Happy Birthday Gary

TigerBlog would like to wish a happy birthday (one day late) to Ford Family Director of Athletics Emeritus Gary Walters.

In fairness, TB did reach out to Gary yesterday to say happy birthday. If TB is correct, then Gary is now 76. 

As you probably know, Gary was the AD at Princeton from 1994-2014, a 20-year span that trails only Ken Fairman (1941-1972) in length of tenure among those who have held the position. Not that you need TB to review Gary's resume, but he played for Pete Carril at Reading High School before coming to Princeton and being the starting point guard on the 1965 NCAA Final Four men's basketball team.

He graduated in 1967 after having his picture, along with teammate Chris Thomforde, on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He then began a career in coaching, which included being an assistant coach to Carril at Princeton for the 1975 NIT championship and coaching future Tiger head coach Bill Carmody at Union before serving as head coach at Dartmouth and Providence.

After coaching, he had a long career in business and television before he came back to Princeton as the AD. 

It's been more than seven years since Gary left that position, which means it's long past the time when any current athletes were here who started during his run. Still, even if they don't know him, they see his legacies every day, whether in some of the facilities whose construction he oversaw and even more so in the "Education Through Athletics" banners that are in those facilities, or in the relationships they've built with their Faculty Fellows.

It was Gary who coined the phrase "Education Through Athletics," which he used to sum up the life lessons that are learned through intercollegiate athletics. One of his favorite things to say was that athletics were "co-curricular," not extra-curricular. He thinks of coaches as teachers and playing fields as extensions of classrooms.

As for the Faculty Fellows, Gary began that program based on his own experiences with then-Princeton sociology professor Marvin Bressler. It has grown since its inception to provide several University faculty and staff members for each of the 37 current varsity teams who are there to give another mentoring voice to each of the athletes on those teams. It has been a wildly successful program that has brought together people throughout the campus and created tremendous relationships that have helped the athletes learn to navigate Princeton.

Gary also has the distinction of having had a direct impact on the careers of three of the eight current Ivy league Directors of Athletics. 

Peter Roby, who is the interim AD at Dartmouth, played for Gary when he was the coach for the Big Green in the late 1970s. In fact, Roby was the senior captain of the 1978-79 Big Green, which was the last of Gary's four years as head coach in Hanover. 

Gary also was the AD at Princeton when Erin McDermott, now the Harvard AD, was here. John Mack, Princeton's current Ford Family Director of Athletics, began his post-Princeton career in 2000 by working in the athletic department under Gary's watch. 

This is something that Gary in which Gary takes a great deal of pride, and he rightfully should.

TigerBlog and Gary started at Princeton on the very same day back in 1994. TB first met Gary earlier than that, during his newspaper days, when he wrote a story in 1990 on the 25th anniversary of the 1965 team's Final Four.

TB most recently saw Gary in the press box at the football game against Stetson Saturday. Gary may be retired, but he is still very much invested in the Princeton athletic program. 

It's amazing to TB how long it's been since Gary was the head of the department. Time flies, right? And it's also amazing to think about how many people work in the department now who were hired in the seven years since Gary left. 

For those who never met him or worked with him, TB would say this: There haven't been too many people who have ever come around who have been as big a fan of the Tigers as Gary has been. For all of his different roles here, that's what he's always been - a Princeton fan, of every team, every sport, every athlete.

After all of the time he's spent at Princeton, that's probably a legacy that he's very comfortable having.