by Bob Morris

Mississippi is a land of history – the birthplace of James Meredith, Fannie Lou Hamer, Tennessee Williams, Muddy Waters, and one very special Beargrass member, Coach Joe Walker, Jr.

It is here where character is built, dug out of the soil of cotton fields under a hot Mississippi sun along dirt roads that take you to one-of-a-kind stores, forever “un-chained,” with esoteric signs, such as “Quitman Motel Where Elvis Rocks You to Sleep,” or “Cotton Boll Juke Joint.”

A land of contradictions and richness.  Autocrats, plutocrats, democrats. Ramblers and gamblers. Day laborers, night laborers, night crawlers. Cottonmouths. Plantation houses on Indian mounds. Jukes. Blues. Open roads. Ribs, bibs, bibles and Sunday dinners. And one legendary coach.  It is here in the Delta of Mississippi where our story begins. 

But first let’s take a side trip to Kansas.

“Mom and dad were two very different people,” Joe remembers.  “Dad was from the Mississippi Delta with that kind of slow as molasses personality that just poured over people.  Mom was from Kansas and was a no nonsense, get it done woman.  Her dad had left her family during the depression, and her family had a tough go of it.” 

“Dad enlisted as a pilot in the Army Air Corps in WWII and would be stationed in Independence, Kansas.  It was there at a cadet dance that he met mom.  You might say it was love at first sight and early on mom decided she would follow dad wherever that journey took them.”

“Because of mom’s upbringing in the Baptist Church and her deep faith she followed Ruth’s famous declaration – Where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge.  Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16)”

Joe Walker Sr. later went to Corpus Christi, Texas, and became a pilot. Many years afterward, Joe Jr. found old letters exchanged between his parents, revealing that they often wrote to each other and even decided to get married through their correspondence.

“Mom took the train from Kansas to Texas so that they could get married.  Imagine the faith she must have had.   But first they had to have a witness and not knowing anyone, mom recruited a stranger on the street to be their witness.  Like I said, Mom got things done,” Joe smiles fondly remembering his mom and dad. 

While the war exposed his dad to a world outside the Delta, he returned to attend Ole Miss on the GI bill.  Joe Jr. was born in Oxford. After graduation Joe’s dad accepted a job as coach of the Presbyterian Orphanage and Boarding School in French Camp, Mississippi, and from there he went on to Utica as a high school teacher and coach and later as the principal.    

Utica is a small town in south central Mississippi, a place comfortably frozen in time, between Jackson to the north and Vicksburg to the South is where Joe Jr. spent his childhood.

“I couldn’t have had a better childhood,” Joe recalls.  “We had a sense of belonging that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived there.  The cotton fields, the levees, the long straight roads disappearing into the horizon all carry the memories of those who worked, struggled and dreamed before you.  My family taught me the values shaped by the land that feels both ancient and alive.” 

“I had one brother, three years younger, who loved music.  I, on the other hand, was into athletics,”  Joe remembers with a smile. 

“I was very close to my dad.  He motivated me to work hard in sports and school.  Always to do my personal best, a theme that I would later carry into coaching.  Dad’s a big reason why I became a coach.”

Joe ran track for his father, Joe Walker Sr., a legendary coach in his own right in the years at Utica High School. The younger Walker lettered in track and cross country as well as basketball. He was selected to play in the state basketball all-star game, and he contributed to the Utica track and field team’s state championship.

After graduation from high school, Joe followed in his dad’s footsteps to Old Miss where his dad had lettered years before.  There he walked onto the basketball team. 

After his first year at Ole Miss, Joe ran track and played freshman basketball. When he didn’t make the varsity hoops squad, he was asked to serve as team manager.

“I managed for a year, and it was beneficial to me, but I really missed playing,” he said. “God had a plan for me.”

He enrolled at Mississippi College to resume his basketball playing career. He also participated in track and cross country – a sport Ole Miss didn’t offer. He earned letters in all three sports. 

Joe remembers, “I loved to play sports and while my size would be a factor that may have limited my athletic future it opened the door to coaching.”

While at Mississippi College Joe met a young lady, Carolyn Faye Hall.   “I had a date to the school’s fall festival and when I went to pick her up, I couldn’t help noticing my date’s pretty roommate.  It took me a day or two, but I got her name and I introduced myself to her.  She was hesitant at first, since I had been out with her roommate, but I was persistent. “Joe laughs.   

