BANGOR, Maine – The winningest single-sport coach in the history of Husson athletics is adding to her already impressive resume. Head women's basketball coach Kissy Walker has been announced as an inductee into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2024.

Walker is in the midst of her 33rd season as the head coach of a Husson program that has won 12 conference tournament championships under her direction. Walker's teams have made 12 national tournament appearances during her storied career, including a trip to the NAIA Fabulous Four during the 1992-93 season when the Eagles posted a 28-3 record.

Despite already holding spots in the Husson Sports Hall of Fame, Maine Basketball Hall of Fame and New England Basketball Hall of Fame, Walker admitted that receiving the news she would join an elite group of Maine's best was unexpected.

"I've read articles and seen on TV when people are inducted into that, and they've always been people who I've looked up to, been role models to me, admired," Walker expressed. "To think I'm at the same level now with my age and where I am in my career, this isn't a hall of fame I ever even thought about."

While the honor may come as a surprise to Walker, it certainly doesn't come as a shock to anyone who has seen her resume as a coach. A 10-time conference coach of the year selection, Walker has earned two NAIA District V Coach of the Year awards, three Maine State Coach of the Year selections and one New England Women's Basketball Association Coach of the Year honor, to go along with her 587 wins.

Going back to the beginning of it all, Walker was one of those people who knew that she wanted to try her hand at coaching from an early age. While Walker wasn't necessarily set on becoming a coach in the college ranks, she remembers attending the Maine high school basketball tournament at the Augusta Civic Center and scouting out her potential recruits for her own team.

"I'd sit there all week with one of my teammates and we would pretend we were coaches and decide who we would recruit," Walker reminisced. "I would have to say my love for coaching started back then. I always really loved the game, loved watching people play and evaluating them."

After graduating from the University of Maine at Orono in 1986 with her bachelor of science in health and physical education, Walker spent the next three years at Holbrook Middle School in Holden, Maine, where she taught physical education and coached girls basketball, softball and gymnastics. Following her brief stint at Holbrook, Walker was given the opportunity to try her hand at the college level as an assistant coach for Husson, sticking true to a pact she made with her best friend.

"Lauree [Gott] got the job as head coach back in 1988 and we had a pact that if one of us got the job the other would be the assistant," Walker said. "It wasn't a full-time position, she was working three jobs to make ends meet, but after the team did so well that year they decided to make it a full-time position."

Walker wouldn't have to wait long to get her shot as the head coach of the Eagles, as Gott led Husson to a 26-2 record in her first season at the helm and was rewarded with a coaching position at Northeastern University, which left Walker in charge. The women's basketball team flourished from the beginning under Walker's guidance, posting 20 or more wins in six of her first seven seasons in charge, including the trip to the fabulous four, which still lives on as one of the most successful seasons in the history of Husson women's basketball.

While Walker has always been the one calling the shots on the sidelines inside Newman Gymnasium, she acknowledges she couldn't have done it without the great assistants she has had throughout the years. From former players like Jenn Comeau-Folsom and Emily Walker Anderson, to former men's basketball players Scott Cunningham and Walker's nephew Matt MacKenzie. To the ones who have been there through it all like Gott, Steve Waceken and Randy Dodge, who has nearly 30 years of experience alongside Walker on the Husson bench, there have been a lot of people who have helped Walker get to this prestigious moment, including the university administration.

"A lot of it was that I had support from the administration," Walker admitted. "Athletics at Husson has been a very big part of the university, and the presidents, Beardsley and Clark, were so supportive. You have to do a lot as a coach to recruit people, but without support you're not going to go very far."

Every coach has a different philosophy in terms of what kind of player they are looking for when they are trying to build a successful team. For Walker, basketball skills aren't everything when it comes to the type of player she wants to represent the green and gold.

"A big part of our recruiting process is trying to recruit people who are obviously skilled athletes, every coach wants that, but we look for people who are going to be a good fit to our program, who are good people," Walker quipped. 

"We want people who are coachable, and that's a big word," Walker continued. "Everybody has a different description of what coachable is, but we want people who when you teach them to do something, that they're going to try to make that adjustment, versus just looking at you and saying 'yep coach, yep coach' and doing the same thing that they've done forever."

For a coach who has countless memories throughout her lengthy journey on the sidelines, Walker reinforced that instead of reminiscing about past experiences, she uses specific attributes that made her past players good to help improve her current players.

"One of the things that I like to do in practices when I'm teaching, for example, is say something like, 'Emily Walker Anderson used to play on the wing in the 1-3-1 and she was the best wing we've ever had and here's why,'" Walker said. "I try to talk about our alumni because I feel like all of them that I've had, have a certain impact on the program and those kinds of memories of them are embedded into our program."

With not much left to add to her coaching resume, some may wonder why Walker continues to come back year after year, but for her, the answer is simple.

"The players bring you back year after year," Walker acknowledged. "Coaching is such an up-and-down industry, you can have a win and be on a real high, but then two nights later you lose and you're thinking you're the worst coach in the world. The players, they're just a joy to be around. Coaching is really motivating. You're constantly trying to fix things, even when you win, you think, 'well we could have done this better' and you're trying to fix it."

"It just is very motivating, trying to put together the best teams, and scheduling a trip for the winter and all that goes into it so that your players are going to get a really good experience," Walker concluded. "There's so much to it at the division III level because we have to do all of it and it's challenging. When it all comes together and you get those little rewards, then it's just a great feeling."