Walker Receives Pac-12 Student Athlete Leadership Award

CORVALLIS – Oregon State senior Joel Walker has been selected to receive the Pac-12 Student Athlete Leadership Award, the conference announced Thursday.
 
Walker joins Washington's Natalie Robinson (beach volleyball) as recipients this year. He is the seventh Beaver to receive the honor since the award was established in 2002.
 
The Pac-12 Conference established the Pac-12 Leadership Award to recognize student-athletes who have served on their institutional Student-Athlete Advisory Committees (SAAC) and demonstrated leadership. This Pac-12 Leadership Award is a $3,000 scholarship for postgraduate study awarded to one male and one female student-athlete each year.
 
The Pac-12 Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, which is composed of representatives from each member institution, selects the winners of the award each year from nominations submitted by each campus SAAC.
 
Walker was named Pac-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year and was selected to the Senior CLASS Award All-America Second Team. A Colorado Springs native, Walker, along with women's soccer player Maddy Ellsworth, helped to launch the Dam Change initiative, a platform designed to bring awareness regarding the issues of systemic racism in today's society. Oregon State's SAAC President, he has also been an active member of the Beavers' Dam Worth It mental health awareness initiative.
 
Walker is a three-time CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree, a Pac-12 All-Academic first teamer (2018) and a two-time member of the Conference's Academic Honor Roll (2019, 2021).  The forward has nine career goals to go with 10 career assists. Walker was an All-Pac-12 selection in 2019.
 
As a team, Oregon State finished the year 9-5 and made the NCAA Tournament for the second time in the last three years.
 
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