College Career
Walker was born in Mocksville, North Carolina, and attended college at the University of Oklahoma. He played for the Oklahoma Sooners football team as a tackle from 1946 to 1949, and he served as the team captain for two seasons. Walker was part of the 1946 recruiting class—brought to Norman by one-year head coach Jim Tatum—that included nine future All-Americans. In 1947, Tatum's former assistant Bud Wilkinson had taken over as head coach but by midseason the team was struggling with a 2–2 record. In an effort to evoke player leadership, he told the team to elect two co-captains to serve the remainder of the season, and they chose Walker and the previous season's honor captain, Jim Tyree. In 1948, the International News Service named Walker as the right tackle on its All-Midlands team.
In 1949, Walker was named a first-team All-American by the Associated Press, American Football Coaches Association (as a guard), Football Writers Association of America, and Newspaper Enterprise Association. He is one of just three Sooners to have been named an all-conference player each of his four years. In 47 Straight: The Wilkinson Era at Oklahoma, author Harold Keith describes Walker as a "finesse player" who eschewed hip pads and wore low-top backfield shoes to reduce the weight of his equipment. Teammate and fellow All-American Stan West said of Walker:
"I had the reputation of being the laziest man of all in our calisthenics drills, but I was chain lightning compared to him. 'Lord,' Wade used to say, 'you get warm enough out here anyhow.'"
In the 1947 NFL Draft, Walker was selected in the 22nd round as the 201st overall pick by the Chicago Cardinals.
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