A coach's widow embraces life, love for the game

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

Tammy Walker was at home in Wilmette, Ill., just four blocks from the Northwestern University football stadium, when her son Jamie came in the back door one evening last week. Jamie, who works for the Wildcat football team, had called three times that day to make sure his mother was going to be home, and now he was walking directly to the front door.

"Mom," he said, "it looks like there's somebody out here."

She came to the door and couldn't believe what she saw: "It was the entire Northwestern football team on the front lawn."

Massed in the yard like a battalion of overgrown holiday carolers, the team serenaded her with the school fight song, handed her a book in which the players wrote their thoughts about her husband and then lined up so each player could give her a hug. "I stood there and cried -- with a big smile on my face," she said.

Tammy Walker and college football have built quite a relationship over the past 36 years. At first, Walker was drawn to the game because her boyfriend was a star running back in high school, then at Miami (Ohio) University. When he became a coach, and she the coach's wife, they were off and running on the life of their dreams. They traveled from Oxford to Chapel Hill to Evanston, each new job a wonderful challenge, until Tammy Walker's husband became the successful and popular head football coach first at Miami, then at Northwestern.

They had just moved into a new home on Chicago's North Shore, when, on the night of June 29, Randy Walker died of a heart attack at the age of 52.

"He was home," Tammy Walker said. "I was home. He was upstairs. I was downstairs. There really wasn't anything I could do for him. Of course, I called the paramedics, but ... . The paper initially said he had chest pains, but that was not the case at all. He blacked out and that was it. He just died suddenly, and I was told he felt nothing and did not know it. I guess it's one of those things where you say it's a blessing if you have to go, because it was quick."

In that terrible instant, Tammy Walker's life changed forever. "Initially, you're kind of in shock, and you just do what you have to do," she said. "I've had so much support, and I've got plenty to keep me busy right now, which is helpful, but, certainly, there are moments when it feels like my world's totally fallen apart."

In the days after Randy's death, some started to wonder how Tammy would approach the upcoming season. Would she be able to go to Northwestern games? For her, the answer was simple. College football had been such a big part of her life -- and Randy's -- for so long that she certainly wasn't going to abandon it now. "I've gone to the scrimmage and I've been around the team a couple of other times and it actually is very helpful for me," she said.

To that end, on Wednesday, she and her daughter and son-in-law were driving from Chicago to Ohio for tonight's Miami-Northwestern game in Oxford. What a celebration this was to have been for the Walkers. Miami, their alma mater, against Northwestern, their home since 1999. Someone might as well have named the game "The Randy Walker Bowl."

"I wouldn't miss it," Tammy said. "They're doing some really, really nice things at the game to honor Randy so it's definitely going to be a bittersweet night, but it will be special, too."

She turned down an invitation to sit in a stadium box so she could join her family and friends in the Northwestern section. "I'm sure there will be moments, like when the team runs out, that I'll just avoid," she said softly, picturing her hard-charging husband leading the way out of the locker room. "There's obviously so much emotion with this, but once the game gets going, it'll be fine."

This autumn also will bring the birth of her first grandchild. Her daughter is due to deliver a girl in November in Paris, where she and her husband are living, and Tammy plans to be there. On a visit in May, she and Randy saw the ultrasound of the baby. "That obviously now has become very poignant," Tammy said.

But it's a sure sign that life, however difficult, goes on. "Randy and I had such a good and close relationship, and we had just such a wonderful life," Tammy said. "I would have liked 30 more years, but that's not what happened. There are moments I just can't believe this happened. And then there are times I say, 'Well, this did happen, this is my life, this is my reality, this is what I have to deal with.' You have two choices: You can curl up in a ball, or you can live life. I have a lot of wonderful things to live for."

To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com