Northwestern University Athletics
Towson Game Program Stories: The Coach's Wife
9/8/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 8, 2009
The following story appeared in the Sept. 5, 2009, edition of The Den.
By SKIP MYSLENSKI, NUsports.com Special Contributor
His golf clubs, with great ceremony, were stowed away with August's arrival and now their lives unfolded once again at a familiar pace, to a familiar rhythm. He, the coach, would dive into practice and all those sundry plans needed to prepare for the season rushing toward him. She, the coach's wife, would limit her own trips to the course and instead spend her days readying their home for the many visitors soon to come.
She was often alone now, that is a curse that accompanies any coach's wife, but routinely, almost daily, she would gather up their dog Magic and wander with it over to the practice field near the end of the afternoon session. There, before he again disappeared to analyze more film or to lead another meeting, they would chat, laugh, catch up on the news and have a romp with their pet.
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"This was always a very exciting time of the year. A new season. It was hard to see summer go, but it was always exciting," she now remembers. But then, on a July night in 2006, her husband, the Northwestern coach, the ebullient Randy Walker finished up some yard work, went upstairs to take a shower and suddenly, shockingly, tragically, dropped dead.
A good man was stolen away and now, for Tammy Walker, there would forever be a different pace, a different rhythm, a different feeling as fall approached and finally took up residence. "Sometimes it's hard. It's kind of bittersweet," she is saying now. "I still like football. I still follow (Northwestern), obviously. I still pay a lot of attention to what Northwestern's doing. But it's bittersweet.
"My life's changed a lot. It's hard. But at the same time, (in mid-August), there was a scrimmage and I think it was the first time in 10 years I didn't go to it. I went to the Solheim Cup instead. So, you know, it's a tradeoff. Obviously I'd rather have things the way they were. But I went with three friends and we had a great weekend. That's something I wouldn't have done before."
• • •
There is, hard by Ryan Field as a memorial to her late husband, a Walker Way and a Walker Terrace and, says Tammy Walker, "It's good. It's good. You want your loved ones to be remembered. So that's good. He would be happy. But he would think they were making too much of a fuss."
• • •
Back at Troy High School in southern Ohio, he starred as a running back and sang in the choir and sat on the student council and was so serious about his pursuits that he found most girls, he once said, "frivolous and stupid." But he sensed something different about Tammy Weikert and, in the Fall of 1970, they were serendipitously thrown together to plan their school's Thanksgiving dance.
She was attractive, which was good, and down-to-earth, which he liked, yet he was awkward around girls and so feared rejection that he waited six weeks before asking her out. They would go to a minor league hockey game in Dayton. Now, forever, they were forged-and-bonded and when she, a year older, went off to college at Miami, he spurned offers from (among others) Northwestern and Ohio State to follow her there. (She often kidded him about that.)
That too is where his coaching career began, began after he was one of the Bengals' final cuts in 1976, and now it was her turn to follow him on that vertiginous voyage taken by any in his profession. "We grew up together, basically," she now remembers softly and so there is little surprise when her next admission comes.
"I find myself saying stuff (that he did) all the time. I use sports analogies all the time. Football analogies, as he did. I'm probably no different from all coach's wives."
What do you miss the most, she is then asked.
"I guess," she begins, and then she pauses. "It has nothing to do with football. Just the closeness of the relationship. It has nothing to do with football. I'm sorry he didn't get to see his grandkids. That's life. But as he would say, 'Nobody said life is fair.'"
He also always said that in life you have to respond, she is told.
"Those kinds of things go through my head all the time in this situation," she says. "But I'm doing well. That doesn't come up too often. . . We had a really good marriage. We were very close. It's hard. But."
• • •
"Our year was planned around football and I tend to kind of almost do the same things. But it's the third year now, the fourth season, and things have gradually changed," Tammy Walker is saying, and one of the most-significant changes is that most of those players coached by her husband have graduated. "So I guess I feel a little more distant from the team, although I've gotten to know some of the younger players a little bit. The coaching staff has changed too, there are a lot of new ones. But, again, I've gotten to know some of them and their wives, certainly. I still have some contact with the coach's wives."
