The College of Central Florida Athletics Department is excited to announce that Rick Walker will be leading our softball program as the new head coach. Walker comes to CF from Hocking College in Nelsonville, OH where he was the Athletic Director and Head Softball Coach since January of 2024. During his tenure as Head Softball Coach the Hawks won the Ohio Community College Athletic Conference title in 2024 and finished in 2nd place in the NJCAA Region 12 Great Lakes District Finals. 

Before heading to Hocking College, Walker served as the Assistant Head Softball Coach at Lyon College in Batesville, AR. From 2016-2022 he was the head softball coach at Miami University-Hamilton. During his tenure there, his team finished seventh at the 2022 USCAA World Series and were ranked in the top 15 of USCAA National Coaches Poll.  Walker coached a USCAA First Team All-American player, four USCAA Academic All-Americans, 10 All-Conference players, 10 Academic All-Conference players and four Academic All Americans in his time at Miami University-Hamilton. His teams finished as conference tournament runners-up in 2018 and won the conference tournament in 2019.

Manager of Athletics, Marty Smith, said the following about Walker joining the Patriots staff, "We are very excited to bring Rick to CF and have him lead our softball program. His experience at both the four-year and junior college level was a big reason we wanted Rick. He has had a lot of success at his previous schools and we look forward to that continuing here with our softball team."

The CF Softball team will begin their Fall practices and workouts in the next few weeks when classes start back up and they will play a Fall schedule beginning in September.