Players’ coach: Wake Forest’s Walter on cusp of baseball glory after donating kidney, other trials

By ERIC OLSON
AP Sports Writer

Tom Walter is coach of the Wake Forest team that is the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. Baseball has often played a secondary role during his 27-year career even though he has won more than 800 games and taken three different schools to the national tournament. Walter donated a kidney to one of his Wake Forest players. The kidney recipient Kevin Jordan and Walter co-founded a nonprofit focused on social justice. Walter also met the challenge of moving his players at New Orleans to New Mexico State for school and fall practices following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.