“He was everything I wasn’t. He was the yin and I was the yang.” This is how teacher, former coach, and assistant athletic director Mr. Walker describes former Paint Branch student, teacher, and coach, Mr. Walter Hardy. When people think of Mr. Hardy, they instantly think of Mr. Walker – they were one of Paint Branch’s most iconic duos.

The death of Coach Hardy was heartbreaking and hit many people hard, including Coach Walker. The two began working together at Paint Branch in 1996, where they both taught history and coached. When asked what he will miss most about Coach Hardy, Mr. Walker says, “his smile, him yelling at me, his kids.”

The two became close friends as they worked together over the years and Coach Walker says that Mr. Hardy “was a person that definitely brought out the best in me, and only he could do it.”
Coach Walker was born on the Northside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a family of six. He attended Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School where he played football for four years, and was granted a scholarship to Slippery Rock University. He “thoroughly enjoyed [his] high school years,” and tells his students to this day to “work hard and enjoy their surroundings because it’s only for four years.”
Coach Walker has taught for twenty-two years now, including eighteen years as a football coach. He was recruited to coach football here at Paint Branch, where then Athletic Director Butch Hilliard hired him to work with the Paint Branch Panthers football team.

Reflecting on the experience, Coach Walker recalls that he “really enjoyed it,” and that it was “different than anything [he] was expecting.” His most memorable moment from coaching Paint Branch football was “beating Sherwood with [his] wife next to him.”
Although coaching is a part of who he is, Coach Walker says he doesn’t miss it because his new role as Assistant Athletic Director allows him to put “more time into the athletic department” and to “meet a lot more student-athletes other than just the football team.” This mentality reflects the important role that athletics have played in his life. Coach Walker began playing sports at six years old, and he views sports as “opportunities.”

As a teacher and former coach, Mr. Walker has found that there are many similarities between coaching and teaching. “I see every game as a test, you either win or lose, pass or fail. I see homework as practice. I see every day an opportunity of getting better in your craft, and I see relationships on and off the court, and in the classroom.”
Even though Coach Walker sees several similarities between the two, he says that he feels the impact of teaching is different than that of coaching. “I can impact more people as a teacher than coaching. Those that I coach are usually just for the season whereas when I teach a student, it’s for a lifetime,” he says on the topic.

Coach Walker has always wanted to be a teacher, a legacy that his family began and he continued. Both his aunt and sisters are educators; his aunt is also a teacher. Additionally, his wife, Mrs. Jennifer Walker, also works here at Paint Branch. Coach Walker says, “It’s awesome” having his wife work in the same school because they can “bounce ideas off of each other,” and “have the same students so that [they] can have a plan of attack on how to deal with certain students.”

When talking about his wife, Coach Walker can’t help but praise her just a little. “She’s everything I’m not,” he starts. “She’s won awards for her teaching in economics. She graduated from Syracuse. She’s truly a much better teacher than I am. She brings out the better side of me in teaching.”
Although not all students will come across Coach Walker, he’s impacted a lot of lives, and his accomplishments here at Paint Branch reflect his dedication to the school, and to teaching. In the school year 2016-2017 Coach Walker won the Phi Beta Sigma Teacher of the Year award for his constant teaching efforts. As someone who doesn’t like to be the center of attention, Coach Walker called it “very embarrassing,” but he says he was “very honored, and very humbled.” He ended on the topic by stating, “I don’t do my job for awards, I do my job so that people can benefit from the work that I do.”
While it is clear that he has impacted the Paint Branch community, Coach Walker is quick to note that it has also impacted him. When he came to Burtonsville, Maryland he didn’t know anybody, but he decided he wanted to become a part of the community, and today he calls it “[his] community.”