Aug. 9, 2006

Dr. LeRoy Walker, Benedict College (S.C.)
Graduated -1940
Sport - Football, Basketball
Major - Physical Education

A past president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Dr. LeRoy Walker has served the sport of track and field as both a coach and administrator.  A 1940 graduate of Benedict College (S.C.), Dr. Walker has devoted a lifetime to training and grooming Black collegiate athletes to realize their potential.

He was the first African American to earn a doctorate in Exercise Physiology and Biomechanics from New York University. After receiving the master's degree, Benedict President Dr. J.J. Starks brought him back to his alma mater to head the newly formed Physical Education where he set up class schedules in anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and exercise physiology.

Dr. Walker achieved his greatest fame as an athlete in track and would later go on to become one of the most successful track and field coaches in the United States. Over the course of his career as coach at North Carolina Central University, he produced 111 All-Americans, 40 National Champions and 12 Olympians. He also coached Olympic teams from Ethiopia, Israel, Jamaica, Kenya and Trinidad-Tobago. In 1976 he became the first African American in Olympic history to coach an U.S. Olympic team.

He served as a coach or consultant for several foreign Olympic teams in 1960, 1968 and 1972 and in 1976 was the U.S. men's head coach, the first African-American man to serve in that position. Walker was chairman of the AAU's men's track and field committee from 1973 to 1976 and was the coordinator of coaching assignments for the AAU and TAC from 1973 to 1980. He became TAC president in 1984 and served until 1988. Before being unanimously chosen as USOC president on October 11^th, 1992, Walker was the senior vice president for sport of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.  He also is the author of three major books on physical education and track and field. He was elected to U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1987.

Dr. Walker retired in 1986, his finest athletes had won a total of 11 Olympic gold medals, 80 of those had been named All-American and 35 had earned national championships.

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