Walter Davison named to Wall of Fame.
Coaching boys’ basketball team for 30 years
Thirty years after taking on coaching responsibilities for the Westisle boys’ basketball program, Walter Davison says he still has some unfinished business.
“I still have a passion to coach, I love coming to the gym everyday,” said Davison, who was named to the Westisle Coaching Wall of Fame during the school’s annual athletics awards night.
The award, he stressed, in no way means he is ready to step away from the basketball program.
“It would be nice to crack the top three (in senior boys’ AAA basketball),” he admitted. Westisle has won the AA championship four or five times, and they finished fourth in the AAA ranks the past two years, but never higher.
“Traditionally, they have the two teams in Charlottetown and the team in Summerside, and everybody likes to talk about them,” said Davison. “I’m trying to get our program developed that we can be talked about, maybe, in the same sentence someday.”
In naming Davison to the Wall of Fame, Westisle athletic director John Toner said he has known no other Westisle men’s basketball coach in his 20 years at the school.
“This man has always impressed me with the fact that he always wanted to play the top teams on the Island,” said Toner. “It’s the passion he has for the game; it’s the passion he has for the sport, the love of it. “You can feel it when he’s talking about his athletes. He’s always got this one goal: to get better.”
Toner went on to say Davison is “not afraid of hard work and
“This man has always impressed me with the fact that he always wanted to play the top teams on the Island. It’s the passion he has for the game; it’s the passion he has for the sport, the love of it. You can feel it when he’s talking about his athletes. He’s always got this one goal: to get better.” Westisle Composite High School athletic director John Toner
he understands it,” and by the end of the season that translates to his players. Toner also described Davison as a student of the game.
“He wants to pass that knowledge onto his athletes and, as the season rolls along you can see them getting closer, and they always narrows the gap,” added Toner. “He’s a person who understands what sport can give us, that hard work always pays dividends.” Davison acknowledged the Wolverines are never the tallest team in the high school league.
“We’re usually not the biggest and we may not even be the fastest, but the one thing that we’ve always had a tradition of is that we work hard,” he said. “If you’re coming to play against us, you better come to
play hard, because we are going to work hard right from start to finish. It’s that never-quit attitude and we can be pretty fierce.”
Throughout the school day, when anyone asks how he’s doing, Davison instinctively answers, “Living the dream,” and he said he feels that way about coaching.
“It’s a joy to see young men develop into just better young men, not just as basketball players but as young men, as well,” he said, extending appreciation to parents and school staff and administration for the support he’s received.