Release date: May 11, 2004
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark, Assistant Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-712-8780 or bclark2@emory.edu

Legendary Coach LeRoy T. Walker Receives Honorary Degree

Legendary coach and teacher LeRoy T. Walker, president emeritus of the United States Olympic Committee, received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree and delivered brief remarks at Emory University's 159th commencement ceremony Monday, May 10.

Walker joined three other honorary degree recipients at Emory's commencement this year: Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, delivered the keynote address; medieval scholar Caroline Walker Bynum; and Emory trustee emeritus James Bryan Williams.

By a rare unanimous vote, Walker was elected to head the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1992, and led the committee in the years just prior to and during the 1996 Atlanta games. Later he became the first U.S.O.C. president to be designated emeritus.

A champion of academic and athletic excellence throughout his life, Walker was born in Atlanta in 1918 as the youngest of 13 children, and grew up in Harlem. He overcame poverty and racial barriers to earn a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., in 1940, followed by a master's degree from Columbia University in 1941. In 1957, while beginning his coaching and teaching career, he became the first African-American to earn a doctorate from New York University in exercise physiology and biomechanics.

Walker's teaching and coaching were marked by the precise, methodical application of the science of human physical motion to educational and training regimens, as well as by a deep respect for and belief in student athletes. Over the years, his athletes won national and international distinction, setting world records and winning Olympic medals in track and field. Walker became internationally recognized in the Olympic movement, developing training for athletes the world over. He was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1987.

A reforming educator and administrator, Walker was appointed chancellor of North Carolina Central University in the mid-1980s, where he was a professor and had served as head track coach for numerous years. In 1989, he led the Knight Commission to raise the academic standards of athletics for every NCAA-affiliated

college and university in the country. He advocated minority and women's participation in college athletics, was devoted to international athletic development, and worked for justice and racial harmony.

As track coach at North Carolina Central University, he produced 111 All-Americans, 40 national champions and 12 Olympians. He was the first African-American to serve as head coach of a U.S. Olympic team, leading men's track and field in 1976. During his career he coached Olympic teams from Ethiopia, Israel, Jamaica, Kenya and Trinidad-Tobago as well. At the peak of his career, he also volunteered two years with the Peace Corps in Africa working on educational and athletics programs.

*** NOTE TO EDITORS: Copies of Walker's honorary degree citation are available. A photo is available as a 300 dpi jpeg.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For more than a decade Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, a comprehensive metropolitan health care system.

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