Walker decides to change coaching positions

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- Steve Walker, who has been the head boy's basketball coach at St. James High School for the past 16 sasons, has resigned from that position.

He will be an assistant head coach to Dan Wolfe, the new girl's head coach at St. James.

"The main reason for this is my daughter, Abby, who is going to be in eighth grade and plays basketball," Walker said Wednesday afternoon. "The way that the (basketball) schedules are set up in the South Central Conference, the boys and girls basketball teams play on the same nights. I just could not see myself missing between 13-16 games of hers every year. She wanted me to keep coaching the boys team so it is not her, but I would have felt bad."

Walker's son, Alex, who graduated this year, will play college basketball at St. Mary's in Winona this year. Being an assistant will free Walker from some Saturday responsibilites he had as a head coach, like the elementary program and radio shows.

The timing was also right, with a coaching position open for the girls team. If Walker had coached the boys one more year, there may not have been an opening.

"I wanted to still keep coaching -- I enjoy the teaching part of coaching as much as anything," he said. "I just felt that I wanted to coach a few more years and this would give me the opportunity to do that without having to miss any of her games."

Walker, who has won over 200 games in his 16 years as boys head coach, said that last year's team was not his best.

"I think that our team the year before when we went to the state tournament and had a 25-3 record was my best," he said.

Walker said that he will take a lot of good memories with him as boys head coach, the biggest being the last two years when the team went 48-6 and won two South Central Conference titles.

But he also has some great memories from early in his coaching tenure.

"My first year as head coach, the team the year before had not won a game," he said. "We won three games my first year and we won more games every year for the next six years.

"The kids worked hard and were really cooperative. I have been blessed with great parents.I have not had a lot of the horror stories that you hear at other places," he said. "It was a very hard decison for me to make. It was one that will take a while to get used to."

Walker said that going from a head coach to an assistant coach will be different.

"I don't know if it will be a hard transition," he said. "Dan Wolfe, who coached the boys program at New Ulm Cathedal, will be the new girls head coach and I have worked with Dan now for a couple of years.

"We agree on a lot of different things -- he will accept my ideas," Walker said. "The part that I enjoy most is practices more than anything else in teaching fundamentals and teach the game. That is why I want to keep coaching and not just sit and watch."

Walker said that he does not know who will take over his head coaching position "but I hope that one of my assistants wants it. Dan Reinhart has been my assistant for 14 years, so I would hope that he would be interested in it and want to take the job."

Walker said that the most important things that he has learned as a head coach is communication between players and parents, and to make sure that everyone understands what their role is on a team.

"I have been fortunate here at St. James that parents here have let me do that," he said. "Organization is also important. Those things are the two biggest things that I have learned."