Walkington on a quest for second softball World Championship

SANDPOINT — How much does Sandpoint’s John Walkington love softball?

Well, he’s been playing the sport competitively for 40 years, with a World Championship to highlight a résumé that includes countless championships over the years.

The 57-year-old was the starting left fielder on a Coeur d’Alene-based team that won the 2008 World Championships in Phoenix, Ariz., helping lead a team that went 7-0 during a tournament featuring the best players in the United States.

Walkington recently assembled another regional team to make a run at the 2013 World Championships in Las Vegas this fall, having already signed up for seven summer tournaments, starting this weekend in Wenatchee, Wash.

“I want to win another World Championship, so I put this team together,” says Walkington, who has three sons and owns a fence company in Sandpoint. “With a new team, it will be interesting. I’m anxious to see how the new guys play out with the pressure of these tournaments.”

Fellow Sandpoint softball standouts Steve Verby and Gary Miller will join Walkington in his quest for another championship, this time in the 55-60 year-old division, joining a host of Coeur d’Alene players on essentially a regional all-star team.

The quest begins in earnest two weeks from now at a qualifying tournament in Yakima, Wash., and if all goes well, will conclude at the Worlds in Las Vegas in late September.

“At the Worlds you kind of realize it’s the real thing,” says Walkington, who still possesses elite speed and a solid bat at any level of softball. “That’s what we play for, to go down there and do some damage.”

After the first world championship, Walkington was having a beer with his wife Jeannie, who accompanies him to most of the tournaments, when the gravity of an Idaho team winning the worlds sort of set in.

“It’s a great feeling of accomplishment,” he recalls. “I was able to exhale, and say ‘that was really cool.’ I’d like to have that feeling again.”

Walkington, who was born and raised in Woodstock, Ill., was a regular in the Sandpoint City Rec league for many years after moving to Sandpoint in 1985. He started playing slow pitch softball as a 17-year-old, and has never stopped, playing mostly on a traveling tournament team these days.

The camaraderie of the sport, along with the ambitious quest of another world championship, keeps the fit Walkington in top form. When asked what he loves most about the sport he’s been playing for the past four decades, he didn’t hesitate in answering.

“Diving and catching a ball is the greatest feeling,” says Walkington with a laugh. “You never know when it will be the last one when you’re my age. I just enjoy the game so much.”