Sports

DCB rallies support for athlete's parents

By Tyler Ohmann

03/12/2013

On Feb. 20 as the Dakota College at Bottineau men’s basketball team played in Devils Lake against the Lake Region State College the unthinkable happened to freshman Kristoff Walker.

Walker, who led the Jacks with 18.4 points per game in 30 games this season, fell on a drive to the hoop and severely broke both his tibia and fibula.

“When it first happened Colby Boyes was by me, and I was asking the ref, if it was a foul,” Walker said. “Then he (Boyes) said, “Kristoff, look at your leg,” and I looked and I was so in shock it was hurting, but I wasn’t crying because I was so in shock.”

“I had never broke anything in my body, the only thing I had did was strain an MCL and sprained a couple ankles, but I had never broke anything,” Walker continued. “When I saw the bone sticking out, that was when I blacked out.”
“This was my first lifetime experience of going through something tough like that,” Walker added.

Walker, who is from New Orleans, La., was far away from home and being whisked away to Grand Forks for surgery.

As soon as staff and faculty at DCB found out about the injury, they immediately jumped into ‘what can we do?’ mode.

“I emailed Denny (Ziegler) and he just picked it up like that,” said Janeen Pollman, DCB’s bookstore manager. “We just felt like, ‘what we do in that situation if something happened to our kid.’”

“We knew it would be high price tickets to get here, and we wanted to know if we could do anything to help them (Walker’s parents),” Pollman added.

The email circulated and several staff and faculty contributed to make a donation to Willard and Nancy Walker, Kristoff’s parents, to help off set travel and hotel costs. In total more than $1300 was raised in less than a day.

“I was surprised with how fast it went,” Pollman said. “Usually it would take like a week or something, and it was less than a day.”

Jacks head coach Cory Fehringer was touched by the outpouring of support given to the Walkers.

“It was an extremely good feeling to realize how quickly people would turn around and care about an athlete from miles away,” Fehringer said. “It shows how much support and caring that we have within our institution for somebody who has been here a relatively short amount of time.”

Fehringer thinks that it’s Kristoff’s infectious personality that lead to the quick response.

“I think Kristoff Walker is an extremely talented athlete, but a more talented individual,” Fehringer said. “I think that’s what showed from the support that he received from the people around him—the students, the staff, the faculty and community supporters.”

“He’s really, truly a great kid,” Fehringer added.

Kristoff was surprised to see his parents at the hospital so quickly when he was going through the difficult time in the hospital.

“They came up here the day right after it happened, and that was a shock,” Walker said. “I appreciate it, because I love my mom and my dad for everything they did, because they even held up their jobs to come up here.”

He also was glad they were there to help him through the difficult surgeries.

“It meant a lot,” Walker said. “I knew I was in a place that I was comfortable, because I knew my parents were there, and I would be drugged up and saying crazy things, and I knew that they would be there with me and hold my hand when the pain was hurting and take care of me.”

When he found out what DCB had done for his parents, which they expressed in a get well soon card and letter, he was truly touched.

“When I heard that my family was coming, I was really shocked,” Walker said. “When I read the letter (from the school) I was really crying, because that was really touching to my heart that a lot of people cared for me, and showed that all of the people was behind me.”

“When I was in the hospital I just thought of everybody and missed everybody, and I just appreciate what everybody did, which is why I got kind of teary,” he added.

A special talent

Walker came to DCB as the first recruit of Fehringer, who is in his first year as head coach, and thus meant a lot to Fehringer.

“There was a lot of excitement about getting him, because of the caliber of player he is,” Fehringer said. “He chose to come here, and as a freshman he was first-team all-region, all-conference, averaged 20 a game, but for me personally I just want to make sure he gets the most that we can give him from Dakota College, which is degree first, playing second.”

Fehringer said it isn’t even Walker’s on the court performance that makes him great to have around.

“He was the first player that I recruited, and I hadn’t met him before he came here,” Fehringer said. “But in the time I’ve known him he’s just an amazing person.”

“Most importantly, and what I think is best is that Kristoff loves being a Lumberjack. He wants to help Dakota College win basketball games, but he also wants to get his degree from Dakota College,” Fehringer added.

He will have to do that from Louisiana though, as he recovers, which the school has provided him the option to do.

“I really would like to thank the teachers for letting me take my classes online while I’m at home rehabbing,” Walker said. “A lot of things that people are doing for me, I really appreciate. It’s a blessing.”

Not to mention he is determined.

“I’m going to come back next year,  come back ready and stronger, so we can go farther,” Walker said.

“If I have to redshirt or whatever, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I’m ready and my leg is better. Me and coach Cory are going to keep on praying, and everybody praying that I recover fast, so I don’t have to do that,” Walker added.

Fehringer would love to see Walker on the court again, but he would take seeing his bright smile on campus again.

“If he puts on a Lumberjack jersey again, that would be a tremendous thing to see, but none of us wants to see him be out of this school,” Fehringer said.

DCB ‘a blessing’

Pollman thinks that if this was another college, that the school might have done nothing, or at the very least, it would have been delayed. She said that’s a big draw about the college.

“Part of DCB is being more personal,” Pollman said. “We know our students, so we can visualize that.”

Walker too is happy with his choice of coming to DCB, despite having offers at several bigger schools, including four-year institutions.

“Some people think it’s not the place that I should be because of my talent,” Walker said. “But I say it’s a blessing to come here and God puts you in mysterious places to learn mysterious things, and I learned a lot from this.”