Coach and educator. Born June 14, 1918, in Atlanta, Georgia. The grandson of slaves and the youngest of Willie and Mary Walker's 13 children, Dr. LeRoy Walker, a well regarded athlete himself, went on to become one of the most successful track coaches in history, steering the career of 40 national champions and 12 Olympians.
Born into a family whose finances were not always certain, Walker spent a portion of his youth in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, where he moved to live with his older brother Joe following the death of their father. To a large degree Joe, who owned a window washing business and a small chain of barbeque restaurants, filled the father figure role left after Willie Walker's death. He employed his younger brother, and pften pushed him to excel.
In the 1930s, LeRoy Walker returned to the South to attend Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina. There, Walker, an honor student and the first of his family to attend college, shined as an athlete. He played basketball and earned national attention as a sprinter—despite the fact that the school didn't have a formal track team. Equally impressive was what he did on the football field. Having never played the sport in high school, Walker tried out for the team on a dare his junior year. When the team's starting quarterback went down, Walker filled in, leading the club to a conference championship on route to All-America honors, the college's first player ever to receive that recognition.
Walker graduated from Benedict in 1940, and from there moved back north to earn a master's from Columbia University in 1941. Next up for Walker, a return to Benedict, where the school's president coaxed him back to head up the college's new Physical Education department.
In 1945 Walker made the move again, this time to take over as track coach at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). There, Walker started to gain recognition for his coaching talents, working closely with athletes like hurler and Olympian Lee Calhoun. Walker's presence at the school was so revered that he would later serve as chancellor of the college.
In 1957, Walker completed his doctorate in Exercise Physiology and Biomechanics at New York University, sparking an incredible professional run for the famed coach. Between 1960 and 1972, Dr. Walker served as a coach or consultant for a number of foreign Olympic teams, before moving on to a three-year stint as chairman of the AAU men's track and field committee.
At the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal, Dr. Walker made history as the first African-American head coach of the men's track and field team. At the games, Walker's team medaled in 19 different events, collecting a total of six golds.
His work at NCCU not only included churning out top-shelf athletes, but bringing the world of track and field to the school. He helped steer the Olympic Festival to the school one year, and added an unmatched level of prominence to North Carolina Central University with his Olympic successes and books.
In 1992 Dr. Walker, who was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1987, was named president of the United States Olympic Committee, the first African-American ever named to the post. The position was capped off four years later with the summer Olympics in Atlanta, where he led the 645-member U.S. delegation into the Centennial Olympic Stadium as part of the opening festivities. Three years after Atlanta, Walker presided over the 1999 Special Olympic World Games in North Carolina.
Walker received the Olympic Order, the highest honor handed out by the International Olympic Committee, for his work with the Olympic Games. He has also earned 15 honorary degrees. Yet Walker maintains an air of modesty when the subject turns to his importance as an African-American pioneer. "It's not wrong to be mentioned I would be the first black," he said following his appointment as president of the U.S.O.C. "But Churchill once said it's not enough to prepare yourself to do your best. You must prepare yourself to do what's required. I want people to know this can happen. On the other hand, if they look at my record, you wouldn't think I've achieved this because I am black."
No comments:
Post a Comment