Walker named head coach in Alabama
WBB: The former Racer guard will lead the program at Lawrence County High School
To say the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind for former Murray State guard Jenna Walker would be the proverbial understatement.
On May 6th, Walker accepted a teaching position at Moulton Middle School in Moulton, Alabama.
On May 10th, Walker graduated with honors from Murray State with a degree in Middle School Education.
This morning, Walker is waking up as the newly minted head coach of the Lawrence County High School girls basketball program in Moulton.
If that’s not enough, she’s also getting married in July.
As over the moon as Walker is to run her own program, this wasn’t the original plan.
“I knew the head coach (at Lawrence County),” Walker explained. “He had called me and wanted me to be the assistant and I was super excited, but then he changed routes. He is now going to do great things at a different position, and they offered me the job after that. It ended up just working out the way it was supposed to. Everything right now has been happening for a reason and everything has fallen into place, so I'm really excited. We're in a very big growing stage right now and I'm excited to take this over because I can do a lot of teaching. I feel like that's my best asset: teaching and learning and growing and showing the excitement of my love for the game. I get to give back and, now that I am a fifth grade teacher, I can even reach out to the young kids while coaching the high school.”
After a star-crossed playing career, Walker had to medically retire from playing before last season with lingering knee issues. (You can listen to our conversation from October about her decision to step away from the game here.) While she didn’t get to play for the Racers, that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved in the day-to-day operations in the program. Walker did literally anything to help the team win in any way she could, and she believes that will help her in her new position.
“I hope I am a coach that can do a little bit of everything in reaching kids — all kids,” Walker said. “I feel like I have played a million different roles in basketball, and I feel like I could touch a little bit of every kid, and the different situations of every kid. I'm hoping to build to be a winning coach, but I also hope that my kids know that I hope I'm a good role model and a good person for them to be around too.”
In the summer of 1996, a 23-year-old recent graduate of Murray State named Rechelle Cadwell got her first head coaching job at Murray High School. Twenty-nine years later, Walker is following in her college coach’s footsteps, and don’t be surprised if there are quite a few similarities between Lawrence County girl’s program and the Rechelle Turner’s Murray State women’s program.
“I texted her yesterday and I said, ‘The news isn't out yet but I'm going to need some of your stuff,’” Walker chuckled. “I asked her for some of the motivational side of things like the ‘Green Light (Shooting)’ and the point system that we do in the summer — just to get people excited about it. She was just as excited as I was, and she couldn't have been any nicer. I told her, ‘I pray that I am half the coach that you were to me.’”
Of all the positives Walker brought to the Murray State program over the last three years, you could argue being an A+ teammate was at the top of the list. Her enthusiasm and support of her teammates succeeding was unmatched. Now that she’s going to lead her own program, one might think she’ll need to dial back the joy that pours out of her on the sidelines.
But if that’s what you think, you’d be very wrong.
“Oh, I will be even more (enthusiastic) — even more,” Walker laughed. “I think it's the idea that those are my kids. That might come with really big highs and really big lows of things, and a lot of expectations, but I think I am even more enthusiastic with my own coaching and my own doing. I think I'm all about emotions, and I think it's good to have emotions. I'm just so excited. I hope that me being, what you said, an A+ teammate can transfer into being an amazing supporter of my own players.”