Walker Brings New Vision to BC Athletics

Bluefield College has a new full-time Athletics Director (AD). Her name is Tonia Walker, and she’s ready to make a difference.

Walker takes over leadership of the Athletics program after BC’s Mike White served in the role on a part-time basis while also serving as head coach of the Rams baseball team. The change in leadership comes in response to the need to have a full-time AD manage BC’s growing Athletics program, and Walker says she’s eager to fill the role and grow the Bluefield College brand.

Walker is a native of Newberry, South Carolina. Her small-town roots are what make her ideals unique and what will make change possible with the Athletics program. Along with her work experience at previous schools, she brings a desire to take on the challenges of a small college athletics program.

Walker attended Hampton University where she was a two-sport athlete in basketball and softball. She understands what it is like to be a student-athlete and the struggles of balancing athletics and academics.

After college, she stayed in Hampton, Virginia, where she began a career in sports administration with the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA). While working with the CIAA she also earned a master’s degree in sports administration and recreation from Old Dominion University.

After seven years with the CIAA, Walker went to work for Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. After 14 years in sports administration, she was promoted to Athletics Director at Winston-Salem State, a position she held for four years before accepting the call to serve at Bluefield College. She said after reviewing the job description and the needs at BC, she believed her experience would be ideal for the job.

With her Walker brings what she calls four pillars that will guide her and the Athletics program to success. The first pillar is academic excellence. This she said is the starting point of making a successful student-athlete. She shared with BC coaches that she wants to make sure that the college’s student-athletes graduate, and that her goal is to provide the academic support necessary to make that happen.

“We are building support systems and tracking grades to increase GPAs and the retention rate,” Walker said. “We are making sure that we are doing all that we can to increase graduation rates.”

The second pillar is athletic success. Walker admits that her sports background has made her competitive and has given her a winning mentality that she hopes to instill in coaches and athletes.

“We want to win,” she said. “We want our students to compete in regional tournaments. We want them to be recognized.We want to compete in national championships.”

However, being successful does not come overnight, Walker admits. At Winston-Salem State, she acknowledges that success didn’t come right away, but in the latter part of her tenure there Winston-Salem State won about 30 conference championships.

“It takes time to build and change a culture,” Walker said. “The culture comes with recruiting, funding, and a brand.”

Walker’s third pillar is community engagement.

“Athletics is the front porch of every college,” she said. “That is why I push so hard on our brand. It is who we are, how we show, how we present ourselves that makes us attractive.”

That is why she wants BC athletes to look and present themselves in a certain way. She wants others to take notice of what BC athletes do, and she wants to make sure that student-athletes garner respect from the community. That’s why she has BC athletes engaged in community service opportunities, such as working in elementary schools and feeding the hungry. By presenting our brand in a positive way, she said, we will be able to secure essential funding, improve facilities, and make Bluefield College a better program all around.

“What this does is translate into ticket sales (and) support for our athletic programs,” Walker said. “It translates into Ram (Booster) Club members and into our institution as a whole.” 

Related to building that BC brand are new guidelines for dress for student-athletes, which Walker acknowledges have been a bit misunderstood. Adidas is the Athletic Department’s sponsor, and as such they have invested in the BC sports programs so that they might see the Adidas brand promoted. That means that during Bluefield College competitions or games, practices, and community events that BC athletes should where Adidas apparel.

“When walking around campus or going out with friend, wear what you want to wear,” Walker said. “I think (the dress code) was misconstrued.”

Infrastructure is the last pillar in Walker’s formula to create a successful program. She wants to make sure we have the right people in the right positions, the right coaches, and the right policies and procedures to protect the college. She has spent most of her time over the last three months working with the administration, making sure that we have all the right pieces in place to achieve success. She wants to ensure that the athletics program is headed in the right direction because that will benefit the entire school.

Beyond instituting her four pillars, Walker’s immediate goals for the Athletic Department are to address the athletic infrastructure and begin branding the athletic program. She also wants to ensure Title IX compliance and send the message to all sports programs that there will be no tolerance for anything less than excellence. She also hopes to address issues with athletic expenditures.

“I tend to feel that there was spending that has not been managed throughout the past,” Walker said. “I want to pull that in to have a better understanding of what we are doing with that money.”

Walker said she knows that the road to success will include road blocks along the way, but she is willing to do whatever it takes to overcome those obstacles. Among those, she admits, are limited financial resources and current frustrations students have expressed about facilities, housing, campus safety, and food services. She said she hopes the administration can prioritize the issues and address some of the problems right away.

“Hopefully, we as the administration listened,” Walker said about the frustrations shared by students during a recent open forum. “There are some things that we can be flexible on. I know I can be a little more lenient on personal issues, like the hat situation. I am a southern girl so wearing hats inside was looked at as disrespectful.”

She did say, however, that she will stand by her rule against doo-rags because of the stereotypes associated with that headwear, and she will stand by having a professional day of dress, because she feels it will prepare student-athletes for a future outside of sports.

“I know I am doing this for the best interest of the student-athletes,” she said. “I just hope that they trust what I am doing because I just want the best for them.”

All in all, Walker might be new to Bluefield College, but she is ready to make a difference and to make it a better place for student-athletes to enjoy.