The last time his Northwestern colleagues saw Randy Walker, he was as fit, happy and relaxed as any college football coach should be in the quietest period of the off-season.
“I just saw him [Thursday],” linebackers coach Pat Fitzgerald said Friday. “He saw me chasing my son Jack around the office and he was chuckling. He was about to become a grandfather.”
Defensive coordinator Greg Colby said Walker was working out and looking fit.
“He had a checkup a couple of weeks ago and seemed to be doing very well,” Colby said.
Walker, 52, died late Thursday of an apparent heart attack. He was at home in Wilmette at about 10 p.m. Thursday when he felt chest pains. He was rushed to Evanston Hospital but could not be revived.
In October of 2004, Walker was hospitalized for two days with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.
“Randy was at home [Thursday] and it was very quick,” Northwestern President Henry Bienen said. “There wasn’t pain. It just happened. It was sudden and he was gone.”
Walker and his wife, Tammy, had just moved into their new home in Wilmette, not far from Ryan Field. They had lived for years in Evanston, also close enough for Walker to walk home for lunch from a job he loved at a school that embraced him after he arrived from Miami of Ohio in 1999.
“He leaves a tremendous legacy as a coach, and his record speaks for itself,” athletic director Mark Murphy said. “He built our program into a consistent, stable, respected program.”
In seven seasons, Walker took Northwestern to three bowl games, including last season’s Sun Bowl. The Wildcats overcame several key injuries to compile a surprising 7-4 record in 2005 before losing to UCLA.
With a 37-46 overall record, Walker is the second winningest coach in Northwestern history. Only Lynn “Pappy” Waldorf, who went 49-45-7 from 1935 to ’46, won more games.
Walker is the winningest head coach in the history of Miami, known as the “Cradle of Coaches” because it has produced head coaches such as Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler, John Pont and Bill Mallory, who coached Walker.
Northwestern will open the season on Aug. 30 at Miami in a game Walker scheduled.
Walker, who had been an NU assistant in 1988 and ’89, went 59-35-5 in nine seasons at Miami. A native of Troy, Ohio, Walker was a tough 5-foot-8-inch running back at Miami from 1972-75.
When his NU predecessor, Gary Barnett, ended two years of speculation about his future and left for Colorado after the 1998 season, athletic director Rick Taylor hired Walker.
“He was a solid person,” Taylor said. “He had stayed at Miami a long time even though he had had chances to leave. I thought at the time Northwestern needed a solid person and stability. He offered that. Plus he was a good coach. That was a foregone conclusion.”
After Barnett’s final team went winless in the Big Ten, Walker’s first team went 3-8 overall, 1-7 in the Big Ten in 1999. But then in 2000, the Wildcats grabbed a share of the Big Ten title, going 6-2 in the conference and 8-4 overall. Walker was named Big Ten coach of the year. The Wildcats earned a berth in the Alamo Bowl and Walker received a contract extension through 2007.
Then in the summer of 2001, Walker’s future came into question when defensive back Rashidi Wheeler collapsed and died during an off-season workout. But Bienen and the university stood behind Walker while Wheeler’s mother, Linda Will, called for his firing.
The school eventually settled the case for $16 million, although Will still is challenging the court’s decision.
“Randy and I talked many times on this, and it deeply affected Randy, no doubt about it,” Bienen said. “I don’t want to rehash a terrible experience, but I felt Randy did everything he could. He had no personal responsibility for what happened, so I wanted to be supportive of Randy and the university was. It’s as simple as that.
“It never made me waver about Randy as a person or whether he was right for us. Randy never lost his concern for the loss of a friend and a player and also what he knew to be the impact on the family. Once again, Randy handled himself with great class through the whole thing. It surely was difficult.”
Bienen said Northwestern will do something to honor Walker’s memory.
“This football program has a checkered history in terms of its success, and he brought a lot of stability for all the time he coached here,” he said. “Football is very visible for us. The university will do something to memorialize Randy.”
After last season, Bienen and Murphy negotiated another contract extension with Walker. In April, he signed through the 2011 season.
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“[Negotiations] can be difficult times,” Murphy said. “Obviously, he wants to get the best, but what struck me in the process was that he wanted his assistant coaches taken care of, and he wanted to make sure he could leave this program in a strong place.”
Added Bienen: “He wanted to make sure that when he left the stage–none of us could possibly envision it would be so horribly quick–that there was a real legacy here, and I think he accomplished that.”
Northwestern’s players met early Friday. Some didn’t find out about his death until Friday.
“He was old school in every sense,” linebacker Nick Roach said. “It wasn’t being macho. He saw toughness as an attitude that would help you respond and react in situations like this.”
Kicker Joel Howells recalled how Walker rallied to his support after the Sun Bowl, in which kicking problems contributed to the Wildcats’ loss.
“He came and talked to me in my room after the game, and then he called me the next day,” Howells said. “There were a lot of people who didn’t have faith and trust in me, but he was there for me.”
One of Walker’s trademarks was player development. Defensive tackle Luis Castillo was a first-round pick of the San Diego Chargers in 2005.
“Guys didn’t always understand why he was pushing you–you think he hates you,” Castillo said. “For guys who are playing in the league (NFL), it’s why we’re in the NFL. He turned good players into great players.”
Offensive tackle Zach Strief, a seventh-round pick of the New Orleans Saints in April, credited Walker with teaching his players about accountability.
“I was at a restaurant with my parents and everything was going wrong–the manager was coming over and everyone was pointing fingers at someone else–and I said I missed the utopia I lived in, where you’re held accountable. Playing for him was like having a life coach for five years. I learned so many things from him that had nothing to do with football.”
In addition to his wife, Walker is survived by his son Jamie, 24, a Northwestern recruiting assistant; and daughter Abbey, 27. Abbey and husband Brian Boudreau are expecting their first child in the fall.
Services are at 10 a.m. Thursday at the First Presbyterian Church, 1427 Chicago Ave., Evanston. The public is invited, but seating is limited. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations be made to the Randy Walker Fund, which benefits NU football, at 1501 Central St., Evanston, IL 60206.
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