Racquetball, shattered records and small-town Mississippi: Former Washington State coach Jim Walden has deep-rooted history with family of Joe Burrow

Two weeks ago, at some point while Jim Burrow was sorting through the never-ending stream of messages that came through his phone after his son, Joe, led the Cincinnati Bengals to a dramatic comeback win over the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game, he opened a text from former Washington State coach Jim Walden.

Walden’s message: “All right, which is the greatest experience, running through 15 games and winning the Heisman and national championship or doing the Super Bowl?”

Jim Burrow’s response: “Well, economically I think the best deal might be running through the Super Bowl.”

Walden doesn’t have too many Joe Burrow stories, if any at all. The fast-rising Bengals quarterback was born in 1996, two years after Walden retired from football following an eight-year head coaching stint at Iowa State. But Walden is nothing short of an encyclopedia when it comes to Burrow’s extended family, and might even deserve a small branch on the family tree.

He and the Burrows go back to the early 1960s when Walden, a new high school coach in the sparsely populated town of Armory, Mississippi, moved in next door to James Burrow – grandfather of the Super Bowl-bound signal-caller – along with his sixth-grade son, Jim, and another son, Danny.

“All total, I think between living next door and at the end of the 1994 coaching season, Jim had been in and around me for 23 years,” said Walden, an Aberdeen, Mississippi, native. “So our journey has been, to say the least, it’s been kind of fun.”

And getting better by the day.

It’s unclear where the Heisman Trophy winner and first overall draft pick would be without the experience, wisdom and genetic gifts passed down from his father. Likewise, Jim’s career as a player and coach would look starkly different if Walden never entered the picture.

Walden and Jim had daily run-ins as next-door neighbors, and the former Canadian Football League quarterback-turned-high-school-coach saw something special in the young boy when Jim eventually joined the varsity team in Armory. Walden left to join Nebraska’s staff as a graduate assistant. After learning Ole Miss had only offered his former high school player a walk-on spot, he urged the Huskers to take on Jim as a scholarship defensive back.

“I felt at that time he could come in and play as a defensive back, as good as any we had,” Walden said. “And he had to sit out a year, which was perfect because we needed a scout team quarterback and Jimmy had played quarterback in high school. I knew he could do it and half the teams were running the wishbone in those days, so he didn’t have to have a lot of throwing skills. Not that he couldn’t. … Then true to form, he made All-Big Eight two years in a row as a defensive safety.”

Joe Burrow’s athletic gifts, competitive drive and brimming confidence may stem from his father, a former Green Bay Packers draft pick, but his grandfather, James, was a scholarship basketball player at Mississippi State from 1948-52. His grandmother, Dot, probably laid claim to the most impressive sporting feat submitted by any Burrow until Joe won a Heisman and national title at LSU.

A prep basketball phenom in Smithville, Mississippi, who played during an era when high school girls still competed in a half-court, 3-on-3 setting, Dot once scored a state-record 72 points in a single game, only to trump that number by scoring 82 later in the same season.

“I can remember when Jimmy Burrow was an eighth-grader, he could not beat his mother in a game of horse out in the yard,” Walden said. “That’s how good she was. Joe comes from good stock on the Burrow side, let’s just put it that way.”

Historians have chronicled Dot Burrow’s record-setting high school basketball career and national journalists have spent the past two weeks rehashing the numbers produced by her grandson during a season that saw Joe pass for 4,611 yards and 34 touchdowns while leading the Bengals to a Super Bowl berth in a season where many expected they’d miss the playoffs.

In a phone interview earlier this week, Walden revealed another story that underscores the athletic excellence of the Burrow family. It’s a Jim Burrow story, a Washington State story and, above all else, a racquetball story.

During breaks in Jim’s Canadian Football League career, the former Nebraska safety would spend time in Pullman because it offered a productive offseason training environment, and many of his old coaches had taken on jobs at Washington State. Warren Powers, the former DB coach at Nebraska, had become Cougars head coach in 1977, and Walden was an offensive backfield coach before replacing Powers in 1978.

