First serve in. Cross court spin.
It’s become one of Nicky Walker’s instructive catchphrases over a 43-year tennis coaching career. It means to get your first serve in, then hit it across the court.
Almost all of Walker’s former players from Orange High still recite it, whether it’s playing pickleball games alongside him or coaching their own teams.
An Instagram photo from last October gave everyone who knows Walker a chance to smile.
Walker, coaching the East Chapel Hill women’s tennis team, stood beside three of his players. Individually, each held silver balloons that spelled out “1,000.”
Walker’s friend and former boss, Andy Brown, saw the post and immediately phoned him.
“Congratulations,” Brown said. “You’ve been coaching for 1,000 years!”
How did Walker respond?
“I can’t tell you,” Brown said with a chuckle during a phone conversation last week.
Of course, Brown was throwing a playful jab at a colleague he’s known for over 40 years, back when Walker’s first coaching win came while coaching the Orange men’s tennis team, which he started, in 1982.
43 years later, as coach of the East Chapel Hill women’s team, Walker earned career win #1,000 when the Wildcats defeated Cleveland 6-0 in the opening round of the 4A State Dual Team Playoffs at Lindsey Linker Tennis Courts at East Chapel Hill.
In a career that included a cup of coffee as a semi-pro baseball player, starting a tennis program at a rural high school, stints coaching football, basketball and volleyball at middle school and leading six different tennis programs across the Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Districts, it’s Walker’s nature to keep such a rare milestone discreet.
“I haven’t thought a whole lot about it,” Walker said.
However, he did pay attention to the nchighschooltennis.com, which keeps a running tally on career coaching wins. Walker started last season with 985 wins. He scheduled 19 matches last fall and won exactly 15.
After the win over Cleveland, Walker informed his team of the milestone. A few days later in practice, players adorned him with the proper celebration.
The only other members of the 1,000-win club in North Carolina High School tennis are Jeff Frye at Union Pines and Steve Spivey at Broughton
“It’s a testament to longevity, but I didn’t win any of the matches,” Walker said. “That’s something that a lot of kids have done for me. I enjoyed sharing it with the Chapel Hill and Orange players I’ve coached.”
Growing up in Caldwell, being the best tennis player in the community was like being the best hockey player in Belize. Northern Orange County is renown for football and baseball figures who went to greater success abroad like Scott Satterfield, Damon Scott, Payton and Bryse Wilson.
Walker tried to follow the same path in his late teens, playing for Caldwell’s semi-pro baseball team in Roxboro’s Optimist League. (Editor’s note: the manager of Caldwell’s team was Flint Hamlin, the author’s grandfather).
Between stints at Chowan Junior College and Western Carolina University, Walker began playing tennis at the age of 20 on a court owned by Christine Hughes in Cedar Grove. He also started playing in Chapel Hill, attended coaching clinics and read books.
“I used to hit off the walls at Carolina,” Walker said. “I worked on it in my gym class. Try to hit the ball over kids heads and not try to hit somebody. I fell in love with it.”
In his mid-20s, Walker was a student-teacher for two months in the Dominican Republic. As he completed his degree at Western Carolina, he taught by the coast of Colombia in the city of Barranquilla, where there were schools with American students. He eventually spent time teaching at a middle school outside of Atlanta before returning home to Central Elementary School.
Walker also taught his father, Norman, the game. Norman and longtime Caldwell resident Steve James, who ran a successful Barbecue catering company until his death last July, regularly competed in singles matches. Walker and James had wide competitive streaks and colorful personalities, which often led to animated trash talk and countless age jokes that rendered the term “tennis etiquette” buried six feet under, if not deeper.
Nick would inevitably hear the details about the playful, competitive matches from his father afterwards. One battle in Cedar Grove got so intense, James suffered cramps in both of his legs. Norman won by retirement and had to give James a ride home. James’ mother, Shirley, a former Orange County Clerk of Superior Court, arrived home to find Norman sitting in her living room and her son recovering with icebags on his legs stretched out on the couch.
“What did you do?!” Shirley asked Norman.
“I beat the hell out of him,” Norman jokingly responded.
“I would tell Daddy ‘You’re not supposed to use that kind of language on the court,” Walker said. “He said ‘Well, he started it. You don’t expect me to sit there and take it, do you?'”
