Goodbye, Coach: Cedric Walker's boundless service to T&F

By SteveU



It was easy to find Cedric Walker at a National Scholastic Athletic Foundation track meet.  The man was big, reminding you of an elite thrower or maybe an NFL lineman.  There was the shiny, dark chocolate dome, beaming at you from across the track.  There was the friendly, distinctive greeting and you always got it, because Coach always noticed you.  He gave you his attention, but you also knew he was simultaneously aware of everything around him, multi-tasking in his mind and, at any moment, in his actions – ready to bounce to whatever and whoever needed attention. 

That’s how you have to be when you’re helping administer a behemoth of a meet, such as the NSAF indoor or outdoor nationals.  And that’s how I experienced Cedric Walker, who was a colleague, but someone I admit I didn’t know well – really, only from his work as a board member of the NSAF, as they prepared for and ran these massive shows at The Armory and Greensboro, and other things the Foundation does.

Turns out that what I knew of the big man was just a part of his involvement in the sport we all love.  Turns out Coach Walker was a coach and ambassador for more than a dozen Team USAs in events over the years.  And it turns out that maybe his most significant gift of all was on the local level, where his work and presence in the Rochester, N.Y. area made him a legend in upstate New York – even if it was a lifetime cut too short.

So you may know Coach Walker from Rochester, from NSAF meets or board meetings or you may have met him in Paris; Grosseto, Italy; or Kingston, Jamaica, or as part of the teams that traveled there.  But unless you knew him across the board, you might not know how much he’s meant to the sport and to countless lives at every level – whether they were his athletes or his peers.

This life of service was celebrated Wednesday at Aenon Baptist Church, about a week after Cedric Earle Walker suffered a heart attack that followed his return home from the 2013 New Balance Nationals Indoor at The Armory in New York.  He had just 49 years with us, but oh, did he fill up those 49 years.

Cedric, born to Madie Ruth Walker and the late James E. Walker, graduated from Madison HS in Rochester and would go on to earn Bachelor of Science and a Master’s degree in Education from SUNY Brockport.  It was also at Brockport that he joined Phi Beta Sigma and it’s abundantly clear that the fraternity’s motto – “Culture for Service and Service to Humanity” – was something he took seriously his entire life.

You could say that was all before Cedric became a coach, but that wouldn’t quite be true.  He was a natural leader even from his days as an athlete.  “I thought that he was the coach because of the way he would organize things,” Penfield (N.Y.) coach Dave Hennessey told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “Then all of a sudden, he was competing.”

It seemed like he was born to coach and, by 1986, he was doing just that locally at Edison Tech.  But there was more to be done.

“At the end of that season, Ced approached me and said that we needed to start a club so our athletes could run in the summer,” recalled Leroy Dixon, who was competing locally for Franklin HS in the 70s when he first met Walker. “We decided to call the club Flower City TC, because in our first year the city's recreation department helped us with funds, equipment and a place to practice, and Rochester is known as the Flower City.”

Soon they were developing champions in the Flower City, including eventual Olympic Silver Medalist and 400H world-record-holder Kim Batten and more than 120 All-Americans at various levels.  By 1993, Walker was coaching at Dixon’s alma mater, Franklin, and tearing it up in New York’s Section V.  One unforgettable accomplishment was coaching the school’s 4x100 to a Penn Relays victory that year in 40.73. 

“That was an unheard-of time for a team from the northern climes,” said Jim Spier, the executive director of the NSAF.  “He was a great coach and, especially, a great relay coach.”

Walker had already begun to get recognition nationally, having become a member of the USATF Women’s Sprint Committee in 1991.  He then first worked with a national crew in 1993 as an assistant coach for Team USA at the World University Games.  Locally, by 1996, he became president of the Niagara Association of the USATF. 

The list of regional, national and international duties and assignments would become rather overwhelming:

• Assistant Coach, USATF Team, World University Games (1993)
• Head Manager, USATF World Jr. Team, Annecey, France (1998)
• Assistant Coach, USATF Jr. World Team, Kingston, Jamaica (2002)
• Assistant Coach, USATF World Team, Paris, France (2003)
• Assistant Coach USATF Indoor World Championship Team, Hungary (2004)
• Management Assistant, Olympic Games (2004)
• Head Relays Coach, National Junior Team, Grosseto, Italy (2004)
• Assistant Manager, World Team, Helsinki (2005)
• Assistant Manager, World Team, Moscow (2006)
• Head Manager, Pan American Juniors (2012)

Except it wasn’t overwhelming, because that’s what Walker did, that was how he rolled.  He became deeply connected to the sport’s VIPs at every level

“He was basically the Foundation's connection to the outside track world,” said Spier.  “If a contact had to be made, either domestically or internationally, Cedric would make it.  It was not that he had to make an introduction for himself and the foundation; Cedric would have already have known the contact.”

Maybe the greatest international success came at the 2004 Grosseto World Juniors.  With Cedric as the head relays coach, Team USA swept the four events with the stick, with three WJ records.