Joe and Carolyn went on their first date to see Ole Miss play Georgia in Jackson, Mississippi.  We dated for just over a year and decided to get married in 1968. 

Joe joined Meridian High School after college as an assistant football and basketball coach and also volunteered with the track team.   

“He called a team meeting and explained to us that track was a year-round sport, something that you work at every day,” said Meridian resident Robert Loeb, who ran track for the Wildcats that year.

“He told us he was getting ready to put us on a training program and would be coaching us. I don’t think anyone realized at the time how lucky or fortunate we were when he moved to Meridian, but we quickly realized it. By the time track season rolled around in March, there was no one who could compete with us, and that was the case for the rest of the year.”

Following Joe’s success at Meridian he would be hired to lead the men’s track program at Mississippi College a Division II school in Clinton where he coached track and cross-country for nine years. 

As head track coach from 1970-78, he won two Gulf South Conference championships and was named NCAA District II Coach of the Year five times, and GSC Coach of the Year twice, and was selected to the Mississippi College Athletics Hall of Fame.

His coaching philosophy, steeped in faith, was, at its core, quite simple: believe in your student-athletes. Because he demonstrated that faith, Walker was able to instill it in those he coached.

“Press On” was a phrase Walker used often, encouraging his team to train hard. It references Philippians 3:14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

“Coach Walker made everyone feel that they were a part of something bigger than the sport,” said Lee Dukes ’75, vice president of clinical outcomes at Catapult Health. “It didn’t matter if a person was one of the best performers or as physically blessed – you learned from effort. Do your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

One achievement not in the record books that Joe is very proud of is that in 1971 he recruited the first Black students to attend Mississippi College.  “I had coached these young people in high school,” Joe recalled.  They were good athletes and, more importantly, fine young men.”  This was no small accomplishment to achieve in what had previously been segregated schools. 

In 1979 Joe accepted the track and cross-country head coaching job at Ole Miss where he coached for six years before taking on another challenge as Head Coach at the University of Florida.  While at Florida Joe directed the Gators to five-straight Southeastern Conference titles, including the first outdoor crown at Florida since 1956.  And there’s much more.

• Individually, led his student-athletes to 31 All-America honors and 17 SEC titles.

• Led Florida to its highest NCAA finish at the time with a third place showing at the 1988 NCAA Indoor Championships; the 1987 cross country team placed eighth at the national championships.

• Coached Dennis Mitchell to the 200-meter title and the collegiate record in the event at the 1988 NCAA Indoor Championships; led Mitchell and the 1,600 m relay team to the national title that season.

• Received the 1988 Florida Track Club Cade Award for his overall contributions to the sport of track.

 In 1998 he would return to Old Miss as head coach where he would be for the next 24 years.  While at Ole Miss Joe was tabbed the 2002 U.S. Olympic Committee National Track and Field Coach of the Year. 

And we’re just at the starting line. His athletes:

• Won 15 NCAA titles during his two stints, along with earning 123 All-America honors and 45 SEC championships

• Earned SEC Coach of the Year six times

• Served as the personal coach for four-time World Champion and Olympic gold medalist long jumper Brittney Reese through 2013; led her to two NCAA titles during her collegiate career

• Coached Savante’ Stringfellow to three NCAA titles in the jumps events; his coaching led him to a spot on the 2000 Olympic team, a World Championships silver medalist and a World Championships Indoor Gold Medal.

• Had at least one athlete participate in each of the Olympic Games from 1976-2000 and then again in 2008 and 2012.

• Led teams to a pair of top 10 finishes at the NCAA Championships and five top 15 showings.

• Had a strong influence on and tremendous success with sprinters, leading Isiah Young to Team USA at the 2012 summer Olympics, while Tony Dees went on to win an Olympic silver medal in the 110m hurdles in 1992

• Selected to multiple coaching capacities at the international level: head coach of the 1985 USA Pan Pacific Games team and manager of the 1981 U.S. Team at the World University Games.

But Coach Joe was not finished.  Joe’s son was the assistant track coach at the University of Louisville.  A single dad with two kids to raise, Joe was considering retirement and thought he and Carolyn would move to Louisville to help with the grandkids. 

