The name Ralph Walker doesn’t evoke fear even though he is effectively the Warriors’ chief bodyguard. The director of team security doesn’t emit the power fumes that often come with his level of authority. He’s known to Warriors fans as Stephen Curry’s body man, a position that puts him in the eye of celebrity storm. Yet his reputation is for being velvety behind the rope. He subdues chaos with his calm. His smoothness is enough to smooth the rockiest of situations.
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“Ralph is the Black Sean Connery,” said Ramon Martinez, head of Chase Center’s floor security.
Walker is 66 years old now, evident in his silver goatee and textured skin that creases when he smiles. He’s 6-foot-3 and it’s clear beneath his deacon suit, always with a pocket square matching his tie, that he is still wiry strong, the result of 150 daily push-ups and a life of preserving his temple. But strength is not his ethos, at least not in the traditional sense. The might he emanates is over moments, over situations, over the most natural of reactions. His expertise is counterbalance.
Like in 2017, when the Warriors clinched the championship on the Oracle Arena floor. The scene was so chaotic it prompted a brief moment of panic for Warriors PR guru Raymond Ridder. He saw Curry being swarmed by people, in a frenzy every bit untenable. Ridder turned to Walker, pleading for help via the consternation in his eyes, but Walker instantly put him at ease.
“He said what he always says,” Ridder recalled recently, “He said, ‘I got it.’ Always cool under pressure. Always. ‘I got it’ defines him perfectly.”
Even on March 10, the last game at Chase Center before the NBA suspended the season, Walker was unfazed while the coronavirus — known to be especially dangerous for people over 60 — generated a palpable concern in the arena. But Walker doesn’t get sick. He’s never had the flu. Doesn’t catch colds. He hasn’t had so much as a headache. He said doctors want him in for testing to examine why his immune system is so strong, but he doesn’t have time for that.
“If the Lord says it’s my time,” Walker said from the tunnel, his eyes fixed on the Warriors bench, “I’m fine with that.”
In 2018, Walker left the limelight of the Warriors. After escorting Curry and the Warriors to heights unimaginable, Walker escaped to the peace and quiet of his home in the foothills of Oakland. He worked on his house. He spent time with his wife, Angel, and daughter, Reina, then a high school senior and the last of his five children still at home. But after one year of retirement, he couldn’t stay away. During the 2018-19 season, reports came his way through the grapevine. His presence was missed. The ease he brought to his surroundings was an absence noticed by the players.
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So, of course, he came back. This is Walker’s calling — serving, mentoring, advising, protecting. Whether a dusty kid from the inner city or a famous millionaire hooper, Walker has dedicated his life to helping young men grow. Always at the ready with wisdom. Advocacy with no strings attached. Advice with no agenda. That smoothness, the certainty that steadies him, it comes from knowing his purpose.
Security isn’t just Walker’s title, it’s his character.
Marreese Speights was arrested for DUI in August 2014 in Tampa, Fla., the morning after his 27th birthday. A month later, Speights entered a plea of not guilty but later pleaded no contest to a reduced misdemeanor. He was suspended one game by the NBA and his driver’s license was suspended.
Since Walker passed Speights’ home on the way to the Warriors’ facility, then in downtown Oakland, Walker offered to chauffeur the big man to practice. He had long wanted to build a relationship with Speights, who was about to start his second season with the Warriors. This was opportunity knocking. Speights took him up on the offer. But those initial rides were quiet.
“He was kind of standoffish at first,” Walker said. “When I first started picking him up, I didn’t really have a whole lot of conversation with him. I wanted it to come naturally. As time went on, there would be, like, something on the radio and we would comment about it.”
Before long, they were buddies carpooling to work, talking the whole way. They discussed everything — California and Florida comparisons, practice habits and playing time, the traps and treasures of fame and money. Walker wound up in a relationship with Speights he didn’t have with other players.
“Ralph is my guy,” Speights said via direct message. “We used to hang out all the time. Great guy.”
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This has always been Walker’s modus operandi. He loves dusting off gems. He gravitates toward endangered potential.
He wants to help but isn’t so presumptuous as to instantly interject. So, first, Walker builds rapport by being of service, earning trust. Once the relationship is forged, the levels of service increase. He can start carving off slices of his experience and feeding the youngsters, using his successes and failures as a guide map and dishing the kind of real talk they need to hear.
