Rob Walker

Background

The 2015 season will mark Walker's ninth season as both the head men's and women's soccer coach at Saint Martin's University. He began both programs at the club level in 2006 before the two squads officially joined the GNAC in 2007.

In 2009, he led the men's soccer team to the school's first-ever GNAC title on his way to earning GNAC Coach of the Year honors. He was also named Co-Coach of the Year on the women's side.

He has been working with Federal Way Football Club here in Washington since 2006 helping lead them to the Regional Club League (the top league in the state) and had two US Club Soccer National Champions.

Walker has vast experience coaching about both the high school, college and club level prior to his development of the soccer programs here at SMU.

He got his start coaching the boy's and girl's teams at Timberline High School in Lacey where he won over 125 games from 1983-1992.

Walker also gained valuable coaching experience early in career serving as a volunteer assistant at three NAIA schools. From 1990-93 he worked with the Belhaven men's soccer team in Jackson, Mississippi during their preseason as the team went on to finish as NAIA National Champion in 1992. He also worked as a volunteer assistant at Houghton College in Houghton, New York in 1994 and from 1995-2000 at Mobile University in Alabama as the team's 1999 squad was national runners-up at the NAIA level.

He has been extremely active at the club level and youth coaching ranks having conducted 75-plus US Soccer state sponsored coaching courses in Washington and Alabama for the past 33 years.

Walker has written for WSYSA's Soccer News and Play On state newspapers and received the Ted Hastings Media Award for Editorial Excellence in 1999. His articles have also appeared in Soccer Journal and Soccer America.

From 2000-2005 he served as the director of coaching for Mountain Brook Soccer Club in Birmingham. He has guided youth teams to five state championship finals and three State Cup championships (1986, 1997 and 2004).

Walker was a member of the WSYSA ODP staff as a goalkeeping coach from 1987-2000 and the AYSA ODP staff from 2000-05. He worked with the US Youth Soccer Region IV Coaching staff (boys, 1987-90 and girls, 1992-99) and region II staff (boys, 1992-2006).

He was a member of the US Soccer National Goalkeeping Coaching Staff from 1997-2015. Walker also had the opportunity to work as a goalkeeper training coach prior to the 1996 Olympics with the US men's team and as part of the staff for the 2000 US women's national team in preparation for the Algarve Cup. He helped lead the goalkeeper training for the US U-14 Girl's National Team Camp from 1998-00.

An Olympia native, he graduated from Olympia High School in 1979. His wife Deter graduated from North Thurston High School and is the mother of SMU graduate Kandi Keller. Her son Kasey, played for the US Men's National team as well as the Seattle Sounders.