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Walter facing another challenge
New WFU baseball coach has resurrected GWU, New Orleans
Ken Bennett Photo /Courtesy of Wake Forest University
Tom Walter coached New Orleans to a 38-26 record in 2007 and a 43-21 mark in 2008.
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Published: June 17, 2009
It's a hard job, keeping the Wake Forest baseball team competitive in the meat grinder known as the ACC.
Tom Walter has known harder.
Walter, named yesterday as the Deacons' new baseball coach, has coached at George Washington and New Orleans.
At George Washington he took over a program that had averaged fewer than 22 wins over the previous five seasons. In Walter's eight seasons at George Washington, the Colonels averaged 39 victories and had 26 players sign professional baseball contracts.
"When Tom got there, the program needed some work," Athletics Director Ron Wellman said in yesterday's announcement. "One of his opponents told me that they probably played in the worst baseball facility in America."
At New Orleans, he kept the program afloat after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the campus and sent the team -- which included 22 new recruits -- packing all the way to New Mexico, where Coach Rocky Ward of New Mexico State arranged quarters and essentials for the Privateers.
"We went from jambalaya to burritos in a hurry," Walter said.
The Privateers finished 30-28 that season -- despite spending January in Mobile, Ala., and February and March in Westwego, La. They then won 81 games over the next two seasons, reached the NCAA Tournament each year and had 10 players sign professional contracts over Walter's five seasons.
Wellman said there were 18 NCAA Division I coaches who either applied for or expressed interest in the job, which opened when the contract of Rick Rembielak (142-142 over five seasons) wasn't renewed. He said that eight of them coached teams in the NCAA Tournament this season, and eight others had been in the NCAA Tournament over the past three seasons.
"We had some outstanding candidates for this position but ultimately Tom is the one who is going to lead us back to the top of the ACC," Wellman said. "He has taken two institutions and resurrected their baseball programs."
Walter's overall record is 428-331 in 13 seasons at George Washington and New Orleans. Walter, 39, a 1991 graduate of Georgetown, worked for two seasons as assistant general manager of the Greensboro Bats before taking the job at George Washington.
He also coached Cotuit of the amateur Cape Cod League in 1997 and 1998.
Wellman said he wasn't dissuaded by the Privateers' less-than-resounding 22-33 record in 2009, a year after New Orleans had seven players picked in the major-league draft.
"No not at all," Wellman said. "His recruiting at New Orleans the last few years has been difficult. He said that if you go to their campus right now it looks like the hurricane hit yesterday."
The UNO baseball program is endangered by a proposal by Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal to cut $1.4 million from the Privateers' athletics budget, as well as a vote by the student body not to double the athletics fees to $200 per credit hour. Walter said the money woes at UNO didn't persuade him to leave for Wake Forest.
"They're going to be there next year," Walter said. "Their budget is probably not going to be as big as it was the past two years, but they're going to be in business. They're definitely going to be able to hold it together and grow the program.
"Because it was Wake Forest, that's why I'm here. I'm not here because UNO was a bad situation. I'm here because this is an attractive job."
If Walter had been adverse to challenges, he would have left New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A number of his players, and two of his coaches, did just that, but the Privateers survived to post records of 38-26 in 2007 and 43-21 in 2008.
"We lost a bunch of recruits in the process, certainly, and a bunch of returning players -- especially the ones with some ability that were being recruited by other people," Walter said. "But we held the core group of guys together.
Wake Forest, after winning the ACC championship in 1998, 1999 and 2001, has had losing records four of the past six seasons and has made the NCAA Tournament only once since 2002. The 2009 Deacons finished 22-30 overall and last in the ACC with a 6-24 conference record.
Because only the top eight teams qualify for the ACC Tournament, the Deacons didn't participate in 2009.
"We're here to win -- make no bones about that," Walter said. "The players will know we want to win baseball games and we want to win championships and we're going to have specific goals each and every year for our team.
"And I'll tell the guys right now, just making the ACC Tournament is not an acceptable goal. That's not good enough for our program. We're better than that."
■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
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