Do they include you in activities, she is asked.
"They have, they always have. But I've pulled away a little bit. Not consciously. But I have other things filling my life now. It's been a process. Since it was such a sudden thing, it's been a process. It's been gradual. But I have a lot of things filling my life. So it's good."
• • •
Their daughter Abbey lives in Rome with their two grandchildren and sometimes she flies over to see them. Their son Jamie lives in the city and she often sees him as well. Then there is family to visit in Ohio and a condo for escape down in Florida and golf, always golf, now she is playing more golf than ever.
But much of Tammy Walker's time is also taken up raising funds for Northwestern and this endeavor too has altered the pace, the rhythm, of her autumn weekends. Before, as the coach's wife, she sat home alone on a Friday night. Now, as a school employee, she is often at a boosters' function. Before, as the coach's wife, she had no obligations on game day. Now, as a school employee, those obligations can be endless. ("That's fine. I'd rather have that," she says.) Before, as the coach's wife, she would meet him outside the locker room after a game, walk with him to meet the press, listen as he analyzed that afternoon's affair and then host a tailgate party for family and friends. Now, as a school employee, she does none of that.
Even her experience at the game itself is no longer the same. "My focus is different. I'm not a coach's wife," she explains. "So while I certainly want them to win and I get all worked up, I don't have that butterfly-in-the-stomach thing anymore. I still want them to win. But I'm a fan. It's not the same. The consequences for my life aren't the same.
"That's OK, actually" -- and here she laughs out loud -- "I mean, I really want them to be successful. But it doesn't affect me that much anymore. It's a big difference."
• • •
"The one thing I still have a hard time with, I don't like to watch the team run onto the field," Tammy Walker says. "He was always in front."
• • •
Death is a wraith that sneaks into a home as quiet as a second-story man and then ravages a life, pillages a person, steals from so many a loved one held dear. This is what occurred on that July night back in 2006 and with it, of course, came changes both large and small. This is what Tammy Walker finally touches down on and here she is saying, "It makes you realize what's important and what's not. I really tend to not get so worked up about things that I did before.
"I have to remind my children of that sometimes. They're young. Somebody told me this, I think it's a great saying, that most things you think are big problems are not. They're just inconveniences. They're not problems. So you kind of just go with the flow. One of my faults is I'm not very patient. I've learned to be patient. And appreciate life. I'm having new experiences in a lot of different ways and that's OK. Things I wouldn't have had. Not that I wouldn't go back. But life's good. There's a lot to do and experience.
"I appreciate people more now and my friends and relationships. I always did. But it's amazing how that kind of experience makes a big impression, obviously. I just don't let too much time get by before I contact people. I keep up with friends better. Some of that's probably age, too. But I let people know how I feel about them and how important they are to me."
She is 56 now, busy breaking down her home and readying herself for a move to a condo in downtown Evanston. Memories surround her as she does this and one of them, a significant one, is a two-by-four decorated with the logos of each Big Ten school. The coaches on her husband's last staff presented it to her and it memorializes both one of his accomplishments and one of his many aphorisms.
"He beat every one of those schools (Northwestern when he was coaching at Miami). I think he's the only one to do that," she says, explaining the former, but she has no need to explain the latter. All who spent any time around Randy Walker at some point heard him declare: "Trust what you are and trust what you do. I use the analogy all the time. I say, 'Guys, we could lay that two-by-four 10-feet long right here on the ground and every guy on the team could walk right down it. But on game day, they raise it up about 100 feet. Now who wants to walk across that 10 feet?'"
That memory, shared by so many, transforms the room, brings Randy Walker right into this room where his widow sits and now, for just a moment, she is silent and still. Then, finally, Tammy Walker looks up and says, "Sometimes it seems longer than three years. Sometimes it doesn't seem that long at all. Time goes by fast, faster as we get older. But I just don't feel it's been that long since he walked in the door.
"But. But then there's been a lot that's happened since he's been gone. I guess time moves on and you have to embrace what you have. That's what I've done."