“Ralph don’t take no shit,” Curry said, bursting into laughter. “He’s very straightforward and no B.S. in terms of him just being a resource. If you need it — he’s not going to be overbearing. If you call on him, he’ll pick up the phone no matter what. I would say since we’ve been attached to the hip, he makes you feel comfortable. He makes you feel like you always got somebody looking out for you. He’ll tell you straight if you want to hear it.”
In addition to Warriors events, Walker goes as support security to players’ personal events where he’s basically an extra just making sure his guys are covered properly. Such as Klay Thompson’s charity golf tournament in Newport Beach, Eric Paschall’s All-Star Weekend appearance at Verizon in Chicago or the Peace Walk a few weeks ago in East Oakland attended by Steve Kerr and Thompson.
Walker uses his connections to make their lives easier, including his intimate knowledge of the area and his connection at the DMV that helps them get in and out. He’s been known to help offload luggage on road trips and scout venues in advance.
Players like him because he’s not a fanboy type. He isn’t trying to take pictures with them or get into places because he knows them. Walker couldn’t care less about that stuff. His focus is doing the job well and making sure they can count on him, which they come to respect and value.
“Ever since I’ve known him, he’s literally been like family,” said Warriors forward Damion Lee, in his second season with the Warriors. “He’s a giver, a helper. You know he’s there and he’s well-, well-respected.”
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When he stepped away from the Warriors, Walker wasn’t sure if he would be missed. The NBA is a young man’s culture. It’s hard not to wonder if the new generation valued his retro knowledge. Plus, it was a lot of work, managing the security detail for 15 players plus coaches, training his limited staff for this wholly unique environment, coordinating details and collaborating with third parties wherever they go. So he retired.
He took periodic gigs with Curry whenever asked. Walker accompanied him on his annual summer trip to Asia and to the celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Others in the organization asked him to come back full time. But only Curry could get him to return.
“The only way I was coming back is if that man wanted me back,” Walker said. “I told him that I was stepping away for family reasons. I think he wanted to honor that. He wanted me to spend some time with my family. And I respect him respecting that. He’s a good brother. I love him. I want to be able to service him and give him the things he needs as far as security is concerned.”
When Walker first started working with Curry in 2015, switching off of David Lee, he noticed Curry would get uncomfortable. The diligent security officer was always right there, rigid in his assignment, aggressive with his execution. But Steph felt smothered. He wanted some space: privacy when doing business, freedom to sign autographs on a whim, the flexibility to deviate from the schedule.
So Walker started sitting at a nearby table when Curry was with his wife or having a business meeting. He sensed when Curry wanted to hang out a little longer, keep his chat sessions going or have some impromptu fun with fans. Walker helped to facilitate instead of trying to prevent it.
“He had his ways to show me he felt smothered,” Walker said of Curry, “that I wasn’t allowing him to be who he wanted to be. So I was able to (adjust) and he liked it. He liked how I covered him and he thought it was just a good chemistry. I covered Steph for five, six years and the chemistry just got better.”
(Isaiah J. Downing / USA TODAY Sports)Curry made it clear he wanted his body man back this season. Now Walker has an office in the new Chase Center. It’s tucked away in the back. When the players park and walk in, they stroll past his office. They can’t always see him because the glass windows are tinted.
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Walker came back to a much different Warriors roster than when he left, full of youth and inexperience, players trying to find their way in the league while managing all the new stuff thrown at them off the court. They will learn soon, if they haven’t already, they’ve got an advocate in that office.
Walker had had enough, so he asked the young man to step outside.
Back then, he was an Oakland police officer who ran the Police Activities League program in Sobrante Park in the deepest corner of East Oakland. He held an open gym every weekday afternoon during the school year. Kids from the neighborhood flocked to the P.A.L. So did drug dealers, high-school hoopers, college students, barbers, janitors and ol’ heads who once had game. During the summers, Walker put on baseball and flag football games for the youth. He also coached the P.A.L’s basketball team and even started a handball team, introducing the kids to a new sport.
The kids called him Ralph. He was easygoing and fun. Always encouraging. They brought him their good report cards because they wanted to impress him. He funneled all the sense he could into the brains of knuckleheads. Sometimes he’d play in the open gym games, when the competition was good enough, and would torch all comers with a jumper that never missed. Every blue moon, he’d throw down a dunk. Whoever didn’t believe he was an NBA-level talent quickly found out when he took the court.
