
Before going to PLNU, Walton wasn’t a Christian.
“Initially, there was a huge culture shock,” Walton said. “It was a lot of adjusting to the system and even just learning about Christianity. But my freshman year, I gave my life to the Lord and became a Christian. Everything just went up from there.”
While Walton was at PLNU, the track coach at the time, Jerry Arvin, continuously attempted to convince her to go out for track. She didn’t budge her first and second year, but decided to run her last two years of undergraduate on top of playing basketball.
By the time it was all said and done, Walton finished near the top of the record books for PLNU women’s basketball. She ranks third in all-time points, first in steals (by 248), has two of the top six scoring seasons in Sea Lions history, tenth in assists and blocked shots and seventh in three-pointers.
The Sea Lions improved every year Walton played, culminating in a 33-win season – a program record for PLNU – and NAIA Final Four run in her fourth year.
Following her illustrious career as a Sea Lion, Walton went on to play in the Dominican league in the summers as well as on the national team. When she realized there wasn’t enough stability in it, she came back to San Diego and started working at The Bishop’s School, working in admissions and coaching basketball.
Being back in San Diego, she would often circle back around to PLNU to support Arvin and the track team.
“When I was initially graduating from Point Loma Nazarene, I still had two more years of track eligibility,” Walton said. “He [Arvin] had offered me a scholarship to get my master’s, and initially, I was like ‘No. I don’t want to do any more schooling. I’m done. I want to go play basketball.’”
One day, Walton had mentioned a regret of not taking Arvin up on the opportunity to get her master’s degree. Arvin informed her it wasn’t too late.
Due to NAIA eligibility rules, Walton was eligible for two more years, despite being 28 years old.
“I looked at the different master’s programs and I was like, ‘OK, counseling sounds like something I like. I like working in education,’” Walton said. “I knew how education changed my life and my trajectory of where I was going. Breaking that poverty cycle, I was like, ‘This is what I’ll go for.’”
Walton’s routine was now: Working a full-time job at Bishop’s in La Jolla, driving down to PLNU for practice with girls nearly ten years her junior and going to classes at night.
“But it was a huge blessing because I ended up getting my master’s in counseling,” Walton said. “I want to encourage and inspire people who have similar backgrounds to mine: First-gen, low-income college students.”
After a few years working at PLNU, she switched over to community college counseling, where she felt her story and experience might resonate with students more.
Walton still works as a counselor in the community college system in San Diego, but is also a Lululemon ambassador, where she leads three-mile runs every first Friday of the month at Nomad Donuts in North Park. Run for three miles, enjoy donuts afterward. She’s also coaching her two boys in basketball and gives boxing lessons at her local gym.
In 2013, Walton was inducted into the PLNU Hall of Fame.
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Camden Painton