“Jim Burrow was just as humble and nice as his kid is,” said former WSU coach Mike Price, a running backs coach in Pullman from 1974-77. “Just really, really neat people.”

Once Jim’s CFL career finished, he joined Walden’s staff as a tight ends coach in 1981 before switching to a more natural role coaching Cougars defensive backs from 1982-86. There was no noon basketball in these days, but three times a week, a small group of WSU coaches including Walden, Burrow, Dave Elliott and Gary Gagnon would gather for semi-competitive racquetball matches.

“(Jim) always used to be my partner because he was so much better than the rest of us that I dragged him down, so it made it equal,” Walden said.

On the rare occasion Walden agreed to a singles match, Jim would playfully tease his boss by resting against the back wall, rather than setting up in an athletic position that would give him the best chance of returning the serve.

“I’d look back there and he’s leaning on the wall,” Walden said. “I said, ‘Damn Jimmy, you’re an assistant coach and I’m the head coach, you could at least pay me enough respect to look like you think I’d get a point.’ ”

It so happened one of the state’s racquetball champions lived in Pullman at the time and quickly learned about Burrow’s talent. In an area of the state where competitive racquetball players weren’t exactly falling out of trees, he’d occasionally invite Burrow to train.

“I tell you, you put him on a racquetball court and he’ll wear (you) out. I used to say, he could’ve gone into that as a professional,” Walden said. “But he could beat the state champion in the state of Washington. I know that for a fact, that’s how good an athlete he was. His son Joey comes by it naturally, believe me.”

Walden keeps in touch with Jim on a regular basis, calling every few months and texting after nearly every Bengals game – “win or lose,” he assured. Though he doesn’t know Joe Burrow directly, the former WSU coach expects to swell with pride when Cincinnati’s No. 9 jersey trots out of the tunnel before Sunday’s game.

“His dad (James Burrow) was my boss as a superintendent/principal. I’ve known him since 1964,” Walden said. “It’s just an amazing thing and to watch him win a Heisman Trophy first, go 15-0 – to see all that, go through the Ohio State thing, I don’t think Joe would call it an ordeal, but it was a process. Now to see him here going into the Super Bowl, it’s almost like magic, if you really want to know the truth.”

Like Walden, Price will watch Sunday’s game from his Coeur d’Alene residence, though his rooting interests are more complicated.

He’s also a Burrow admirer who spent time getting to know Jim on the Palouse, yet he’s equally found of Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp.

Price, a reserve quarterback at WSU in the 1960s who finished his career at the University of Puget Sound, has memories of watching Kupp’s grandfather, Jake, play for cross-state rival Washington.

“I remember he was a big-time player, big old lanky guy,” Price said. “He was starting and I don’t know if I even played. I was on the bench.”

Jake Kupp’s relationship with UW is the only explanation Price has for why the Cougars didn’t recruit his grandson, who became an FCS All-American at Eastern Washington and typically saved his best receiving performances for Pac-12 opponents, including a 206-yard, three-touchdown effort against the Cougars in 2016.

“Why didn’t we recruit Kupp?” Price said. “The only thing I can remember that his dad was a Husky, maybe that’s why we didn’t recruit him.”

Price knew of Kupp while coaching at UTEP and recalls watching high school film of the Davis High (Yakima) product. Since, the All-Pro wideout has become a role model for hundreds of high school players with similar backgrounds, including one of Price’s grandsons, Davis Fry, who’s also playing prep football at College Place in Walla Walla and has comparable height/weight measurements to the Rams player.

“That’s kind of neat for me, too, because now I’m a grandpa for a high school player that wants to be like Cooper Kupp and is being recruited by Idaho and Eastern,” Price said.

Walden’s Super Bowl interests are staked to Burrow and the Bengals, but the former WSU coach who’s spent much of his life after football in Eastern Washington and North Idaho also has an affinity for Kupp.

“You talk about showing people the way to get it done from a little one-horse college here at Eastern and showing up on the big stage and doing what he’s doing is just phenomenal,” Walden said.