2024 was a standout year for Robert Watson’s career, particularly in February. During games against Wilmington, Heidelberg, and Marietta, Robert made impressive stats: 12 rounds, scored 15 points, and had two games with three steals each.
Robert was excited to share his achievements with our high school reporter, Joshua Okeke. He thinks others can learn a lot from his journey.
What motivated you to pursue basketball alongside your studies at Baldwin Wallace?
I had been playing basketball all my life, probably since I was about 7, and always aimed to make it to the next level and become a rare person in the less than 4-5% of athletes who make it from high school to the college level. That was the main reason why I chose to go to BW. I was being recruited and wanted to continue to do something I loved close to home since the pandemic, and everything was still huge in 2020.
After achieving Academic All-Ohio Athletic Conference selection, what are your academic goals moving forward? What are your plans after graduating from Baldwin Wallace?
My goals now, as far as academics are concerned, I am moving to Brandeis University to gain my MBA in digital marketing and play my final year of basketball. My future goals are to work in sports on the digital marketing side and social media side of sports.
Can you share a highlight from your basketball career that you feel particularly proud of?
My first start and senior night were big highlights and memories because one was one of my more significant failures, and the other showed how much I had grown in 4 years of college. On my first start, I was a sophomore and played one of the worst games of my career. It put me in a slump for a couple of weeks, but it’s also something I look back on that I overcame because, after that, I was able to finish that season strong with what was a career-high at the time against the #2 team in the country during the conference tournament. Overall, I was proud of overcoming such a failure that I let it linger and finished the last few games of the season so strong.
Senior night was just an overall great day, signifying the accomplishment of sticking with something. Eight recruits were in my first-year class, and only two of us made it to senior night to complete our careers. This game was great. I posted my career high in points, but it was just the end of a challenging year of injury and many losses on the court. I grew as a leader and a person more than ever; that was the icing on the cake.
How do you balance your commitments to academics and athletics?
Balancing academics and athletics has always come easy to me. My parents always kept me busy as a kid, so I got used to creating a schedule and sticking to it no matter how strict. This past year, I even balanced a job throughout my whole senior year along with school and sports, but my advice would be to write down as many of your tasks as possible in an app or a planner and sit down before you go to bed and plan your next day out and stick to it.
