Walkowiak is Bomber grid coach

The third time was the "charm" for Chris Walkowiak.

The Palmerton Area School Board appointed him as head football coach last night on a unanimous 9-0 vote to replace Paul McArdle, who resigned following the 2010 season after seven years at the helm.

Walkowiak had previously applied for the position two previous times when the board decided to hire Rick Bennett and McArdle.

"I've wanted to be a head coach," said Walkowiak, who has been defensive coordinator and was responsible for coaching the linebackers and quarterbacks under McArdle since 2006. "When Paul resigned I thought this was the perfect opportunity to keep the program going. He has laid a good foundation and the kids showed an interested in wanting me to take over to keep up the stability."

Walkowiak graduated Cum Laud from West Chester University in 1997 with a Bachelors Degree in Education, majoring in Secondary Education with a concentration in Social Studies. He received his Masters Degree in 2002 from Wilkes University.

Prior to joining the Palmerton staff, Walkowiak was an assistant freshman coach at Jim Thorpe, where he teaches history, in 2000 and was the Olympians defensive coordinator under Mark Rosenberger responsible for coaching the linebackers and quarterbacks from 2001 through 2004.

Walkowiak was privileged to coach All-State players Aaron Smith at Jim Thorpe (2004) and Lee Costenbader (2006), Justin Peterson (2007) and Matt Falcone (2008).

He also was an assistant weightlifting coach at Jim Thorpe from 2001 through 2003 and helped supervise the in-season and off-season conditioning programs for football as well as other students that utlized the weight room.

Walkowiak also coached in a spring football league at Wootton High School in Rockville, Md. in 1998-99,

One of the first priorities on Walkowiak's list is to re-enforce the attitude in the program.

"I want to look at how we approach things and focus on how we do things," he said. "From fundamentals to technique to competition to our work ethic during the season.

"I also want to work on team chemistry and team unity. Then we'll work on the X's and O's."

Walkowiak is determined to put a product on the field that the community, administration and everyone associated with the program will be proud of.

"We have to eliminate sloppy play," he noted. "We had too many penalities, delay of games ad unforced errors that cost us some wins. If we do that, some of our other goals will be met.

"We'll have to focus on execution and how we do things in games, both mentally and physically. Last year we were in quite a few games for the first half and then in the second half the wheels fell off."

Walkowiak is in the process of putting a staff together to continue to build off of the foundation that McArdle helped solidify. He's definitely up to the challenge.