Bates Magazine<\/strong> Her middle name is Divine. \u201cDivine intervention,\u201d Ed Walker says. \u201cWhich is what she was.\u201d The baby and Bates changed his life at roughly the same time. Just starting his second semester at Bates when she was born, he chose her middle name as a reminder to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her first name was plucked from the lyrics of the Notorious B.I.G. song \u201cMy Downfall,\u201d in which the rapper sang of his own daughter: \u201cApologies in order, to T\u2019Yanna my daughter \/ If it was up to me you\u2019d be with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walker picked the name Tiauna as a sign of his commitment to being present, because at 19, the last thing Ed Walker wanted to be was an absentee father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had arrived at Bates in late summer 1998, a bright prospect from Roxbury, Mass., with not much more than the clothes on his back. He was 19, smart, charismatic, a gifted musician, and a leader on and off the basketball court. But he had been through a tumultuous childhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe Reilly, then the new head basketball coach at Bates and only 29 himself, had recruited Ed Walker from Charlestown High in Boston, where Walker played for Jack O\u2019Brien, a Massachusetts coaching legend who had a reputation for guiding his players toward college opportunities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Reilly got to know his recruit, he understood that Walker was food- and housing-insecure. The youngest of seven, Walker was bouncing from house to house, often sleeping at his high school teammates\u2019 houses. \u201cHe called it \u2018house hopping,\u2019\u201d Reilly says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI spent a lot of time looking for housing,\u201d Walker agrees. The Charlestown team was his sole source of structure and a true fellowship, albeit one rooted in shared struggle. \u201cMany of my friends were taking care of their younger siblings,\u201d Walker says. \u201cWe had to work together to find dinner together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s when I felt human again,\u201d says Walker. \u201cI knew that he was invested in me and not just basketball.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Charlestown High was close enough for an easy day trip and Reilly formed a bond with Walker over at least a dozen recruiting trips. But the regular phone calls from the coach were particularly vital for Walker. \u201cHe asked about life and my circumstances and he never once mentioned basketball,\u201d Walker remembers. \u201cAnd I saw value in that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, as Walker recalls, Reilly said this to his young recruit: \u201cIf you come to Bates, you have my word. I\u2019m going to see that you cross that stage, whether you play basketball or not.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s when I felt human again,\u201d says Walker. \u201cI knew that he was invested in me and not just basketball. I knew that if they said yes, I would say yes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He remembers being very emotional during his interview with the Office of Admission in December. Katie Moran Madden \u201993, then an associate dean, asked him a question he didn\u2019t understand, about AP classes. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know what an AP class was,\u201d he says. So he bluffed, and then, as he realized his misstep, broke down in tears. \u201cI was really young and raw.\u201d Madden, who now works in admission at Dartmouth College, doesn\u2019t remember tears, but she does remember how genuine Walker was. \u201cAnd also vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the conversation convinced Madden that Walker was ready for the challenge that Bates would provide. \u201cI remember just being blown away after meeting him,\u201d Madden says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe Reilly was relieved. He had been worried about what would happen to Ed Walker after high school. The players he coached in the NESCAC usually had options. Family to fall back on. Not Walker. \u201cBates was his only safety net,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But by late spring of Walker\u2019s senior year at Charlestown in 1998, there was another layer of complexity. His high school girlfriend, Starkia Benbow, was pregnant. For some this might have meant staying in Massachusetts, even giving up the dream of college. But for Walker, the promise of Bates took on a whole new meaning. \u201cIt was in that moment that I knew: Now I have to make something of myself. I have to think about someone other than myself.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis vision was, if he was going to be the best provider and the best dad he could be for Tiauna, he had to get that Bates degree,\u201d Reilly says. