‘One of the best gifts.’ How Anthony Walker Jr. gifted Dolphins, coaches their high school jerseys
Anthony Castro knew the reaction it would elicit.
The founder and CEO of All Stars Miami, which customizes high school jerseys, had seen it so many times. When he gave one to Anthony Walker Jr. When he gave one to Rick Ross. When he gave one to Mario Cristobal.
So when Walker gave jerseys to each of his teammates for Christmas, the video of which the Miami Dolphins posted across their social media channels, Castro wasn’t surprised.
“The guys in the league get touched the most because you made it,” Castro said of the pure elation present on the faces everyone from Tua Tagovailao to Terron Armstead to Jonnu Smith.
Walker’s gift has since become the talk of the football world. Players from across the league have praised Walker’s thoughtfulness. The Dolphins linebacker would likely even be a shoe-in for MVT — most valuable teammate — if the NFL gave such an award.
“For him to even think of that and I know he had to go through a lot to get everybody’s school, their jersey number; so just him being that thoughtful, it was pretty big,” running back De’Von Achane said.
“That was like probably one of the best gifts I had gotten in awhile,” cornerback Kader Kohou said.
Walker, however, played it off.
“I wanted to give back to my guys, the team,” Walker said in the video that has since racked up hundreds of thousands of views. “I wanted to do something different for Christmas so later adding “I know everybody remembers their high school days when we first started getting into this and really taking it seriously.”
Anyone familiar with Walker, however, should not be surprised. The Miami native’s love for high school football ball is immense — the Miami Gardens Monsignor Pace graduate recently began coaching at his alma mater alongside his father. To celebrate his return to Miami, the Dolphins linebacker has even worn a different high school jersey to every home game.
“I’ve just been honoring the people that I played football with or watched growing up,” Walker told the Herald in November.
The idea actually came about the first time that Walker and Castro met in September. Castro started the company in 2022 and has made jerseys for everyone including University of Miami Heisman finalist Cam Ward, Miami Northwestern legend Teddy Bridgewater and former NFL running back Duke Johnson. It wasn’t even supposed to be a Christmas gift either; the timing just managed to work out in their favor.
“I actually planned to do this when the first initial 53-man roster was set and then things happened where guys get cut, traded, everything like that,” Walker said Monday. After the Dolphins signed Tyrel Dodson in November, Castro and Walker decided to start production then. “So kept adding guys and stuff like that. It just happened to come around where we finally got a set group and it was around Christmas time and wanted to get the guys something special.”
Added Walker: “I give all the credit to my guy at All Stars Miami, though, Anthony Castro. He did everything, all the groundwork. I got him the roster and he said ‘I’ve got the rest of it.’”
Walker’s gift wasn’t just limited to the active roster — the 16-player practice squad as well as defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver and linebackers coach Joe Barry also received one as well. Castro couldn’t help but commend Walker as he recounted the roughly 90 jerseys he made, some of which went to players who got cut.
“That person that’s not on the active roster, just seeing that jersey, it gave him a little bit more juice for this week coming up like ‘You didn’t come this far to get this far,’” Castro said. The process, as Walker described, involved Castro creating the jerseys based solely off of pictures from players’ high school days, something that took roughly three weeks from concept to production. That Walker even cared enough to send a jersey to a Tim Boyle, whom the Dolphins cut in late October, just shows the man behind the facemask. “A Walk is a really great person.”
For Walker, it wasn’t necessarily about the attention. The eight-year veteran, after all, described his distribution of the gifts as “‘man, here you guys go.’” The reaction, however, showed just how much it meant to his teammates.
“That’s kind of like that groundwork that’s been laid,” Walker said of high school. “I think a lot of guys kind of said that. Like, ‘man, I remember those times where I wanted to get to this point. So looking back, seeing all the work that we all put in to get here and be here – even you guys, I know you guys, we all went through high school – and again, that’s that groundwork that we laid to be where we’re at now and in the space that we live in in the NFL world. So I think that’s again, just that remembrance of all the hard work that we put in.”
