Nathan Walker grew up in Northwest Indiana and the South Suburbs of Chicago. Walker graduated from Purdue University with a degree in English Secondary Education and Philosophy, where he rowed for four years and earned two Most Valuable Oarsman Awards. He chose to pursue a career in coaching after graduation as it combined his passion for the sport of rowing with his dedication to mentorship and instruction, and has since coached at the high school, college, and masters levels.
He has served as the Head Novice Men’s Coach at Purdue University, Head Coach at Fairfax High School, Masters Coach at Alexandria Community Rowing, Director of Rowing at The College of William and Mary, Head Men’s Coach at Norcal Crew, as well as his current position as Director of Rowing and Head Varsity Men’s Coach at Culver Academies, where he also works as an Associate Director of College Advising. He has coached athletes that have competed on the Junior, U23, and Senior USA National Rowing Teams, has coached boats to seven USRowing Youth Nationals/Scholastic Rowing Nationals titles, and his athletes have been recruited to and rowed for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, U-Penn, Dartmouth, MIT, Washington, Cal-Berkeley, Boston University, and most every other top collegiate rowing program.
Walker is proud of the purposeful mission driven culture of Culver Rowing, which, “aims to impart specific life lessons through the fiery crucible that is competitive rowing. Culver Academies Rowing believes sports shouldn’t be considered a competitive zero-sum game where the winners are destined for greatness and the losers are failures; sports should be an active, fun, and engaging environment for purposeful self-improvement.”