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis vision was, if he was going to be the best provider and the best dad he could be for Tiauna, he had to get that Bates degree,\u201d Reilly says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Walker asked for a single room at Bates, so that mother and his soon-to-be-born child could visit, not a request first-year students could count on. \u201cBates was extremely supportive,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But initially, he didn\u2019t exactly fit in. \u201cEverything about me was different,\u201d Walker remembers. \u201cMy attitude. My style of dress. The language I spoke, the slang that I spoke. It was very clear. I understood that right away.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n And like many other Black students who\u2019ve arrived at Bates, Walker quickly saw white supremacy in action. On his first day, moving into Hedge Hall, another student assumed he wasn\u2019t a Bates student and confronted him. \u201cEssentially asking, what was I doing there? Like, \u2018Why are you here?\u2019\u201d Walker told the other student, \u201cI\u2019m here to be a student.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n That day Joe Reilly dropped by Hedge and found Walker still fuming about the incident. \u201cHe was wearing a Carolina Panthers NFL authentic jersey,\u201d Reilly remembers. The room was sparse. \u201cEd came with very little.\u201d He talked his new player down, but he never forgot that window of insight he got into the stark reality of being Ed Walker. \u201cThere were a lot of things you forget over 23 years,\u201d Reilly says. \u201cThat\u2019s not one of them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reilly, now the head basketball coach at Wesleyan University, checked in with Walker before sharing that story. It felt too private not to. \u201cI don\u2019t want it to seem like Bates was not a welcoming place for Ed because I think it really was. But there were some challenges for Ed and students like Ed. I\u2019m really proud that, in my 11 years there, great progress was made. Bates was a great place when Ed got there. It really was. And it was just a better place when Ed left.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Teammate Billy Hart \u201902 had never heard that story. He shakes his head at the telling, saying he and Walker talked about a lot of things, but not about such big-picture issues as being Black at Bates. \u201cI feel bad that I probably never even asked the most simple questions,\u201d Hart says. \u201cWhich is the privilege I had and he didn\u2019t have.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hart says Walker brought a unique kind of maturity to Bates. \u201cIf anything, he thrives and is able to focus and do better in uncomfortable situations. He had a mental toughness that I didn\u2019t have.\u201d The whole team understood that Walker was preparing for fatherhood at the same time he was adjusting to academia. And that was taking a lot of energy too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walker was in Charles Nero\u2019s class that first semester, trying to keep up while processing the bigger life lesson Nero presented: an openly gay Black professor with dreadlocks. \u201cHe delivered a sense of comfort in his skin that was new to me,\u201d Walker says. It was a blessing, particularly at that time, \u201cbecause I was so focused on learning what it meant to be a young Black man in this space.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The basketball court was an easy space for him though, and one where he quickly became a leader. The Friday night that Tiauna Walker was being born, Feb. 12, 1999, her dad poured in 17 points in a loss to Williams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re getting ready to play,\u201d Reilly recalls. \u201cAnd Ed comes in and goes, \u2018Coach, it\u2019s happening tonight.\u2019 And I\u2019m like \u2018Ed, we play in an hour.\u2019\u201d Reilly offered to have his wife, Isabel, drive Walker, who didn\u2019t have a license, immediately to Boston. Or they could all leave after the game. Walker chose the latter, wanting to play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can tell I was a young boy back then,\u201d Walker says. \u201cBecause you know, I\u2019m a grown man now, and if you said to me, \u2018Your child might come within the week,\u2019 I\u2019m canceling my entire calendar.\u201d (Walker is now married and has four children.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right after the game, Reilly skipped the postgame speech, Walker skipped the shower, and they both jumped in Reilly\u2019s Honda CR-V, with Isabel, and headed to Boston, arriving about an hour after Tiauna\u2019s birth. \u201cShe looked like a little version of me,\u201d Walker recalls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Reillys headed back to Lewiston, arranging for Joe\u2019s brother Luke to pick Walker up on a corner near the hospital the next afternoon and drive him back to campus for Bates\u2019 Saturday afternoon game vs. Middlebury. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In his first game as a father, Walker scored a game-high 23 points as Bates defeated Middlebury for the Bobcats\u2019 first conference win of the year. The week his daughter was born, Walker earned NESCAC Rookie of the Week honors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Middlebury game, longtime dean James Reese, heading to Connecticut, offered to drop Walker off in Boston. Himself a former basketball captain at Middlebury, Reese had watched Walker with keen interest, noting the physicality of Walker\u2019s play \u2014 standard at Charlestown High, but not typical of NESCAC play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWas he smart enough to know how to pull it back?