Randy Walker is gone.

How horrifically surprising. Alarming. Jarring.

How terribly, terribly sad.

And how bitterly ironic that it was an apparent heart attack that took him at age 52.

If there are two sweeping themes for which I’ll remember Walker, they both involve heart.

The first: It was his heart that helped carry a group of two- and three-star recruits to more than just respectability and winning – something that shouldn’t be done at a school where academics are stressed infinitely more than athletics.

The second, and most important: I believe Randy Walker was a really, really good-hearted person.

I couldn’t necessarily call him a friend. I covered him for just one season and knew him only through football, so we weren’t close personally.

But it felt that way.

True story: Recently, I asked a friend how I could possibly return to campus for my senior year at NU, since I love my current newspaper internship and I never want to leave the business. The reply: Focus on what’s positive about going back.

My first thought, and this is God’s honest truth: Another year of covering Randy Walker.

Even though technically we weren’t close, Walker was the first positive I could think of.

In a profession where we’re constantly searching for a breath of fresh air, Walker was a gale-force wind of it.

He was honest. He was funny. Hokey as it sounds, his smile was like sunshine. It could light up a room of bitter, curmudgeonly sports writers like me.

If you can do that, you can do anything.

He always brought his dog, Magic, to practice. His wife, Tammy, would show up, too. One of my favorite in a novel-long list of memories was at one Monday news conference, when Walker led media members in a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for his wife.

Awkward? Sure.

But that was Randy, the aw-shucks character from Troy, Ohio, who seemed to embody all that’s good about small-town, Midwestern folks and, from what I saw, shut out almost all that’s bad about them.

Understandably, Walker wasn’t universally adored. His intense approach often led players to respect him, but not love him. I remember one player, a reserve, telling me how much Walker treated football like a business. It wasn’t fun anymore, the player said.

I felt bad for the player. I still do.

Then again, maybe that’s what Walker needed to do. How else could he round up an unheralded bunch and turn them into record setters (quarterback Brett Basanez and linebacker Tim McGarigle), award winners (freshman of the year running back Tyrell Sutton) and first-round draft picks (defensive tackle Luis Castillo)?

More seriously, Walker faced the Rashidi Wheeler controversy. The 22-year-old safety died of what medical reports said was an exercise-induced asthma attack during an August 2001 preseason workout. He also had taken a supplement that contained ephedra, a stimulant now banned by the NCAA.

Wheeler’s parents sued the school. Wheeler’s mother, Linda Will, even referred to Walker as “Little Hitler.”

I’m no doctor, and I wasn’t there in 2001, so I have no idea if Walker’s coaching style led to Wheeler’s death. I also haven’t lost a child, so obviously I can’t relate to Will’s anger and pain.

But I can’t imagine Walker knowingly would influence that outcome. And, from what Tammy Walker once told the DAILY, the tragedy tore Walker up.

I believe that.

You could see it in his eyes that he cared about people.

Walker was, in my limited view, the best football coach in NU history. He never took the Cats to the Rose Bowl like Gary Barnett did in 1995, but he brought consistent success – six wins in three straight years for the first time since the 1930s, three bowl games, one shared Big Ten title and consecutive 5-3 Big Ten seasons to finish his career.

Most of all, he brought all those great, last-minute wins. Like Michigan in 2000, Ohio State in 2004 and Iowa in 2005, among many others.

He’ll be remembered for that. And he should. Maybe people – inside Evanston and out – finally will take notice of the improbable success he brought to a school that never experienced it or expected it. Maybe he’ll finally get out of Barnett’s shadow.

But no matter how little I knew him, Walker the person always will mean more to me.

I could tell a thousand stories from the short time I covered NU football. But kicker Joel Howells, one of Walker’s favorites, who worked so hard to fight off tears during a televised Friday morning news conference, should do it instead.

At the Sun Bowl last December, Howells missed a field goal and two extra points, and had consecutive onside kicks returned for touchdowns late in the fourth quarter – a nightmare day for an oft-criticized kicker.

“He came and talked to me after the game in my room,” Howells said. “He was, uh…”

Howells paused, choked up.

“And then he called me, I guess, the next day, it would have been. But, you know, he really stood by me. He was a really loyal guy.

“I guess there was a lot of people who didn’t have a whole lot of faith and trust in me, but he was there backing me up the whole way. And I really can’t thank him enough for that. He was just a really good friend during that time.

“He said, ‘I think sometimes stuff like this happens so that something better’s going to come inthe future of it.”

In that future, for those who believe in an afterlife, Walker will be walking along Heaven’s version of Lake Michigan, with the sun rising and Magic in tow. And maybe – like the story he toldlast fall of a similar jaunt – he’ll notice a buckeye on Heaven’s floor and put it in his pocket, reminding him of that wonderful Ohio State win.

Even for those who believe in a different version of afterlife or none at all, Walker still will exist in that future as a memory.

“I’ll never forget Coach Walk,” Howells said.

Neither will I.

Neither should anyone.

Good-bye, Randy Walker.

They say a bad heart took you. I say, beneath your rough on-the-field exterior, your heart was nothing but good.

Reach Patrick Dorsey at [email protected]