Wild & Crazy Life Of Wake Forest’s Tom Walter

by • Featured Stories

By LOU PAVLOVICH
And JOHN PINKMAN
Special CB Report

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Wake Forest Head Coach Tom Walter is one of the most amazing stories in college baseball history.

This is a man who previously was the skipper at the University of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in late August of 2005.

According to National Geographic, the hurricane caused 1,200 deaths as a direct result of the storm and resulted in an estimated $108 billion in property damage, the costliest storm on record

Fifty levies in New Orleans failed which flooded low-lying areas of the city and ultimately caused 80 percent of the city to be under water.

The University of New Orleans was shut down for over two months and couldn’t start school again until mid-October.

Walter evacuated his 38 players, as well as coaches and families, prior to the storm hitting.

This remarkable person is the same man who donated his kidney to a freshman baseball player on his team at Wake Forest.

Earlier in his career as the head baseball coach at George Washington University, he led this program to great success despite not having a home field. Imagine having all 56 games each spring on the road.

During his time there, a plane operated by al-Qaeda terrorists crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001—not far from his school.

It was part of four coordinated terrorist plane attacks made by 19 militants.

Two airliners hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City while another plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, PA.

The attacks resulted in 2,977 fatalities, over 25,000 injuries and caused at least $10 billion in property damage.

If that wasn’t enough, the D.C. Sniper Attacks took place a year later in October of 2002 in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Ten people were killed and three others critically wounded in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia.

No baseball coach that we know of has ever experienced the challenging situations that Walter has.

To read the rest of this in-depth story, purchase the Jan. 3, 2020 edition or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. It delves into the incredible situations Tom Walter has dealt with during his coaching career in this special report in our 2020 College Preview Edition.