\u201d Reese asks, rhetorically. \u201cWell, yes. He\u2019s the kind of guy who could get two fouls or three fouls in the first half and then never foul again for the rest of the game.\u201d Reese, who was just getting to know Walker, wanted to be present if Walker had things he wanted to talk about. Like a test he was worried about. Or money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the drive to Boston was uneventful \u2014 until they arrived and Reese said farewell. Walker didn\u2019t get out of the car. Instead, he turned to Reese and said, \u201cYou have to come inside. You have to see her.\u2019\u201d Reese was touched, but not sure it was his place. He demurred. Walker insisted. When Reese understood Walker meant it \u2014 \u201cEvery word of his is intentional\u201d \u2014 he parked the car and went up, hoping Walker\u2019s girlfriend didn\u2019t mind meeting another person from Bates. \u201cIt was fantastic,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the next three and a half years, Walker created a routine, however unusual the routine was for a Bates student. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whenever he could, he got on a Greyhound for Boston, and when Starkia could bring the baby up to Bates for a weekend, she would. In between visits, Walker juggled a lot of campus jobs: \u201cEverywhere from the weight room to the gym.\u201d He kept on scoring for the basketball team, amassing 1,409 career points by the end of his senior year, which now ranks him seventh for scoring in Bates men\u2019s basketball history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He was a junior advisor. He worked in Admission. He also had a side hustle, performing as a hip hop artist, sometimes as Versatyle \u2014 opening for Mos Def in spring 2003 at Bowdoin\u2019s Jack Magee pub \u2014 and sometimes as Lyrikal, making a name for himself at Bates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He \u201ctore it up\u201d at the Ben Mays Center in January 2001, according to The Bates Student<\/em>, and again that March as Lyrikal, \u201cwho has kept heads nodding with his smooth rhymes at shows and parties throughout the year.\u201d When it came time to present his senior thesis in African American studies (now Africana), Walker asked his thesis adviser, Charles Nero, if he could perform it, through music and photography. The concept and execution were \u201cdaring and brilliant,\u201d says Nero, the Benjamin E. Mays Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Schaeffer Theatre was the venue. \u201cIt was overflowing,\u201d recalls Carmita McCoy, then associate dean of admission and director of multicultural recruitment. She remembers sitting in the 10th row, with her son, Nicholas. \u201cEd was one of his heroes,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s that kind of a guy. He could relate to kids. He could relate to adults.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Walker could have pursued music as a career. As The Bates Student<\/em> put it then, go see Ed Walker so \u201cyou can say you knew him before he got big.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that wasn\u2019t the path Ed Walker chose. After graduation, he worked for nearly four years in admission at Bates, focusing on multicultural recruitment. He made it his business to return to Charlestown High. \u201cEd is loyal beyond loyal and leads with his generous heart and spirit,\u201d says Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Leigh Weisenburger, who met Walker during her first year at Bates. \u201cHe immediately took me under his wing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n After three years, Walker began looking for work closer to his daughter and took a position at Wheaton College. He went on to get a master\u2019s in education from Cambridge College in Boston and founded Independent Consultants of Education, with the aim to help students like the one he\u2019d been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now based in Millbury, Mass., he works as a guidance and school counselor at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. \u201cLooking back, I\u2019ve always taken jobs to do for young people what I wish someone was able to do for me when I was their age,\u201d he says. That includes sending many young people toward Bates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s been a motivational speaker (when Billy Hart brought him in to speak to a group of middle schoolers at the school where Hart was working, the students were rapt and then rushed Walker at the end. \u201cIt was just, like, flocking,\u201d Hart says). He still makes music, faith-based rather than rap. Last year he started a clothing company, R3Raiment, athletic leisurewear that speaks to his spirituality, the three Rs standing for Repent, Reborn and Redeem. Tiauna is one of his models for the clothing line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the record, he did not push his first-born, who attended Lincoln-Sudbury High School, into applying to Bates. \u201cSurprisingly, no,\u201d Tiauna