Mike Ford remembers Coach Walker’s guidance helping him earn a scholarship to Baylor, where he ran successfully and is now an assistant coach.  “He promised me I would become a better long and triple jumper if I trained during the summer (with the Flower City TC),” he said, before adding with a laugh, “That was probably only lie Cedric ever told me ... I ended up running more than jumping. To make a long story short, by the end of my junior year I won the 400m and broke the AAU record for the 17-18 age group at the time of 47.03 ... Cedric was an awesome man, he was like a second dad to me.”

Maybe the best thing about Walker was how he became a vessel for athletes to succeed, starting at the local level, continuing to the national level and then the international level.  A big part of that evolution was when Walker was elected to the NSAF Board of Directors in 2002.  And as the athletes moved on, it was never good luck and goodbye, because Walker was there at every stop.  He was the wellspring from which the river of youth athletic success flowed, but he was also the river itself and the ocean at the end of the river.

 “We took teams to Puerto Rico each year and he become the unofficial godfather to the kids on the team,” said Spier.  “And it wasn't a onetime thing; he stayed in contact with those kids through college and beyond.  He was passionate about what the Foundation does and was our main advocate.”

And, sometimes it flowed the other way.  A Leroy Dixon memory from 2008:  “He was in Russia and we were at our state meet.  We had a triple jumper that was ranked first in the meet, but he was in second going into the last jump. Ced called my cell phone and told me the adjustment the athlete needed to make.  The athlete made the adjustment and won on his final jump.”

Lord knows, we become slaves to technology and abuse it.  But for Cedric Walker, the cellular phone simply facilitated Cedric being Cedric.  It is how he kept the constant flow of communication going with everyone who he served.  “We would talk every day, sometimes three, four times a day,” said the NASF’s Joy Kamani.  “I had to warm up my morning tea many times!  He was always on the phone checking on someone or something.”

“There were times that we may not have spoken to each other for a couple months and, when we talked, it was like we just had a conversation yesterday,” said Dixon. “And there were times when we would talk five or six times a day.

“I can't think of anyone else who has done as much for our sport as he has, especially at the high school age and younger,” he continued.  “Coaches from all over the country called on Ced to help their athlete get into college and he would always get them in a school that best fit their need. I know that because Ced was so dedicated to the young people in our sport, a lot of them have gone on to become great coaches throughout the U.S. ... He was unique amongst the leaders of our sport because he reached out to anybody that needed help.”

There were no boundaries for this servant of track and field.  “He loved getting student-athletes – black, white, blue, yellow – into school to get a higher education,” said Coach Ford.  “He always stressed education is one of the keys to life.”

Finally, Coach Cedric Walker had fun, that was for sure.  He made sure no one took things too seriously.  “He kept us rolling with laughter,” said Kamani.

“I have too many memories with Cedric from playing Playstation for hours at his house to his teaching me how to drive – not in a parking lot, but on the interstate from Buffalo to Rochester,” recalled Baylor’s Coach Ford.

He loved good food, too.  “My favorite memory of Ced has to be him coming to my house on Christmas Eve with 10 pounds of chicken,” said Dixon.  “He would say doctor these up for me and I would season it up with spicy jerk seasoning, jerk marinade and scotch bonnet peppers.  He liked his jerk chicken spicy.  We would sit and talk for a couple hours then he would go home and cook it on his grill.”

“I hope Jesus has a slab of ribs in heaven ... what will you do without a grill?” said sister-in-law Trena Brown, on Cedric’s Facebook page.  “You always thought about everyone around you ... even those afar. You have left a legacy, in your children, stepchildren, your mother, brother, nieces and nephews and those who you've touched, certainly me! I'm proud and honored to call you my brother. I can imagine you at the grill with your beautiful wings...”

Leave it to Ms. Kamani to sum up the life of this man (from a story at nationalscholastic.org):  “No one was more active, nor gave so much to the sport and to the people fortunate enough to be associated with him.  Cedric was an integral part of the NSAF for over 20 years.  He was a visionary who made things happen almost magically.  When you thought of something that needed to be done or created, he had already done it.  He knew everyone in the sport; he never forgot a face, a name or a phone number.  He cared about every athlete he met, coached or simply had a conversation with.  He inspired and changed lives like no one we have ever known.”

Who knows why Coach Walker was taken from us so young, leaving behind his wife, Kimberly, plus four children, his mother, and a large family.  Maybe a doctor would say it was because he enjoyed certain culinary delights a little much.  I prefer to think it was because maybe in those 49 years he did as much as most folks do in twice that time.  And maybe the Good Lord figured He needed him coaching at the “next level.”

Yes, they truly celebrated Walker’s life Wednesday; it’s how you want to deal with someone’s passing.  But when someone has done so much, and is still doing so much, the loss is acute.

“He is irreplaceable and we can't imagine what life will be without him,” said Spier.

Goodbye, Coach, and take solace that your pupils – young, old, black, white, from all over the world – won’t forget what you taught them.