Walden to be inducted into MACJC Athletic Hall of Fame
Will Kollmeyer/LetsGoICC.com

FULTON, MS – Former three-sport star Jim Walden will be inducted into the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges (MACJC) Hall of Fame in a formal ceremony Tuesday, April 23 at the Muse Center on the Rankin Campus of Hinds Community College.

Walden played football, basketball and baseball at then Itawamba Junior College from 1956-57.  The Aberdeen native earned All-American status as a quarterback for the Indians before transferring to play at the University of Wyoming under legendary coach Bob Devaney in the 1958 and ‘59 seasons.

Walden was then one of 33 players selected by the Denver Broncos in the first AFL Draft in 1960. He played in the Canadian Football League for three seasons before starting his coaching career at the high school level in his native Mississippi.

Walden began his college coaching career in 1969 at the University of Nebraska on Devaney’s staff, where he assisted on back-to-back national championship teams in 1970 and 1971.  After the ’72 season, Walden left Lincoln to become an assistant coach for four seasons at the University of Miami before being named the offensive backfield coach at Washington State University in 1977. 

The next year he was promoted to head coach of the Cougars and kept that position from 1978 to 1986.  Walden’s signature season was in 1981 when he was selected as the Pac-10 Coach of the Year after leading his WSU squad to the Holiday Bowl, which was the school’s first bowl appearance in 51 years.  He was also named Pac-10 Coach of the Year two seasons later when his ’83 edition finished third in the conference with a 5-3 mark, 7-4 overall.  His ’85 team won its third Apple Cup (rivalry game vs. Washington) in four seasons, a feat that’s been accomplished only two other times in the history of its football program.

Following the 1986 season, Walden left WSU to become head coach at Iowa State, where he remained for eight seasons and ranks sixth all-time at ISU in total wins.

Other members representing ICC in the MACJC Athletic Hall of Fame: Mark Bray (2007), Joe Ferguson (2007), Larry Gann (2007), Bud Davis (2008), Buster Davis (2008), Linda Partlow (2009), Paul Johnson (2010), Roy Cresap (2011) and Mike Eaton (2012).