In 1980, as Walker taught P.E. at Central Elementary. Orange High didn’t have a tennis program. Athletic director Jim King opted to start a tennis club since the courts had been built in 1978. In 1981, the first Orange women’s tennis team officially formed, coached by Lynn James. Walker was the leader of the inaugural men’s team in the spring of 1982.
Once he moved over to Stanford Junior High, Walker coached volleyball, girl’s basketball and tennis. The following year, he was an assistant for the Stanford football team under head coach Richard Sherrill, who left in 1987 to join the ministry.
The following August, Walker moved up the hill to start teaching the first four-year class at Orange High. One of the students in his health class was future University of Cincinnati head football coach Scott Satterfield.
Though his knees aren’t what they once were, Walker’s memory is still in peak form. Names of students from his first P.E. and health classes at Orange High just roll off his tongue, especially those that played for him.
“Nick’s memory is amazing,” Norman said. “Even now, he can tell you who played in a Super Bowl or a World Series in a given year. He watched videotapes and films all the time about the history of sports.”
Walker would remain in the men’s tennis coach until 1991. For two seasons, he also coached Orange’s women’s team.
“I tell people about Orange and Stanford and they think it’s some Boonie place,” Walker said. “I tell them that I had great experiences at those schools.”
Walker also drew upon his childhood television experiences to deliver life lessons to testosterone-filled teenagers. Playing beneath the pine straw courts at Orange, some students would get restless and try to hit the ball over the cage in a lame attempt to be cool.
Walker reminded his students about the Andy Griffith Show when Deputy Barney Fife would accidentally set off his gun while freeing it him his holster. As punishment, Sheriff Andy Taylor would always take away his deputy’s gun and one of his bullets.
For every ball hit over the fence, Walker would take away the player’s racket as well as one of their tennis balls for the day.
Years later, after the Chapel Hill women’s team suffered a tough loss, Walker called off practice the next day and told his team they needed to take an Andy Griffith Day.
The team captain responded “Who?”
Some students in Walker’s Orange classes tolerated tennis. For others, such as Steve Mayhew, it became a lifelong pursuit and Walker would become a close friend.
“The very first practice I ever had with him, there were some guys clowning around,” Mayhew said.”He told the guys ‘You need to leave until you’re ready to play serious.’ He threw both players out. The next day, one of those players was smart enough to come back and apologise. The other one didn’t and never came back. I was a first year player as a 10th grader. I learned then never to cross the line with Coach Walker. From that point forward on the first day of practice every year, you could hear a pin drop.”
Walker’s 1987 team was particularly close. It included Mayhew, Richard Tapp, Jeff Franklin, Kevin Draughon, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Outlaw, and Mark Stone, all of whom had Walker as a P.E. teacher at Stanford.
Back then, Orange was one of just two high schools in all of Orange County, along with Chapel Hill. Almost all of Orange’s matches were against teams from Chapel Hill, Durham or Burlington, towns that featured players who had grown up playing at tennis and country clubs. Walker’s players dubbed their home “Pine Valley” because of the trees that surrounded Orange’s tennis courts.
“We were a school out in the country playing against Chapel Hill, Northern Durham and Jordan,” Franklin said. “We didn’t have any type of club in Hillsborough. We would joke that teams would come from Hollow Rock or Chapel Hill Country Club, we’ll welcome them to Pine Valley. Coach Walker was very competitive, but he’s always been competitive.”
While resources were limited, Walker constantly went the extra mile for his players. He outfitted his squad with white collared shirts, black sweatpants and jackets to properly look like a team instead of a ragtag group. He urged county leaders to add lights to the tennis courts, which came to fruition in 1986. Every spring for the conference and regional tournaments, Walker lobbied with his coaching colleagues when it came time to seed players.
Players from the Class of 1987 began improving so much by the time they were sophomores and juniors, Walker started the Orange High Invitational, a singles and doubles tournament featuring teams from across Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Burlington.
“He wanted us to face better competition,” Franklin said.
