Inside Jim Walker’s incredible free throw marathon: one hour every day for twenty four straight days = 20,000+ free throws to benefit the American Cancer Society.
This post is sponsored by State Farm. Meet assisting’s new starting five: the National Bureau of Assists.
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In basketball, they call a sweet assist “dropping a dime.” And it’s usually the dynamic point guard leading the way. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Jim Walker has been leading the way. And for Walker, they’ve been dropping $20s. It is a coaching and accounting truism that “free throws win you games.” Walker is using his free-throw shooting prowess for a whole lot more.
Jim Walker epitomizes what a college head basketball coach should be. He has been coaching college basketball for over 35 years, all but one year of it at Moravian, a small college in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A former history and science public school teacher, Walker got his first opportunity to coach basketball as a volunteer and at his town’s high school. With a passion for basketball, teaching his players and his community, he has never looked back.
And he has built a terrific program. Of course, you won’t likely confuse Moravian’s basketball team with that of University of Kentucky or Duke. But that’s not what its all about.
“We want to win and that’s important, but I remember teams that really struggled and battled the whole year, and they are as important to me as teams that won a lot of games. They manage to learn a lot more about themselves, things that really helped them in their lives.”
At school, he is involved in his player’s lives. If they are in trouble, or aren’t going to class, getting their schoolwork done, or staying fit, it’s part of his job to know that. And he does. But Walker also describes himself as someone with a loyal, strong and continuing relationship with players he’s had through the years. And that is really the crux of what coaching means, or should mean.
“A lot of people define coaching as getting players/students to do things that they wouldn’t do if you weren’t involved in their life. So that is basically what we try to do when they are here, and I stay involved in their life afterwards. That’s the most important thing. We keep score and we wonder about how many we win and lose—and for that I’m right in the middle—but I’m not in the middle in terms of what these kids accomplish with their lives.”
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As a coach and teacher for his players and community, Walker has always been a leader in everyday assists. The Moravians are missionaries, and the college encourages community service. It is in the DNA of the community to help each other and the world at large. And Walker has done a lot of community service over the years with his team.
For the past two years, Walker has been giving back in a unique way, using his platform as a basketball coach and his passion and talent for free-throw shooting to make an impact on the world.
He shoots free-throws for charity. A lot of them. And with uncanny speed, accuracy, and consistency.
One hour. Every day. For twenty-four straight days. Over twenty-thousand free-throws made. (Check out his day-by-day free throw chart from the 2015 event: he hit 20,137 free throws over the 24 hours. The epitome of tenacity.)
Walker has always been a good free-throw shooter, and as he worked with coaches and players, he has improved over time.
He got the idea for the Free Throw Marathon from a work-out routine he uses, one-hour work-outs where he would shoot free-throws at opposite sides of the court for an hour. He became curious as to the record for timed free-throw shooting, and his research uncovered the record holder, a man who shot for 24 straight hours and made about 18,000 out of 22,000 shots. After talking it through with some friends, Walker hit on the idea of shooting for one hour for twenty four straight days, shooting as many as possible. He trained using the same exercise, hitting 80-90% of his shots.
Walker chose cancer as his cause based on a personal connection to the disease. His father died of cancer and his brother-in-law had cancer, as did many friends.
This year, Walker made over 20,000 free throws. During the hour-long sessions, using two balls and one or two rebounders depending on the day, he would receive and shoot a ball every two to three seconds. His lowest shooting percentage in an hour was 72% and his highest was 85%. Free throws will win you games, indeed.
Supporters and friends came to watch. The gym was rarely empty. And often he would get together with his friends and players afterwards.
In year one, Walker hit 16,000 shots. This year, Walker needed to make 960 on the last day to get to his goal of 20,000, He had only one rebounder and two balls. He hit 1,000 with four minutes to go.
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In the past two years, the Marathon has raised $6,000.
Walker’s goal was to help raise awareness and to involve as many people as possible people. He asked sponsors in the community for $0.01 per free throw made. This year it was $20 for 20,000. Last year $16 for 16,000. “It was a lot of $20s,” and some donated more.
And that is the thing to remember—no one assists alone. Significantly, over 200 people volunteered—as rebounders and as counters—or donated. And the participation was community-wide: women, men, young to old from interns to custodians to secretaries to coaching staff to current and former players to retired friends to the Athletic Director and President of the College.
Walker’s answer as to why he does it is simple: Because it feels good to help others in some way.
It is through activities like this that we can create change. As a history major and former history teacher, Walker remembered two things in the 20th century that the US really wanted: to build an atomic bomb and to put a man on the moon: “And they got it done by organizing resources—money and people. They got it done. Imagine if we did that for cancer?”
Now 71 years old, Walker announced his retirement from Moravian at the end of this year. With his pending retirement, Walker isn’t sure whether he will again take up the free-throw challenge next year. But he is hoping to continue to act for cancer research and cancer awareness, and he is actively brainstorming ways to continue to get out there, get people engaged, and to provide that community assist.
Swish. Winner.