ELLENSBURG – There are dumber things to do than to go into a bar and pick a fight with a bouncer who plays linebacker on a college football team.
Like calling a Marine a namby-pamby. Or saying to a Navy Seal that he’s a mamma’s boy.
But the outcome each time is likely to be the same: The dummy gets decked.
Blake Walker knows about dummies. He had run-ins with a few of them at an Ellensburg bar where he worked keeping order last summer.
“I’ve had people take swings at me,” he said, “but usually they’ve had a little too much to drink, their reflexes are a little slow and I can see them swinging from a mile away.”
What the troublemakers might not realize is that Walker has been tossing around guys who are a lot tougher than they are for the last four years. And they’ve been sober, too.
He’s been the starting middle linebacker for Central Washington University since his redshirt freshman season, a streak that reached 43 games Saturday afternoon when the Wildcats defeated arch-rival Western Washington 31-17 in the 9th annual Cascade Cup game at Tomlinson Stadium.
As he’s done so often during his collegiate career, Walker – a 6-foot-1, 234-pound senior from Everett – gave an outstanding performance, compiling 12 tackles, forcing a fumble that was turned into a touchdown and breaking up a pass.
Just a week ago, he wrote his name in the CWU record book with a career-high for tackles. With one regular-season game remaining, his total is 361, by itself a mark that might stand for a long time. It might also be a while before Central has another linebacker the likes of Blake Walker.
Coach John Zamberlin says Walker might be the best linebacker that’s ever played for the Wildcats.
What makes him so good, Zamberlin said, is his understanding of how to play the position, his attitude and, of course, his talent. “God blessed him with some very good tools,” Zamberlin said. “He’s very quick, very explosive and very tenacious. He wants to make every tackle.”
Zamberlin cited instinct as another attribute. “He makes plays when you don’t even know how he made them,” the coach said.
And some drunk thinks he’s going to get the best of this guy? Uh-uh.
“There were some challengers who wanted to come in there and take him on,” said Blake’s father, John. “He had to pile-drive a few people into the sidewalk.”
“Yeah,” Blake concurred. “I had to throw a lot of people out.”
Ironically, he’s not into the bar scene. But a buddy talked him into taking the job. “You never go out,” the friend said.
So Blake took it. “It went really well,” he said. “I made $15 to $20 a night in tips.”
His mother worried about his welfare. But Blake reassured her there were no hardcore bad guys frequenting the bar.
Janell Walker had another reason to fret. Blake drives a motorcycle.
“It’s pretty powerful,” Blake said. “I’m sure it scares her. But my dad has been riding motorcycles all his life and he always tells me to be careful.”
Blake says he is. And he always wears a helmet when he explores the canyons around Ellensburg.
As a football player, Blake has always had a pretty good idea what he’s capable of doing.
“My freshman year here, I told myself, I wanted to play as hard as I could and break records,” he recalled.
When he got the tackle record a week ago, they didn’t do like they do in baseball when a milestone is reached and stop the game to recognize the individual. But Blake had a pretty good idea he’d gotten it.
Zamberlin didn’t say anything to him about the record after the game. “If you talk to him, you might want to remind him,” Blake said jokingly.
When he was a sophomore at Cascade High School in Everett, Blake played guard in the offensive line. At the end of that season, he went to then-head coach Terry Ennis and expressed a desire to switch to running back.
The father of Grady Sizemore, one of Walker’s teammates, told Ennis that Blake had been an outstanding running back in youth football.
“I’m slow, but I’m not stubborn,” laughed Ennis, now the coach at Archbishop Murphy, the other day. “I set some criteria for him to meet.”
You’ll be playing both ways, running back and linebacker, and you’ll have to be in exceptional condition, Ennis stressed.
One day Walker was in the weight room when the coach came in. Ennis challenged him to do a certain lift with 230 pounds. “If you can power clean this,” he said, “you can play running back.”
Walker made it on the second try. “I was glad that he did it,” Ennis said.
Blake became the starting fullback the next year and was, in Ennis’ words, a “powerful, punishing” runner.
Ennis enjoyed having him on the team because of his enthusiasm. “He was one of those kids you just liked having around,” Ennis said.
Zamberlin would like to keep him around. “He’s a fine young man,” the Wildcat coach said of his two-time captain. “It’s been a pleasure to work with him. I’ll be sad to see him go.”
Rob Smith won’t. He’s had to watch from the sidelines for four years as Walker caused havoc for his Western Washington offense. “You have to know where he is all the time or he’s going to make a play on you,” Smith said before Saturday’s game. “He’s been the heart and soul of that defense.”
Walker is due to graduate next spring, but he’d like to delay putting his degree to use right away. He might get his wish.
There have been NFL scouts through Ellensburg to take a look at Walker and his teammate Evan Picton, a 6-3, 278-pound tackle from Manson.
One of the teams interested in Walker is San Francisco, and 49ers coach Dennis Erickson has a little history with Central. When he was coach of the Seahawks, he signed Wildcat quarterback Jon Kitna as a non-drafted free agent.
Zamberlin knows something about coming out of a small school to play in the NFL, because he did it for six years after graduating from Pacific Lutheran.
Could Blake Walker be another of those unheralded players to earn a roster spot in the NFL? Zamberlin wouldn’t bet against him.
“Blake warrants a tryout,” Zamberlin said, noting that Walker is also a long snapper and there are guys in the NFL making very nice livings specializing in that. “I think if given the opportunity, he could open some eyes. He has the speed to play different positions, whether outside or inside linebacker. He plays with good leverage. He’s hard to knock off his feet.”
As antagonistic bar customers found out.
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