Notre Dame Safety Commit Justin Walters Making Most Of Quarantine

Justin Walters‍ comes from an athletic family.

The 2021 Notre Dame safety commit’s brother is a running back at Army, his sister runs track at Miami-Ohio and his younger brother plays with him at Bolingbrook High School in Illinois.

During the COVID-19 shutdown, they’ve had to get creative in order to get their workouts in.

“For squats and cardio, we actually get a shovel and fill backpacks with bricks and rocks and put backpacks on both ends and use that for our weights,” says Walters. “It was kind of wobbly, but it was better than nothing.”

He laughs about the idea of trying to balance out both sides of the shovel in the absence of a barbell.

“At first, we were using a basket with my dad’s toolbox to squat,” he chuckles. “It was bad.”

Fortunately, the people at Walters’ training facility let him borrow a barbell and some weights recently.

“For other stuff, we just do body weight,” he says. “We have a machine downstairs, it’s a cable machine with different types of workouts down there.

“We do my older brother’s workouts that his college coaches send him.”

Walters says, “It’s definitely been an adjustment, but I’m starting to get used to it.”

“I’m getting into a rhythm,” he adds. “We have school Monday through Thursday, so I just get up, eat some breakfast, get my school in, get a workout and play video games for the rest of the day pretty much and spend some time with the family.”

Walters has been spending time playing Call of Duty and Destiny, but he’s also been following the advice of the Notre Dame staff.

“Staying active, try to spend time with the family and enjoy it,” he says of the message coming out of South Bend. “Just make the most of what you have because that’s all you can really do. Take it day by day and try to just get through it.”

In addition to working out, doing schoolwork and playing video games, Walters has also taken this time to catch up on some reading.

“I got to finish the series I wanted to finish,” he says. “It was the Scythe series by Neil Shusterman. When we weren’t on quarantine, I didn’t really have a lot of time between homework, training and lifting after school. That’s the main thing that I’ve got to do, just make the most of this time we have at home.”

But like everybody else, Walters “can’t wait” until things get back to normal.

He’s looking forward to having the chance to return to Notre Dame for a visit and is really hoping summer school doesn’t get cancelled so he can remain on track to graduate and enroll early over the winter.

There was recently some chatter about Walters wanting to visit Ann Arbor prior to committing to the Irish and the potential that he still may, but he slapped those down pretty strongly.

“I’m not waiting to visit Michigan,” he says. “I already committed to Notre Dame and I’m going to stand by that unless something happens on their end that makes them lose interest in me.

“I have no intentions of decommitting from Notre Dame.”