Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Rick Walker - 1974

I have to start when our family moved to East 29th Street. (Strange isn’t it, EAST 29th Street.) I was perhaps, 8 years old. Very quickly the neighbors behind us, on East 28th Street, realized the four Walker boys (Bob, Rick, Mike and Brian) were loud and entertaining.

The neighbor behind us was the Eathorne family.

The first impression we gave our neighbor was the day we locked Mike out of the house. It ended with a CRASH! Our house had two sliding glass doors. The downstairs sliding glass door was in little pieces on the ground. The Walker boys had arrived!

Les saw that I was the tall one and perhaps wanted to keep me out of trouble. He must of asked Mark to invite me over to see if I could play basketball. I remember the day Mark first asked me if I wanted to play basketball.

I said, “Sure.”

He threw me a round orange ball. (And I said to myself, what do I do with this? I really had not heard of the game of basketball.) They had a hoop nailed to the back of their garage. That was the day I was introduced to the game of basketball.

As the years went by, Mark would invite me to go with him and his dad to the East High gym. The basketball team had practice. We would watch them run around for a while, then, we would go play on the wrestling mats, swing on the climbing rope, hide under the bleachers and basically stay out of trouble.

I was invited to go to some of the games. It was awesome for a young kid to see the drama of East basketball before the game even began. The players running through the banner, the Knight and squire with the sword coming into the gym, the lights going out and the spotlight coming on, people cheering and going crazy, the introduction of the players, the pep band. All was designed to create the atmosphere for East High Basketball.

The most fun was sitting behind the East High bench. We would look like we were watching the game, but secretly we played our own little game. We would dare each other to trace with our finger, very lightly, over the name stitched on the back of the warm up jackets. If the player felt our touch, by usually turning around to see what we were doing, we would lose. I remember the toughest name to get all the way through, without him feeling it, was Gundlefinger.

Then came the day I was to attend East High School. As a freshman I feared, Mr. Eathorne even though I grew up in his neighborhood. At school, he had a way to instill fear in freshmen.

I started going to open gyms to play. The East High gym was the place to be on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sunday afternoons. I remember the day he told me to guard Steve Boyce. THE Steve Boyce? He was a senior, I was a freshman. “Boy”, I thought, “Eathorne did not like me.”

That’s the way Les coached. He challenged you to compete beyond your comfort zone in an attempt to help you realize your full potential.
I remember him saying to me after one open gym, “Good job, Walker.”
Man, that was a great feeling. I also discovered that playing with the “big boys” wasn’t all that difficult. The coach just wanted to see your hustle your butt off. You did not need a lot of talent.

He did not have to say much. After awhile, one could tell whether he approved of your play by the way he looked at you.

When I became a junior, something changed. He talked to me more as a person, not just a player. I found out that he purposely instilled fear in the heart and minds of little freshmen to see if they really wanted to play East High Basketball.

Coach taught his players how to represent their family and community; how to take pride in their school; how to conduct themselves in public; what it meant to work hard and pursue excellence. He had high expectations and he expected you to fulfill them. He taught us to be quality young men and contributing citizens.

It was Les that introduced me to coaching. Les called me up the day before practice was to begin in 1984 and said he did not have a JV coach for this season. He asked me to come down to the gym and apply. If I liked it, I could have a job. Like it! It was great!

As I went on in my coaching career, East High basketball was the standard I used to evaluate any other program. It was the example I followed to build my programs.

From watching the drama as a kid, to being part of the drama was an experience I cannot fully articulate. The website explains more of the traditions that impacted the young men who played for him and the community. I have seen and experienced Coach Eathorne’s commitment to his players from an early age. I thank him for his influence. I was unusually blessed having a coach and mentor who was a neighbor and is a friend.

Rick Walker
King’s West School
Sports Beyond

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