Jim Walden
-
- Year:
- 2013
-
- Sport:
- Football, Men's Basketball, Baseball
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).