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Provo • Shaquille Walker is doing what no BYU middle-distance runner has ever done before on the track this season — both indoor and outdoor — but the question the sophomore from Georgia is most often asked has nothing to do with his times in the 800 meters.
"Is your name really Shaq?" they ask the 5-foot-10, 140-pound returned Mormon missionary, followed by, "Are you really named after Shaquille O'Neal?"
Yes and yes.
More on that later. But first, meet the latest BYU track superstar, who is about half the size of the former NBA star, but with a similar fun-loving, engaging, quirky personality that is making him larger than life on the BYU campus.
"He's a freakish talent," said BYU track coach Ed Eyestone, a former two-time Olympian and 15-year professional distance runner not prone to hyperbole regarding his athletes. "I knew he was pretty special when we recruited him. I knew he was going to be good, I just didn't know that he was going to be world-class good."
Walker's talent and speed will be on display Friday and Saturday, weather permitting, in the annual Robison Invitational meet at BYU's Clarence F. Robison Track, but he won't run in the 800, his best event. He will run in a 400 meters preliminary at approximately 1:30 p.m. Friday. The 400 finals are set for 2:05 p.m. Saturday, and he might also run on BYU's 4x400 relay team.
"I would like to get the school record in the 400 as well," he said, "so we will see what happens."
Walker already owns the BYU record in the 800. He broke Olympian Agberto Guimaraes' mark of one minute, 46.50 seconds set in 1980 with a time of 1:45.78 at the Sun Angel Classic at Arizona State on April 11. It remains the fastest 800 time posted in the country this year.
"To be honest, I was shocked, because my workouts hadn't been as good as they typically are, and it wasn't my goal for the meet," Walker said Tuesday. "The goal was just to run as fast as I could, and not only did I get the school record, but my time was much faster than the school record. I was pretty pumped."
Eyestone said the race in Tempe, Ariz., was perfectly executed and paced for Walker to break the record, but says the phenom can go even faster.
"I will be surprised if he doesn't surpass that time by season's end," his coach said.
Eyestone said the fact that the 21-year-old has ran a 1:45 in the 800 puts him "in a group of pretty elite individuals" and shows that his dream of one day running in the Olympic Games are entirely realistic.
"He's got that type of world class speed where he can take it below 1:45, I believe," Eyestone said. "The Olympic standard is 1:46, so he already has a mark that's good enough to get him into the Games, now. He will probably have to get in the 1:44s to make the [Olympic] team."
At this time last year, Walker was knocking on doors in Manchester, England, as a missionary. He returned home on Aug. 1, 2014.
"Cumulatvely, over two years, I ran probably 30 miles in England," Walker said. "Over hundreds of days, I ran maybe 15 times."
Neither dogs nor people, and he was chased by both, he says, laughing, could catch him.
Six months after returning, Walker won a 500-meter indoor race in Provo with a time of 1:01.05, close to the college record of 1:00.63. Then he broke a meet and school record at the indoor Washington Invitational in Seattle in the 800 with a time of 1:47.44. After Washington, he won a 600-meter race in Albuquerque, N.M.
Walker failed to qualify for the finals in the Indoor National Championships in Arkansas last month, a tad disappointing because his parents, Brenda and Gemini, made the trip from Georgia to watch him compete for the first time since high school.
Walker was born in 1993, just after O'Neal's rookie season with the Orlando Magic, and his parents were expecting twins — a boy and a girl. Thinking he would be a girl, they were going to name him Breshawnay. But when Brenda Walker had two boys, they named one Gemille and the other Shaquille Brashawn Walker — after the hoop star Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal, whom his father admired but had never met.
"I hear it all — Shaq-Daddy, Shaq-Attack, Shaq-Fu — I love it," Shaquille Walker said.
In high school in Richmond Hill, Ga., near Savannah, Walker met a member of the LDS Church who knew he was being recruited by Stanford, Georgetown, Georgia and others. She suggested he send some film to BYU, knowing the Cougars had a strong track and field program. He did, got invited to visit Provo for a recruiting trip by Eyestone and narrowed his choices to Stanford and BYU.
After his visit, he became more interested in the church, attended some early morning seminary (religious) classes with his friend and was eventually baptized three weeks before he graduated from high school.
After his freshman year at BYU, in which he broke the 1:50 barrier five times in the 800 and anchored the 4x400 team, he placed first at the USA Junior Nationals and went on to place 17th at the World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain.
Two weeks later, he was on his mission to England.
A little more than two and a half years after that, he's the talk of the college track and field world.
Twitter: @drewjay —
About Shaquille Walker
• Sophomore from Richmond Hill, Ga., posted the nation's fastest 800-meter outdoor time (1:45.78) this year at the Sun Angel Classic in Tempe, Ariz., two weeks ago, breaking a longstanding BYU record in the process
• Ran the fastest 800-meter indoor time (1:47.44) in BYU history at Washington Indoor Invitational and was undefeated until the NCAA Indoor Championships in Arkansas
• Will run in the 400, but not the 800, at the Robison Invitational Friday (1:30 p.m.) and Saturday (2:05 p.m.) at BYU
• Is named after NBA star Shaquille O'Neal