Franklin and Tapp grew up a half-mile from each other in Chapel Hill, barely within town limits to legally attend Orange. Once Walker introduced them to tennis, they played nonstop. They caught rides to tennis courts to practice amid sweltering summer temperatures, did extra drills with Walker, played on weekend and encouraged him to let them workout inside the gymnasium on rainy days.
“You know how a sport gets, you can form a clique,” Walker said. “Those guys really worked hard at it. I’d want to wind down practice and they’d want to continue practicing.”
Franklin and Tapp reached the 4A State Doubles Tournament in their junior and senior years.
In the summer leading up to their senior year, Walker arranged for trips to various colleges in western North Carolina so Tapp and Franklin could face loftier opposition and meet coaches.
“Most people wouldn’t do that,” Tapp said. “He got us to go to UNC Asheville, Western Carolina, all along the southern mountains. We went on a hike that summer. We knew that’s where he went but we didn’t know much about the mountains. I fell in love immediately.”
The following year, Tapp started playing at Western Carolina University. His son, who attends Montana State University, is named William Walker Tapp.
“When I was trying to name him, my wife asked me what’s the first name that comes to mind and meant a lot to you,” Tapp said, fighting back tears. “He was the first one.”
Mayhew would go on to coach the Cedar Ridge men’s and women’s teams from 2021-2024. His son, Josh, reached the 3A State Championship singles match four consecutive years and now plays at Belmont-Abbey. Under Mayhew, the Cedar Ridge men’s team captured the 2022 Central Conference championship.
“He was practically part of our friend group,” said Franklin, who attended Appalachian State University but didn’t play tennis. “We could laugh at each other. After a few years, we could give it back to him in practice in a fun way. At the end of the day, if we screwed up as teenagers, he would hold us accountable. He was very straight with us. The amount of hours he poured into us becoming better players…he went way above and beyond what most people are willing to do.”
The fall of 1990 brought about transition. Brown, who had been the men’s basketball coach at Orange High, replaced Ken Miller as the head coach at Chapel Hill. The following year Brown would also replace Bob Culton, the longtime athletic director.
Immediately, Brown found himself having to replace another legend. Lindsey Linker, who had won two state championships, wanted to leave to go into sporting good sales. Brown knew the first phone call he would make for a replacement.
“It was the easiest decision in the world,” Brown said. “Nick was ready for a change and he had brought that Orange program along as an underdog for years. I couldn’t wait to see how he would do at Chapel Hill. It was a natural fit.”
Walker would remain the coach of the men’s and women’s tennis teams from 1991-2011 at CHHS. Between stints at Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill, he has won 35 conference championships.
Walker had a goal of retiring from teaching, which he did in 2011, but he never wanted to be inactive.
He taught Driver’s Ed courses while staying out of coaching high school tennis for three years. He still served as captain for three United States Tennis Association teams in Chapel Hill.
“It’s worked out the way I wanted,” Walker said about his post-teaching life. “Teaching P.E. was fun, but it was a lot in addition to coaching.”
In the late 1990s, Linker returned to coaching and won 14 dual team state championships in men’s and women’s tennis at East Chapel Hill. When she decided to retire and move to Banner Elk, she recommended Walker as her replacement to Wildcats Athletic Director Ray Hartsfield.
Walker came out of retirement in the fall of 2015 “because coaching wasn’t out of my system.”
At East, Walker has coached ten women’s teams and eight boys squads. In the spring of 2024, Sandy Rake replaced Walker as varsity men’s coach. Walker figured he would have some rare free time. He walked around the courts one day last March and noticed the junior varsity boys squad didn’t have anyone leading them.
It was a void Walker was happy to fill.
“I saw those guys just knocking the ball around,” Walker said. “I thought they were OK. They looked like some of my old Stanford junior high guys.”
Last year, as Michelle Wood became the new athletic director at East Chapel Hill, Walker returned to coaching the women’s team, which earned him the milestone win.
While he still coaches in Chapel Hill, Walker is never far away from his roots. He still visits Norman every Sunday in Caldwell. This spring, Walker played pickleball in a Chapel Hill-Durham league with Tapp, Franklin, Mayhew and Westbrook. His former players continue to volley good-natured barbs back and forth.
“He’s still got a good forehand,” Franklin said. “It’s the same as it was 30 years ago. This year, we had a chance to coach him up for a change.”
