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Never Forget 31-0
Dispatch
7/1/06
7/1/06
RANDY WALKER 1954-2006
Loss stuns players, coaches
Northwestern coach had positive influence
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Ken Gordon and Tim May
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
<!--PHOTOS--><TABLE class=phototableright align=right border=0><!-- begin large ad code --><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE align=center><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle></IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=credit width=200>JULIO CORTEZ ASSOCIATED PRESS </TD></TR><TR><TD class=cutline width=200>Wildcats football players Joel Howells, left, and Nick Roach, right, hug former staff member Matt Harper at a news conference. </TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>
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Mark Philmore believes Randy Walker’s positive attitude made the world a better place.
Walker, 52, died of an apparent heart attack late Thursday in Evanston, Ill. Yesterday, colleagues and players talked openly and emotionally about a man they considered a friend.
"He had a great personality, so caring," said Philmore, a Reynoldsburg native and receiver who finished his Northwestern career last season. "Truly, every time you saw him, if you asked him how he was doing he’d say, ‘Awesome, I’m doing great.’ Every time.
"That rubs off on you. I’d go to the doctor’s office and people asked me how I’m doing and I’d say, ‘Awesome, doing great,’ and you’d see people’s expression change. Just by saying that, suddenly they’re having a pretty good day, too."
Walker began feeling chest pains around 10 p.m. at his suburban Chicago home, Northwestern spokesman Mike Wolf told the Associated Press.
Dublin Coffman graduate Adam Kadela, a Wildcats senior linebacker, was just about to fall asleep Thursday when he got the news.
"I was just sitting there, I didn’t know what to do," Kadela said. "I was wide awake. I took the dog for a long walk at 2 a.m. to clear my head. It’s a big loss I can’t even begin to explain."
Kadela’s teammates were similarly struggling.
"Everything he taught us could be applied to life," linebacker Nick Roach said at a somber news conference in Evanston. "You can’t really measure something like that."
Kadela said Walker drove his players hard but cared deeply about them.
"He demanded excellence, and you wanted to give it to him because you respected him so much," Kadela said. "You knew he cared. Even if he got after you, he always told you, ‘Don’t take it personally.’ He wanted to make you the best player and ultimately the best person, the best man, you could be.
"He wanted to make us grow up to be great fathers, great workers and great people."
Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was shaken by the news. Walker was a peer (Tressel is 53), and Tressel also has had two assistant coaches suffer heart problems recently: offensive coordinator Jim Bollman and quarterbacks coach Joe Daniels.
"It’s just a shocking thing, because he’s one of the many good guys in our world," Tressel said. "Always positive, always there for the good of the cause, and in my mind doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult challenge. It’s still hard for me to believe."
A native of Troy, Ohio, and former player and coach at Miami, Walker had raised the expectations at Northwestern in recent years. He won a co-Big Ten title in 2000 and was the first Wildcats coach to guide the team to four seasons with at least six wins since C.M. Hollister in 1899-1902.
Walker is survived by his wife, Tammy, daughter Abbey, 28, and son Jamie, 25, who is a Wildcats football recruiting assistant.
When Lancaster High School coach Rob Carpenter heard the news, his thoughts turned immediately to Tammy.
"As long as I’ve known him, it was always the two of them," Carpenter said.
Walker was a second-year player at Miami when Carpenter made his recruiting visit. Walker was his official host, but Tammy, not yet Walker’s wife, was with them every step of the way, Carpenter said.
"It wasn’t just Randy, it was Randy and Tammy," Carpenter said.
Though Bill Mallory was the coach at Miami then, Carpenter said it was the way Walker showed him around, making sure he spoke with juniors on the team who weren’t about to be starters so he could get a real flavor for the place, that convinced him to go Miami.
"I tell my players before they go on recruiting trips to do the same thing now," said Carpenter, father of former OSU linebacker and Dallas Cowboys first-round draft pick Bobby Carpenter.
Rob Carpenter, on his way to a long career in the NFL, beat out Walker for starting tailback before what would have been Walker’s senior season. Walker was moved to fullback.
"That had to be tough on him, but he handled that with so much class, and just went on and did his job," Carpenter said. "I’ve always said you could tell even back when he was a player that he was going coach someday. He really mentored me, even as we were players."
In October 2004, Walker was diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that is usually caused by a virus. At the time, he said he was taking a new approach to his diet and work schedule.
"I’ve really taken my doctor’s orders to heart because frankly, I want to see my grandkids someday," he said.
Philmore said he did notice a few changes in Walker after that.
"He took a chill pill and calmed down," Philmore said. "There also was a doctor around for every game."
But what will stay with his those who knew him best was Walker’s deep caring and infectious personality.
"He was always available," said Chris Horton, a Pickerington graduate and long snapper for Northwestern through last season. "He’d say, ‘You’re my friend, come talk to me any time about whatever.’ "
Carpenter said, "There is a little bit of Randy Walker in everybody he came in contact with. His legacy will live on."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.
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