Despite his last name, new Utah State vice president and director of athletics Cameron Walker said he’s anything but a “walker” when it comes to wanting to get the Aggie athletic department up to speed.
“I’m a high-paced guy,” Walker said following his introductory press conference Wednesday afternoon at the West Stadium Center at Maverik Stadium. “If I could, I would sprint marathons. I can’t, so I’m going to have to stop after I’m two or three miles in. But we’re going to want to go at a really high pace.
“We’re going to increase how we do things, and we’re going to push people to be their best,” Walker continued. “And part of it is just establishing that as a standard. It becomes habitual at times to be comfortable where you’re at. When we’re pushing and transitioning, we have to push out of that, and the best way to do that is to just start going at a rapid rate. And that rapid rate will sometimes get people out of their comfort zone, and then you’re able to push forward quicker.”
Cameron Walker’s background
Walker, who will officially start in his new position on Oct. 6, comes to USU from the University of Tennessee, where he has served as the Volunteers’ senior deputy director of athletics and chief strategy officer since November 2024, as well as the executive director of the UT Athletics Foundation since July. He initially made the move to Tennessee in January 2021 as deputy director of athletics for competitive excellence, following current UT athletic director Danny White to Knoxville after the Volunteers hired White away from Central Florida.
White and several other members of the Tennessee athletic department made the trip from eastern Tennessee to Cache Valley to show their support for Walker.
“To those that have traveled from Rocky Top to be here today, thank you for being the best teammates that anybody could ask for,” Walker said. “What you built at Tennessee is special, and it will continue to thrive because of who you are and how you’ll move it forward. It was a privilege to be a part of it.
“Danny, we got to work together about nine years ago. And based off some pictures I saw, time has aged us. I’m not sure it’s the time or the things we went through, but I’m forever grateful for your leadership, your mentorship and your friendship. From day one, you treated me as an equal, and you always treated me like a future AD. I appreciate that.”
A native of Rexburg, Idaho, Walker replaces Diana Sabau, who left Utah State in July after accepting a role as a deputy athletic director at Maryland. Sabau started at USU in August 2023 after she was hired by former Utah State University President Elizabeth Cantwell, who announced in February that she was leaving USU after just 18 months to take the same position at Washington State.
Utah State’s AD hiring process
Most of the time, the hiring of a new athletic director would be left to a school’s new president. But the USU Board of Trustees authorized interim president Alan Smith to go ahead with the search process, primarily due to the continuing changes in college athletics with NIL and the transfer portal, as well as Utah State’s move from the Mountain West Conference to the new-look Pac-12 on July 1, 2026.
“There are two schools of thought on that, right?” Smith said. “One is that you should wait for a new president to come in because of the relationship between the president and athletic director. The other side of it is, we have a significant transition going on right now as it relates to the Pac-12, and there’s a lot of work being done right now and some uncertainty about when a new president would be in place. Moreover, that president may or may not have comfort or familiarity with athletics that could result in extending the time frame before they pursued the hiring process and finally engaged in the search.
“… So, we thought, why not move ahead? Especially given the urgency of our transition. As I mentioned before, we had an incredible pool of interested candidates nationally, and it was evident to us that with that level of talent, they’re not going to have trouble with any new president that comes in.”
Walker admitted that because the search for a new university president is ongoing, he had “lots of questions” throughout the search process.
“But the thing that kept resonating was that no matter who I talked to — people on the committees, the coaches, President Smith — they were unified in the vision and the plan,” Walker noted. “And so, that kind of calmed some of those nerves about it, understanding that I fit with this plan, I agree with this vision, and I think I can help that vision.
“You always want to go where you can have impact, and feeling like I could have impact — regardless of who that leader is — that they were aligned in what they wanted in that leader. … It’s always a little unnerving when you don’t know who your final boss will be, but I did feel like they had a good plan of what that was going to look like, enough so that I was able to get comfortable with it. And there were enough pluses with the rest of the job that certainly enticed me.”
After Sabau’s departure, longtime athletic director Sandy Barbour stepped into the role of interim athletic director at Utah State on July 21. The former head of athletic departments at Tulane, California and Penn State plans to stay in Logan for a couple of extra weeks after Walker takes over to aid in the transition.
Barbour, who aided in the search process that ultimately brought Walker to USU, worked with Kevin White — Danny White’s father — at Notre Dame and Tulane.
“Utah State’s hit a home run with Cam,” Barbour proclaimed. “He’s exactly what institutions need today in terms of a leader in athletics. You hear a lot of talk about, ‘oh, we have to hire a business person, or we have to hire somebody from the pros.’ Well, I adamantly disagree with that, but you do have to hire somebody that’s got a mindset that adapts well to what college athletics looks like today, and that’s Cam.
“He’s learned from one of the best in the business in Danny White. I’m a little biased because I worked for Danny’s dad, but Cam’s got the skillset, he’s got the experience and he’s got the personal characteristics and drive.”
After graduating from Madison High School in Rexburg, Walker stayed at home to play baseball at Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho), then continued his playing career at Southern Virginia University. He served as an assistant baseball coach in Buena Vista for a year before deciding to attend law school at the University of Arkansas, where he ended up completing a juris doctorate in 2010.
“We were expecting our first, Aleksandra, and I was coaching baseball at the time, while also doing an internship and working with our university president,” Walker explained. “He looked at me, and I think he could tell I was miserable. And he said, ‘Have you thought about going into college athletics on the administrative side?’ And I said, ‘No … but tell me more.’
“And he said, ‘I think you should go get a law degree and do it.’ He was the former dean of the law school at Arkansas, and that opened that door. I started going on that track, haven’t looked back since.”
Cameron Walker’s Utah ties
Walker was hired as the director of compliance at Utah Valley University in May 2010 and spent six years in Orem, two of them as assistant athletics director and eight months as associate athletics director before being leaving for Central Florida in May 2016. While in Orlando, Walker worked under White in a variety of roles, including director for compliance and executive associate athletics director.
In addition to his time at Utah Valley, Walker’s wife, Heather, is a native of Heber City, making it an easier to transition to take a new position in the Beehive State for the family of six, which includes Aleksandra and sons Hudson, McCann and Jackson.
“About 15 years ago, we drove through Logan Canyon and stopped at (Aggie Ice Cream),” Walker recalled. “We had some Aggie Blue Mint, and my wife looked at me and said, ‘Wouldn’t this be a cool athletic director job?’ And I said, ‘This would be awesome.’
“Since that time, every time the job becomes available, we kind of look at each other. This time, when we looked at each other, it just felt right. We love this area, and we have family close by.
“College athletics is hard; it’s hard on families,” Walker added. “There’s no work-life balance. There’s work-life integration. You figure out how to make that work, and Heather’s done a masterful job of that. But being able to be in an area where you really want to be, where you think your kids and family will be extremely happy — that also aligns with a job that has incredible potential in a wonderful, beautiful place — it was tough not to be interested.”