“His first step was incredible. That’s where he would get you,” said Jirema Gillette, owner of Dream Cutz barbershop in San Leandro, who is from Sobrante Park and was a regular at the open gym in those days. “And if you cut that off, he would hit the J on you. And he had range on his shot. He never missed. At his old age, he was dunking on us. He had the total package. You could tell he was a pro.”
But if he wasn’t coaching during those games — you know, pointing out the open player, calling out screens, reminding cherry-pickers to get back on defense — Walker was smiling. Laughing at the trash talk. Cheerleading the lesser talented. Enjoying the gymnasium vibe of competitive hoop.
So when a fight was brewing that day, it was a tough call on which of the developing events was more shocking: that Walker had reached a boiling point and was ready for some action or who he challenged to a fight.
Everyone in the gym, in the neighborhood, knew Walker was calling out one of the baddest around. Plus, word on the street attributed at least one body to his count. Nobody messed with this guy. But he was getting angry during the pickup action and became threatening. He had a mean streak. Walker could sense everyone else was terrified. He tried to get the guy to chill out, but his ire swiftly turned towards Walker. Suddenly, they were both heading outside, about to throw hands.
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“It was like the school fight everybody wanted to see,” Walker said, pausing before his move in a game of backgammon last summer.
This was in the early ’90s, so Walker was closer to his prime. He was also a bit of a mystery, too, as he rarely shared his exploits. He was quiet, stoic. His pending opponent was loud, cursing, angry. Onlookers in the gym scurried to the exit to be witnesses.
Was he really going to fight a cop? Was Ralph going to use his gun? Would others jump in? Would this end open gym forever?
“After you,” Walker said as he opened the gym door. “Let’s do this.”
The young man exited. He had a bounce in his step like one ready to get down. His willingness was unquestioned. The unknown was Walker, the mild-mannered coach and father-figure type. He would remain unknown.
As soon as the young man stepped outside, Walker closed the door and locked him out. Checkmate for the Black Sean Connery.
“Not that I thought I was better than him,” Walker said, recalling the story as the gospel music tunes of Mary Mary played in the background, “but I went to college to outsmart a dude. What would it look like, me out there fighting this guy? Now I didn’t know what I would’ve done if he would’ve gotten all upset and started vandalizing the property. But he kind of was embarrassed about it and he took off. And he came back a couple days later and apologized. So it was a good thing.”
It was an impressionable moment for the youngsters in the gym. Sobrante Park, during the crack epidemic, was one of the roughest neighborhoods in Oakland. Navigating dangers was a matter of life and death. And how Walker handled that whole situation was revelatory. Not only was it a live example of peaceful conflict resolution, he made it look so cool.
That was the thing about Walker. He valued smarts. He wasn’t as impressed by athleticism as he was by work ethic and character. Hundreds of kids benefited from his lessons about sports and life.
Always see your man and the ball on defense.
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When you factor in the inevitable jail time, a straight job pays more than slingin’ drugs.
Use sports as a tool.
Don’t be making babies you can’t take care of.
Just because circumstances are bad doesn’t mean people aren’t good.
Walker’s powers of de-escalation are born of a premise at his core: everyone is worthy. Of advice and guidance. Of being better if they want it. Of a second chance, even a third. He believed good decisions and work ethic were enough to escape the entrapments of poverty. He said as much to the kids every day. He believed it so strongly because he did it.
Walker had some knucklehead tendencies growing up in Chicago. He was a good kid, but he was skipping school so much at Orr High that his parents sent him back to Arkansas. About five miles northeast of his hometown in Altheimer, Ark., Walker spent the second semester of his freshman year at J.S. Walker High. It was a bit embarrassing. Everyone knew who he was and that he was there because he’d been screwing up. His family was well known at the school. It was named after his great uncle, Joseph Walker, a noted educator in those parts. He was tarnishing the prestige of the Walker name.
“During our era, they would still give you whoopings with a paddle in school,” he said. “When I went down to Arkansas, they were full force with that. I remember me looking at a girl in my typing class. I got called up to the front and the teacher told me about looking at something I couldn’t get and I had to get my hands whacked in class. After that, I was able to get on track.”
He eventually came back to Chicago. But trouble was waiting for him. There was this one banger from a gang called The Black Hand who ended up liking the same girl as Walker. So Walker had to duck this guy to keep the peace. But he did steal his father’s gun and carried it around for about a week. He almost used it at a school dance before his homeboys talked him out of it. During another stretch, Walker used his earnings from his job at KFC to put in on a pound of weed, back when selling such was criminal. They were hustling, making side money. But eventually, a premonition prompted Walker to opt out of the weed business. It was so strong, he gave away his remaining inventory as Christmas presents.
