Albany Standard

How could a California girl who played softball in Arizona and then played professionally in Italy find contentment on a hot, dusty, gnat-plagued field in deep South Georgia? Just ask the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association (GCAA) Coach of the Year Jennifer Walls.

“I love it here,” Walls, who just completed her seventh year as the head coach of the Golden Fillies of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, said. “I know the pressure that Division I coaches have on them. This is where I want to be.”

Since taking over as the ABAC coach in 2015, Walls has thrived at ABAC. She was named the GCAA Coach of the Year in 2017 and 2022. The Fillies won the regular season league title in both of those years.

In 2019, the green-and-gold of ABAC was the number-three seed heading into the state tournament and shocked the world by grabbing the tourney title.

“We beat Georgia Military College (GMC), which was the number one seed that year,” Walls remembered.  “Not only that, but we run-ruled them in the championship game.  I couldn’t believe it.”

“The players we had might not necessarily have been the most talented team I have had at ABAC, but the team chemistry and the grit they showed were the key factors that helped us win it.”

This year’s version of the Golden Fillies rolled up a regular season record of 18-6 on the way to the regular season championship.  Then the team bowled over all opposition in the early rounds of the state tournament and had to beat GMC only once to advance to the national championship tournament. 

That’s when the roof caved in on the team from Tifton. The Fillies lost two straight games.  Season over.

“I knew this was going to be a tough tournament,” Walls said.  “All four teams at one time had beaten each other.  It was the toughest state tournament we have had.”

Walls grew up in Southern California and was recruited out of high school as a pitcher for Cal State Long Beach.  After her sophomore year, she transferred to the University of Arizona.  Her game blossomed.

“We had a great team at Arizona, and I got to pitch in the College World Series in 2009,” Walls said.  “We lost that game to Alabama.  It was the last of game of my collegiate career.”

But her expertise on the softball mound earned her a spot playing professional softball in Italy for 13 months.  Young.  Carefree. Traveling.  Playing softball. Life was good.

“Yes, it was great,” Walls said with a wide smile.  “You get paid a little more overseas than in the United States.  I wanted to travel and play pro ball.  I got to have both of those experiences.”

When she came home from the land of gondolas and historic sculptures, Walls was looking for a place to continue her education at the master’s degree level. 

“I applied to a bunch of colleges in February and got one call back in July,” Walls said.

That call was draped in a thick, Southern accent.  Georgia Southwestern University (GSW) offered her an opportunity in Americus, Ga.

“I really thought it was a prank call,” Walls said with a laugh.  “I had applied to like 40 colleges, and I didn’t get a call back from any of them.”

The GSW numbers were solid. Her graduate assistantship would pay for her entire degree, housing, and a monthly stipend if she would be the Hurricanes’ pitching coach.

“So, in August of 2012, I loaded up my car and drove across the country for my first visit to Georgia,” Walls said.  “Oh, the humidity.  Oh, the gnats.  I didn’t even know what gnats were.”

But she found out about gnats and more importantly, southern hospitality.  She discovered a place of comfort at Georgia Southwestern.  In 2015, she graduated with her master’s degree.

Back to California she goes. Her mother passed away from cancer the same year.

“I was living with my dad, and he wasn’t doing all that good,” Walls said.  “I told him one day, ‘I miss Georgia.’

“I had been in communication with Donna Campbell, the softball coach at ABAC, and I knew she was retiring from coaching.  She told me that I should apply for her job.  So, I took a shot in the dark.”

And the rest is history.  ABAC Athletics Director Alan Kramer called Walls, and said he wanted to send her a plane ticket to fly back to Georgia for a job interview.  After the extensive question and answer session, Kramer offered Walls her first head coaching job with the Golden Fillies.

Another cross-country drive from California.  And Walls started filling her wardrobe with green and gold accessories.  Ah, but there’s another side to this story.

“I had met this guy, and he was working for the Americus Fire Department,” Walls said.  “We did the long-distance relationship thing when I was back in California, and he was in Americus.”

Needless to say, Addison Walls was quite excited that Jennifer Martinez was staking a claim in Tifton.  It just so happened that Tifton needed another fireman.

“I love living here,” Walls said.  “Life here is a lot slower than California.  Everybody’s always in a hurry there.  Life slows down here which is what I love.”

A relationship turned into a marriage.  And now the Walls’ family includes daughter Riley and second daughter Presley, who entered the world this month.

Besides being the ABAC softball coach, Walls is the Assistant Director for Recreational Sports and runs the Thrash Wellness Center and the Foundation Legacy Pool.  Her office is in the beautifully renovated Thrash Wellness Center.

As she sits in her office and hears the sound of ABAC students exercising in the background, Walls thinks about exercising her mind.

“I would really like to go back to school one day and get a doctorate degree,” Walls said.  “Then maybe I could get a job as an athletics director.”

From a player to a coach who is now a wife and a mom, the next step for the California Girl turned Coach of the Year in Georgia certainly seems possible.

Original source can be found here.