Bolingbrook’s Damon Walters commits to Northwestern to play football

Northwestern offered Damon Walters a lot of familiarity.

The Bolingbrook junior’s mother attended the school in Evanston and three Raiders’ alumni, including current defensive back Cam Mitchell, all played for the Wildcats, too.

Walters will become the fourth after he committed to Northwestern over the holiday weekend to play football.

“You’ve got the Big Ten right in your backyard, and that education,” Bolingbrook coach John Ivlov said. “Those two right there are big selling points, along with those new facilities.”

Walters will become the fourth Division-I athlete in the Walters family. His oldest brother, Brandon, just graduated after playing football for Army, while his sister Kayla runs track at Miami (Ohio) and brother Justin plays football at Notre Dame.

The safety prospect had 24 scholarship offers, including 16 Power Five offers from schools such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Penn State and Minnesota.

247Sports Composite ranks Walters as a four-star safety, the sixth-best prospect in Illinois and No. 354 in the nation. Rivals lists Walters as a three-star safety, also sixth best in the state.

As a 6-foot-1, 175-pound prospect, Walters will need to add weight in order to play defense in the Big Ten. He also knows Walters has the talent and work ethic to excel at the next level, Ivlov said.

“Usually your great high school players turn out to be good to great college players,” Ivlov said. “I don’t see why he couldn’t do that there.”