Walker says, smiling. \u201cHe definitely heavily reps Bates,\u201d she concedes. But they did look at other schools and in the end, Bates was her top choice. \u201cIt was all me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On campus, she has encountered many who were floored that the baby they knew was now on her own Bates journey, and seemingly in the blink of an eye. Like Charles Nero and his husband, Professor of Hispanic Studies Baltasar Fra-Molinero, who met her and the whole Walker family outside Commons during her first year. \u201cWe\u2019re so old now,\u201d Nero quips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her major is psychology, with a minor in Africana, so she\u2019s taken a couple of courses from her father\u2019s former mentor. She\u2019s also studied Spanish with Fra-Molinero, who admires her globalist perspective. She has campus jobs as an Admission Fellow and in Post & Print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are physical similarities between father and daughter: height, cheeks, smiles. But there was a generational difference Nero observed. Ed arrived with drive but less direction; he was a sponge, soaking up the experience. His daughter arrived \u201cwith a very clear idea about her direction.\u201d Junior year, she studied in Ghana. And as she prepares to leave Bates, she says she\u2019s thinking about going into education. \u201cI want to be a principal or a head of school, most likely middle or high school.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her favorite class was a developmental psychology course with Rebecca Fraser-Thill, which entailed an immersive community engagement component. Tiauna signed up for visits to D\u2019Youville Pavilion, the elder-care center adjacent to the Bates campus. That\u2019s often a tough assignment to get students interested in, Fraser-Thill says, but \u201cTiauna was one of the people who was like, \u2018Oh yeah, I\u2019m all in.\u2019\u201d \u201cI love infants and elderly people,\u201d Tiauna says. \u201cI like that bluntness that they have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the memory unit, Walker grew close to Joan, a sassy woman who wore earrings and lipstick and was always happy to see Tiauna and tell her stories about her life. For a student, sitting and just listening is a crucial part of the lesson, Fraser-Thill says. \u201cIt might sound like someone just rehashing their life, but that\u2019s actually a huge psychosocial journey that a resident is going through.\u201d In those moments, Tiauna was empathetic and thoughtful, Fraser-Thill adds. \u201cShe was the only student to reach out and say, \u2018I want to write to my resident over the summer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m just grateful for what we have and how far we\u2019ve come,\u201d Ed says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n When James Reese looks at Tiauna, he sees the quiet strength of her father. A similar posture and approach to life. \u201cThey both reflect an openness,\u201d Reese says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tiauna Walker is leaving Bates with a host of connections to last a lifetime and stretching around the globe. This makes Ed Walker very happy. \u201cHanging out with her and her friends is like the United Nations. It\u2019s so diverse. Right? She has friends from all walks of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon, she will enter a time where it is fine, even natural, for her father to be hands off. (Yes, he proofread her thesis.) To let her fly as he did. \u201cI\u2019m just grateful for what we have and how far we\u2019ve come,\u201d Ed says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few years ago, in fall 2017, Tiauna arrived at Bates as a first-year student. As he\u2019s done for so many students, James Reese was there to welcome her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reese didn\u2019t want to presume by telling her about meeting her in 1999, when she was a day old, but he wanted her to understand what he remembers: how her father felt so strongly that she was a person who had to be met. \u201cBecause that\u2019s really a statement about Ed Walker.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tiauna Walker, Bates Class of \u201921, was born when her father, Ed Walker \u201902, was a first-year student just finding his place on the Bates campus. \u201cHow far we\u2019ve come,\u201d says the proud dad. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1283,"featured_media":140686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140677"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140833,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140677\/revisions\/140833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This story appears in the spring 2021 issue of <\/a>Bates Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/06\/E4_99_Ed-and-baby-Tiauna-Walker_IMG_1861.jpg\")
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While studying abroad in Ghana in early 2020, Tiauna Walker does the famous canopy walk in Kakum National Park. (Photograph by Samuel Mironko \u201821)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/06\/E4_170000_walker_nero_baltasar_1862.jpeg\")
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