Joe’s son had an even better idea.  Why not have his dad coach high jump and long jump at U of L.  So, in 2012 Joe and Carolyn began the next leg in their journey and Joe found himself coaching once again. 

While at U of L Joe:

• Led Damar Robinson to All-American performances in the high jump and the triple jump at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Championships

• Led Jerin Allen to an All-American performance in the high jump at the 2017 NCAA Outdoor Championships

• Led Ben Williams to a third straight All-American performance in the 2015 NCAA Indoor Championships;

• Also guided Damar Robinson to All-American honors in the high jump

• Coached 10 athletes to All-ACC honors in 2015

• Led Ben Williams to a second straight All-American performance in the 2015 NCAA Indoor Championships with a third place finish in the triple jump

• Led second-team outdoor All-American Brittany Owens to a 10th place finish in the long jump in 2014, making her the second outdoor All- American in the event in school history and earning her the highest finish by a Louisville female student-athlete in the event

• Coached Ben Williams to indoor All-America honors in the triple jump with a fourth-place finish in 2013-14, making Williams just the second indoor All-American in the event in school history

• Led jumper Guillaume Victorin to a ninth place finish at the 2013-14 indoor NCAA Championships in the men’s long jump, earning him second-team All-America honors.

• Coached Michelle Kinsella to second-team indoor All-America honors in the high jump with a 10th-place finish in 2012-13; Kinsella had previously broken a BIG EAST and Louisville record at the BIG EAST Championships.

During his 49-year career leading student-athletes, the Utica native and Mississippi College graduate won five straight Southeastern Conference championships at the University of Florida, led the University of Mississippi to 11 Top 20 finishes in National Collegiate Athletic Association competition, and was named the SEC Coach of the Year six times. He coached 124 All-Americans, 60 SEC individual champions, 12 NCAA individual champions, four Olympic medalists, and two Olympic gold medalists.

In 2002, he was named the United States Olympic Committee National Track and Field Coach of the Year. In 2018, he was the first Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame member to be inducted as a track and field coach.

Out of breath yet?  Let’s keep running. 

With all his accomplishments as a coach Joe is quick to tell you his proudest accomplishments were his 55-year marriage to Carolyn and his three sons, Joe III, Brian and Luke, along with three grandchildren Kai and Kade and Lizzie. 

“Carolyn loved people, anything that put her around people, she loved,” Joe recalls.  “She was always outgoing and would easily talk to anyone, even strangers.”

“She was a great coach’s wife, too.  She was always very active with the athletes on my teams.  She was like an aunt or second mom to many of them.  I owe any success I had to her; she helped make it all happen.”  Sadly, Carolyn passed away in 2023 and Brian died in 2024. 

There is one other thing Joe loves. 

“I love homegrown tomatoes.  So, one day not long after we moved to Louisville we stopped at the Farmers Market.  Clayton Farris was volunteering in the Beargrass Booth.  “We told Clayton we were new in town and were looking for a Church.  “Well,” Clayton said, “I’ve got just the place for you here at Beargrass.” 

It’s no exaggeration to say that Joe Walker Jr. built one of the most successful—and most respected—collegiate track and field coaching careers in American sports.

What a joy it is to know Coach Joe Walker. If you haven’t met him, make a point to do so. Shake his hand. You’ll be won over immediately by his quick smile, his humility, and the quiet confidence of a man whose life is anchored in faith, family, and the kind of hard work that feels as honest and enduring as picking cotton under a hot Mississippi sun.

“You know when you’re 18 years old and leave home for the first time, life can go in many different directions —good or not so good.    Achieving your personal best in track & field or in life is what I tried to encourage all my athletes to strive for.  I just wanted to make a difference in these young people’s lives.”

For Coach Joe Walker, those values weren’t just spoken—they were lived. And when you look at the legacy he leaves behind, one truth rises above the rest:

Coach, you ran your personal best.

Content & lists of Joe’s achievements for this feature were obtained from personal interviews; the University of Louisville and Ole Miss athletic departments; The Meridian Star newspaper; and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.  More information can be found online. 

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We Are One Together is a new monthly news feature by and about church members that celebrates the beautiful, diverse stories that make up our Beargrass family.

If you would like to be featured in an upcoming edition of We Are One Together or would like to recommend one of our members to be included please contact Bob Morris at 270-316-1267 or by email at bm*********@***oo.com.