One of NCAA softball’s biggest names announced his retirement.
Kirk Walker is stepping away from collegiate softball after 41 years of coaching at all levels of the sport.
“When I think about UCLA softball,” said former UCLA softball coach Sue Enquist in a video posted to UCLA softball’s Instagram. “I think about excellence, and I think about distinction, and I think about you, (Walker) and everything that you’ve done for this program.”
The seven-time NCAA champion began his collegiate coaching career as a graduate assistant coach at UCLA in 1984. Oregon State subsequently named Walker its head coach in 1995, and he remains the winningest coach in program history across 18 seasons of work.
Walker returned to UCLA in 2012 and served as an assistant coach and later associate head coach, until he transitioned to the director of softball administration role prior to his final season with UCLA in 2025.
Walker worked alongside every UCLA softball head coach throughout his time in Westwood and trained many of the best athletes in the school’s history, including Debbie Doom, Maya Brady and Lisa Fernandez.
But coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said she knows Walker is not stepping away from the program completely in a UCLA softball Instagram post.
“I celebrate your retirement and say I can’t wait to see what’s next, because I know you’re never going to leave. You’re an alumni, and we all know one thing, this program is based on family and we’re Bruins for life,” Inouye-Perez said on Instagram. “You have left your mark. You will be remembered. You’re loved.”
Walker, a staunch champion of diversity and inclusion in sports, was inducted into the LGBTQ+ Hall of Fame on Aug. 10.
He helped kickstart the Equality Coaching Alliance along with the LGBTIQ+ Human Rights Sports Coalition and coordinates the National Fastpitch Coaches Association’s LGBTQ+ Convention Session.
“I’m incredibly humbled and honored to be inducted into the LGBTQ Sports Hall of Fame,” Walker said in a UCLA Athletics press release. “I hope to continue to advocate for a community that has been hidden and marginalized for so long. Sports is a far more inclusive space, especially when athletes and coaches contribute to their teams and their sport as their authentic selves, so they are judged by their character and not their sexuality.”
Walker came out as gay in 2005, and he is considered the first out Division I coach in NCAA history.
Since Walker’s return to the program in 2012, UCLA softball has held a Pride Event every season.
[Related: UCLA softball celebrates LGBTQ+ community at Pride Game]
But Walker’s softball impact has stretched far beyond his NCAA influence.
The former honcho served as an assistant coach for the league-winning Talons in the AUSL’s inaugural season. He has also helped develop fastpitch softball, and he coached at the international level for Finland and the United States.
Walker is a member of the Oregon State University Athletics Hall of Fame, and with his Bruin legacy, is likely a shoo-in for the same honor in UCLA’s Hall of Fame.
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