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Walker started leaning on his smarts, the voice inside urging him to be better. The West Side was rough, full of gang activity, poverty, aggressive police. But Walker was driven. He became known for being the one to do the right thing. He and his boys started their own gang. The Zebobs — Danny Crawford, a veteran NBA official, was part of the crew — was a positive gang, educated and pro-Black. This was following the infamous 1968 Chicago riots sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The Zebobs were focused on hoop and knowledge instead of drugs and money.
Walker figured out quickly that hoop was his way out.
They called him The Rocket because he could jump so high. He’d stand flat-footed and dunk backwards. Give him a drop step and he’d touch the top of the square on the backboard. By his senior year, Walker had carried Orr High from the blue division to the much harder red division. He faced off against the ballers of Chicago. Sonny Parker — who would get drafted by the Warriors and play six seasons in the league — was at Farragut Academy. Parker High had Bo Ellis, a 6-foot-9 forward who went on to Marquette, where he won the 1977 NCAA title.
Walker said Bobby Knight wanted him to come to Indiana, but he didn’t have the grades. He landed at Henderson County Junior College in Athens, Texas — “which is the pea capital of America,” Walker noted proudly — and in 1974 transferred to Saint Mary’s. He brought his 41-inch vertical with him. His pregame dunks were a show before the show.
In his first year at Saint Mary’s, Walker averaged 17.2 points and 6.7 rebounds. After Maurice Harper graduated, Walker became the Gaels’ leading scorer, averaging 20.4 points on 49.2 percent shooting with 8.3 rebounds in the 1975-76 season, his senior year. But Saint Mary’s finished 3-23.
A few years ago, NBA super agent Bill Duffy was talking to Walker about visiting a friend at Saint Mary’s when he was a teenager. A young hooper, Duffy played pickup in the Gaels gym, which coincidentally was the first place Duffy ever dunked. He was telling the story of this player who blew him away.
“I was telling Ralph how ridiculous this guy was,” said Duffy, who had a 40-inch vertical himself and went on to play at Minnesota and Santa Clara. “He could jump his ass off. And Ralph let me go on for about three or four minutes about this guy. And then he’s like, ‘That was me.’ At first I couldn’t believe it. It was like 30 years ago, so I didn’t know what he looked like. But it made sense. Ralph the Rocket. Man, oh man, he could jump. There’s a picture of him at Saint Mary’s where he won the opening tip over Bill Cartwright.”
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Walker heard from pro scouts for Phoenix, Boston and the Warriors. They were following his senior season. But the lack of wins, he believes, hurt his draft stock. He was taken 79th overall in 1976 (the fifth round) by the Suns. But Phoenix took five more players before drafting Walker.
That same offseason, Ed Badger — a respected community college coach in Chicago who followed Walker in high school — was promoted from assistant to head coach of the Bulls. When the Suns played a summer league game against Badger’s Bulls in Los Angeles, Walker showed out. He still remembers pinning Swen Nater’s shot to the glass with two hands. Walker was convinced his talent would get him on the Suns roster. But his hopes were crushed. He didn’t make the team.
Walker called Badger to see if he could get into the Bulls camp. Badger said they were full. And the overseas option was out.
“I didn’t make it here, I didn’t want to go over there, anyway,” Walker said. “If I didn’t make it, what I was going to do was start looking for a job and start planting my roots. The dream of playing basketball was dead. I was that disappointed. I wanted to be able to get into the pros because, in my mind, I wanted to be able to go back to Chicago and have a platform to teach all the young people not to put all your eggs in one basket, there are more opportunities for you other than sports. Because, to me, it seemed like athletes didn’t want to be role models at that time.”
Walker, who also starred in football at Orr, got a call from the Seattle Seahawks, who were part of the NFL’s 1976 expansion. They invited him to try out for wide receiver and even set him up with a construction job as he trained. But a trade with the Houston Oilers landed Seattle future Hall of Fame receiver Steve Largent. Walker was bumped to cornerback. He said that position was harder, but he felt like he held his own. The Seahawks told him they liked his talent but needed someone who could play right away. They didn’t have the patience to groom him. That was the end of his professional sports dreams.
