He flew under the recruiting radar on the football field last fall.<\/p>\n
Now, Isaiah Walker is doing everything in his power to fly well above the radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been fascinated with space,\u201d the mild-mannered big man said. \u201cI want to be the first man on Mars. Becoming an astronaut always has been a dream of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the time being, however, the 6-foot-4, 255-pound Kent-Meridian High product has his feet firmly planted on the ground and with a very distinct goal sitting in front of him.<\/p>\n
That goal?<\/p>\n
To make an immediate impact on the football field at the collegiate level.<\/p>\n
Walker, a defensive lineman, will be heading to Pocatello, Idaho, on Friday. He hopes to be suiting up as a true freshman for the Idaho State Bengals come Sept. 5, when they open their 11-game schedule in Tempe, Ariz. against the Arizona State Sun Devils.<\/p>\n
To make sure he realizes his goal, Walker is working out religiously at Imperial Fitness, an underground training facility in Kent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the best thing I could be doing for myself right now,\u201d Walker said. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing. I\u2019m doing stuff I\u2019ve never heard of … hitting (500-pound) tires with a sledge hammer, flipping tires, stacking up 500 pound tires … it\u2019s crazy stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Add it up and the one-time \u201cchubby\u201d Walker, the kid who didn\u2019t start playing football until he was a freshman in high school, now is blossoming into the kind of lineman who makes Pacific-10 schools drool. However, the physical specimen Walker is today isn\u2019t quite the same as the one who took the field for the Royals as a junior, the pivotal year in the recruiting process.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis junior year (2007), he didn\u2019t prove anything,\u201d Kent-Meridian coach Trevor Roberts said. \u201cHe came in his senior year and really became a dominant lineman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed he did.<\/p>\n
Matter of fact, there weren\u2019t many more imposing or unstoppable defensive lineman in the South Puget Sound League North Division last fall than Walker, who led the league with nine sacks and was among the leaders in tackles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it was partly because we had a newer staff at K-M and a tradition of not being successful, but the recruiters just didn\u2019t come (for Walker),\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t figure it out. We sent out massive amounts of tapes and made phone calls, and Idaho State and Eastern Washington were the only ones who were all over him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Off the radar?<\/p>\n
\u201cCompletely,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
The big season, however, did earn Walker a spot on the All-SPSL team, though it didn\u2019t draw any more recruiters to the East Hill school.<\/p>\n
Part of that has to do with filling in to his big frame, Walker conceded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was growing up in (Billings) Montana, I had a lot different body type,\u201d said Walker, who also was a standout thrower for the K-M track team this spring. \u201cI wasn\u2019t as tall, I was chubby and not nearly as muscular. I was soft.\u201d<\/p>\n
That softness has since been transformed into muscle, much of it during the last several months. In fact, during football season, Walker toed the line at 235 pounds.<\/p>\n
That was 20 pounds ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s huge,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cIf he looked that big during the recruiting months, he would have been a Pac-10 kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not being recruited by a Division I school is a bit frustrating, Walker admitted. But the burly lineman is plenty content taking his full-ride scholarship to Idaho State, where he is considering studying mechanical, nuclear or astronautical engineering.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just fit (at Idaho State),\u201d said Walker, who also had a full-ride offer from Eastern Washington and an invitation to walk on at Washington State. \u201cIt was my kind of climate. It was laid back, they had good structure and I was really impressed with that. As a team, they really seemed like family.\u201d<\/p>\n
A family where the big kid from K-M isn\u2019t likely to fall off the radar any time soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He flew under the recruiting radar on the football field last fall. Now, Isaiah Walker is doing everything in his power to fly well above the radar. \u201cI\u2019ve always been fascinated with space,\u201d the mild-mannered big man said. \u201cI want to be the first man on Mars. Becoming an astronaut always has been a dream […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":4569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4568"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}