Wade Walker - Coaching and Administrative Career

Coaching and Administrative Career

In 1950, Walker worked as an assistant football coach at NC State. The following year, Walker served as an assistant football coach with the Texas Tech Red Raiders from 1951-1953 prior to his arrival at Mississippi State. Walker was an assistant coach with the Bulldogs from 1954-1955 before serving as Mississippi State's head football coach and athletic director from 1956 to 1961. Walker compiled a 22–32–2 record over his 6 season tenure. The Mississippi State Maroons (now known as the Bulldogs) posted a lackluster 2–7–1 record in 1959. The following year, Walker's team improved to 5-5, but students and alumni demanded his ouster. University president Dean W. Colvard relented and fired Walker as football coach, but kept him on as athletic director.

In 1963, the Mississippi State basketball team won the Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament. They were set to face Loyola of Chicago, an integrated school, but Mississippi state schools had an unwritten prohibition against playing teams with black players. In violation of a court injunction that prohibited the team from leaving the state, Colvard ordered the athletic department staff, including Walker and head basketball coach Babe McCarthy, across state lines to Nashville, Tennessee. An assistant coach smuggled the team out of the state from a private airfield, and they met Walker and the rest of the staff before flying to Michigan to play Loyola. Mississippi State lost, 61–51, but returned home without further incident. Walker said, "There I was, acting like a fugitive and running from the law because I was doing something I believed was right."

Mississippi State football fared poorly again in 1966, and Walker and his replacement as head football coach, Paul E. Davis, both resigned. Walker returned to Oklahoma after 1969 to become the school's athletic director, and he served in that position until 1986. In 1987, Walker had moved to La Quinta, California and was working for the Landmark Land Company.