Walker was ready to work, get his life started. He called his college coach, Frank LaPorte, and asked for some connections. LaPorte got him a gig doing security at Saint Mary’s. So Walker moved back to the Bay Area. At a job fair on campus, he applied to all of the middle-management jobs available, including the one open at the Oakland Police Department. Walker had found his career.
See, Walker emerged from the same type of struggle, and the same type of entrapments, as the young men he served throughout his adulthood. He used basketball as the vehicle and his work ethic as the fuel. And he told every kid who would listen they could do the same. He knows that sometimes all people need is to hear the right thing to do from the right person. And it isn’t just impoverished youth he targets. Or celebrity athletes. It’s also co-workers and strangers. Walker even has media members doing push-ups and reporting back. Everybody is worthy.
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This mindset made him a different kind of officer. He finished the police academy in December of 1977. The Black Panther Party and its work still resonated in Oakland. So did the anti-police sentiment in the urban neighborhoods. So Walker had to deal with being called a sellout and a pig but set out to prove he was different. He took a community policing approach, focused on building relationships and serving. A big part of that was running the P.A.L. It was how he was sure he could have the biggest impact.
First, though, he honed his special brand of gentle firmness on the streets. Like this one time he responded to a call in Oakland and confronted a man with a sword.
“I know if I stay 10 feet away from him, it ain’t nothing he can do,” Walker said. “So I’m trying to talk to him while he’s got the sword. ‘Hey man. Put the sword down. Let’s talk. I know you probably had a bad day. Blah, blah, blah.’ And he’s like, ‘Fuck you.’ I know my cover unit’s getting here. He starts coming toward me. I start walking away from him. We’re walking around a car. Now, if it would’ve been some other people who would’ve come and he posed a threat for them, I would’ve had to do something. But he never did. It was just me and him. It was kind of funny. Now somebody would’ve said, ‘He’s got a sword. I feel threatened. Pow.’ But I’m thinking, ‘This dude can’t hurt me with the sword unless I get close.’”
So Walker kept walking backwards, around a car, while trying to coax down the sword with words. When backup arrived, the man recognized he was outnumbered, put the sword down and accepted the arrest.
“I got a call one time,” Walker said, diving into another story, staring at the backgammon board as he plotted a move. “They said he was outside naked. I’m already thinking dude is tripping on something. He’s naked. I see he ain’t got a weapon. Only thing he can do is fight me. So I go up to him and say, ‘Man why you ain’t got no clothes? People are calling about you. Won’t you come get in my car and I’ll get you a jacket.’ So I put him on my side, away from my gun, and I’ve got my arm around him, walking him to my car. And he gets in my car.”
His fellow officers were amazed he got the man in the car. But that’s Walker. Never worried about being embarrassed, too stoic to let fear guide him. Humility makes him an effective fixer.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Walker said, “I can fight. If I need to, I will fight.”
Curry always suspected as much, that Walker had another side to him. For years, Curry saw how meticulously Walker approached his job. How Walker is always strategically positioned to see everything, eyes always scanning. How his bow-legged stride covers so much ground, like he’s gliding. How Walker, a world of high-tech training all around him, keeps in shape with old-school methods like push-ups and housework.
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“Steph thinks I’m Denzel Washington in ‘The Equalizer,’” Walker said. “Him and Ayesha are always waiting for me to do something crazy.”
(Kyle Terada / USA TODAY Sports)Everyone else sees a man in a crisp suit, sees Walker kindly chatting with people, sees him phrasing commands as polite requests. But Curry knew that was Walker playing it meek. He suspected Walker was the type who could flip a switch and subdue an entire room with nothing but old-man strength and a debit card. Or take down a man three times his size while on the phone helping his teenage daughter with math.
Finally, at the 2017 ESPYs, Curry got a glimpse of the shadow figure behind the kind man he trusts with his life. “The Equalizer” character showed up.
“Oh yeah,” Curry said, smiling as his eyes lit up. “At the award show. I’ll never forget that.”
Walker was accompanying Curry and his wife to their car after the show in Los Angeles when a fan jumped out of nowhere in the garage. He was an autograph seeker who had been waiting to get a private moment with Curry. But he was forced to explain that from the ground. Before he could speak, Walker laid him out. It all happened so quickly.
The Currys were walking.
A fan jumped out.
Walker dropped him with a shoulder to the chest.
Ayesha completed her blink.
“When I put them in the car,” Walker said, “I could see them giggling.”
That’s how the Black Sean Connery gets down.
(Top photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
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