Canzano: World is less interesting without Jim Walden

A tribute to the quotable football coach.

They were besties.

Thick as thieves in retirement, those two.

Jim Walden and Gary Libey were a hoot as friends go. They’d go on walks and eat meals, travel together, and their wives became fast friends, too. They got especially tight in the last two decades after the couples bought condos in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, just two doors apart.

A football coach.

A judge.

I wish I could have eavesdropped on their conversations. As Libey said, “I’d say, ‘Hey Jim, What’s up?’ and he’d just talk for the next 90 minutes, and I was never once bored.”

During the pivotal “Pac-2” court hearing in Libey’s Whitman County courtroom in 2023, Walden and his wife, Nancy, were present. They sat alongside Trudy Libey, the judge’s wife, in what was essentially the jury box.

I didn’t know whom else to reach out to on Thursday night when I heard Walden, 88, had died. Libey was the first person who came to mind. I sent the retired judge a text just before midnight with a single word.

“Walden?”

His reply came: “Cougs lost a true hero.”

The former Washington State and Iowa State head football coach had a booming heart and no filter. He was a magnificent quote and a skyscraper of a storyteller. The world is a little less interesting without Walden and his southern drawl in it.

Last football season, before Oregon made the trip to Iowa City to play Iowa, I called Walden to ask him what that trip would be like for the Ducks. He’d made the journey to play Iowa as a rival several times.

Walden told me the Hawkeyes wouldn’t do anything to beat themselves, that they would be convicted, relentless, well coached, and committed to their scheme. The crowd would be hostile, too. And the weather would be miserable, just how Iowa likes it on game day.

“It’s like Hell has come to breakfast,” Walden said.

The Ducks won, 18-16.

Walden left me a funny voicemail message the following day, crowing, “Looks like Daniel Lanning survived that breakfast and tiptoed outta town alive!!!” Then, Walden closed his call with a deep laugh and hung up. I’m kicking myself for deleting it. It was never only about what Walden said; it was how he said it.

He could really deliver a line, couldn’t he?

Once, when Washington coach Don James complained about having to play a late kickoff in Pullman, Walden quipped: “This is not the Russian tundra.”

When he was asked about the importance of winning the Apple Cup rivalry, Walden said, “Everybody needs something to hate, and the Huskies make it nice.”

WSU fans ate it up.

They loved him. He was like them, after all. He’d worked hard, flown under the radar, been chronically overlooked, and coached at some places that were traditionally difficult to win. He was relatable, interesting, loyal, and willing to wade into difficult waters and stand knee-deep in the fight with his fan base.

Walden was also brutally honest.

Years ago, after losing a game against Cal, Walden vented with: “I don’t mind getting run over by a tank, but we got run over by a damned moped.”

I’m fascinated by how an upbringing shapes a person. Walden’s father operated a gas station. His mother worked at a clothing factory. That duo, and a small town in Mississippi, produced a whale of a coach who impacted so many others.

Since we’re on the topic, Libey is the son of a police officer. His mother worked at a Montgomery Ward department store. He became a judge. I’ve written columns about Libey several times in the last three years. He’d grown up, gone to law school, passed the bar, and served as president of the Whitman County Cougar Club.

Jim Walden and Gary Libey on a walk.

That entity held a fundraiser golf tournament in the late 1970s in Clarkston, Wash. It’s where the two men first really got to know each other. Libey had entered a raffle at the event and won a Washington State football helmet.

“I was so excited, I put the helmet on my head,” Libey said. “I realized immediately I was in trouble. I couldn’t get the helmet off. I go, ‘Oh my God,’ and I’m walking around this event with the football helmet on. I just can’t get it off my head, and here comes Walden and his friends, and I’m introduced to him."

Walden goes: “What are you doing with that helmet?”

Libey says, “It’s stuck.”

“So Jim just starts laughing,” Libey told me. “He says, ‘I’ll show you later.’ Then, we all eventually leave, and I drive to Uniontown with the helmet still stuck on my head. We all go to this little bar called Eleanor’s in Uniontown, and I walk in, and I still have the helmet on. Jim comes over, helps me pop off the ear pads and chin guard, and I get that helmet off finally. We became buddies.”

Libey became his lawyer.

Then, they were neighbors.

Then, the Waldens and Libeys traveled together.

Walden’s father operated a gas station. His mother worked at a clothing factory. The ex-football coach had told so many amazing stories that glorified his upbringing in Aberdeen, Miss., that the two couples decided to travel there to see it in person.

They visited Walden’s high school, saw the place he first coached, and Libey even got a haircut at the town barber shop — a buzz cut, just like Walden used to get as a kid.

“Trudy about died,” the judge said.

The last couple of years had been hard on Jim Walden. He was slowing down. Libey noted that their daily walks became a little slower in pace, and then they eventually stopped. But Walden kept co-hosting his Saturday morning radio show. I even joined it for a phone interview a couple of times in the last two years.

One of the sponsors of Walden’s radio show?

Gary and Trudy Libey, of course.

“We didn’t even have a business to promote. We wrote checks to hear him talk because we loved him so much,” Gary said. “He was so fun on the radio. He went from two hours down to one recently. One hour didn’t seem like enough time for him to even tell a story.”

They talked on the phone a week ago. Walden told his friend, “Man, I’m not feeling like I have energy left in me.”

By Sunday night, Walden was in the hospital with a serious respiratory issue. Gary and Trudy Libey rushed to see their old friend one last time on Thursday. Trudy brought him some jelly beans, his favorite candy, and kissed him twice on the cheek.

Not much was said.

Gary told me: “He was just about gone by the time we got there.”

Jim Walden died on Thursday night. He was alongside his wife and with his good friends, not far away. Before I hung up the phone on Friday, I told Gary and Trudy Libey that I was going to write a column about their old friend and neighbor.

There was a pause.

Then, Gary Libey said, “I could not get that dang helmet off. I still got it, but I’m not putting it back on. You know, Jim thought that was so funny.”

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