Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
As a child of the 1970s I was surrounded by basketball excellence. First at CDA where the girls team had a 69-game winning streak.
Over at Pillow they were putting together one that reached 100. Over in Cleveland, the late Margaret Wade was piling up National Championships. And I was in the middle of all of it. I just wished I had paid more attention to all of it.
But there was so much excellence in both men’s and women’s basketball within a 50-mile radius of me that I didn’t know folks didn’t know how to play at a high level. Now my skills weren’t nearly as sharp as these athletes who ruled the high school courts in the 1970s. But nevertheless, I wore out the grass in our backyard court hitting plenty of last second shots to bring another championship banner to Boston Garden in my fertile imagination.
When I made it to high school the championship ruts had long been laid by the likes of MAIS Hall of Famer Mike Sibley, Lee Stratton, Kris Stratton, Renee Stricklin and countless others I don’t have the word count to mention.
But the excellence that stocked trophy cabinets at Indianola Academy had its foundation in a man from the hills of Northeast Mississippi – Coach Buddy Walden. A relished high school guard, Walden signed and played and started during his career at Mississippi State. The team was about .500 during his tenure but he did get to go to Kentucky and beat Pat Riley’s legendary team in overtime. He then got his master’s and soon headed to the Delta in 1971 after getting a phone call from Peter Jernberg. He headed south with his wife, Carol, who also had a Master’s and they joined the faculty for a combo price of $14,000. But he also brought what had been instilled in him – hard work and excellence.
“In our junior year of high school, we were 38-2. And they fired our coach,” he said. “My senior year we went 42-0 and we still have one of the better records in the state of Mississippi.”
He first coached the boy’s teams and then picked up coaching the girl’s teams. Walden credits the talent he was given but we all know it was the never-ending line drills and even his one-on-one play that molded them into winners.
“I had great players, I had both the Strattons and of course our girls had outstanding years. I took over in 74 and 75 and we were 22-7 and then 26-2 and in there we were State AAA, North AAA and I was North AAA Coach of the Year and I coached the All Star team for the girls.”
The championship trophies multiplied as did the coaching honors for IA and Coach Walden. His practices were hard as he was molding minds and bodies into champions.
“I used to play Mike one-on-one after practice and I could still jump and was strong. I’d push him around and he’d call a foul. I’d tell him, ‘no, we’re playing college rules.’ But when he got to be a senior, I was the one crying foul and he’d say, ‘no, coach, we’re playing college rules.’”
His Delta career could have been different though as the men in charge of Drew High School came to Walden with a coaching job offer in the late 1960s.
“I would have been coaching Archie Manning in his senior year,” he said.
Drew couldn’t reel in Walden and he eventually found his way to Sunflower County anyway. After eight years at IA, Walden took his coaching talents to MDCC. He restarted their girls’ basketball program and even built the women’s softball team from scratch there as well. He came back to IA for a few years to coach again after retiring as a Trojan. And although he’s a full-blooded maroon alumnus, he’s known for the Colonel blue and white excellence.
Thanks, Coach Walden.
