Walker McCrary is in his third year with The Apprentice School and the first season as the Assistant Athletic Director, Communications, after being promoted to the position starting in the 2024-25 season. He comes to Hampton Roads after a five-year stint at the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega, Georgia, where he served on the External Operations team as the Athletic Communications Coordinator.
In his duties as Assistant Athletic Director, Communications, McCrary will assist with media relations and athletic department event management for all intercollegiate sports offered by The Apprentice School. He will maintain records and statistics while reporting information to a variety of sources, assist with office administrative functions and supervision of support staff, report results to media outlets through press releases, assist with game day program publications and serve as the liaison between the media and coaches and student athletes.
He also serves as the primary administrator for both men's and women's basketball as well as handling all compliance duties for the USCAA, NCWA and NCAA for The Apprentice School.
Additionally, McCrary serves on the USCAA Ratings & Selections Committee, whose purpose is reviewing legislation that is proposed at USCAA Town Halls during the Annual Convention and providing recommendations as it pertains to USCAA National Championship events. He has also served on the tournament SID staff at multiple USCAA National Championships, including baseball and softball in 2023 and 2024, basketball in 2023 and 2024, golf in 2023 and volleyball in 2022 and 2023.
In his first year at Apprentice, he led the department to new social media outlets, obtaining official Instagram, Facebook and YouTube pages for Builder athletics. Additionally, he helped to revamp the live stream broadcasts to include new state-of-the-art graphics as well as play-by-play coverage at all home events, including every home baseball and wrestling event in addition to the home football and basketball schedules.
During his half-decade at UNG, he oversaw North Georgia's athletic communications coverage of all 13 sports as well as new media initiatives including the Nighthawk Sports Network's 100+ annual broadcasts. In addition to serving as the department's primary broadcaster, he also supervised the office's interns and technical staff.
McCrary served on the D2SIDA Women's Basketball Southeast Region Media Poll Committee as well as the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional Advisory Committee for women's tennis. He has also served as the Media Relations Coordinator for multiple NCAA regional events that were hosted in Dahlonega, including the 2018 DII Softball Southeast Regional and Super Regional, the 2019 DII Softball Southeast Regional, the 2021 DII Women's Basketball South Regional, the 2021 DII Men's and Women's Tennis Southeast Regionals, the 2021 DII Softball Southeast Regional and the 2022 DII Women's Basketball Southeast Regional.
In May of 2019, McCrary was on hand at the Peach Belt Conference Annual Meeting in Hilton Head, South Carolina, to accept the Sports Information Staff of the Year award from the conference office. In March of the same year, McCrary was awarded a UNG North Star Award recognizing meaningful accomplishments of University of North Georgia staff employees who embody the University’s standards for excellence, efficiency, and outstanding customer service to internal or external constituents.
McCrary spent one year as the Director of Athletic Marketing and Communications at Truett McConnell in Cleveland, Georgia, where he was named the 2016-17 Appalachian Athletic Conference (NAIA) Willie Belcher Sports Information Director of the Year. In his only year at TMU, McCrary oversaw a complete brand redesign during that included a website redesign and changes to the official athletic marks. Under his supervision, the athletic department saw TMBears.com's page views double as well as the number of users increase by 15 percent since the redesigned website launched in August 2016 through his tenure.
Prior to TMU, McCrary previously served as the Athletic Communications Assistant at the University of North Georgia. In this role, he served as a producer and on-air talent on the athletic department's Nighthawk Sports Network. He also helped design game day materials, schedule posters and served as statistician for many of the athletic events.
McCrary has also completed an internship with the American Junior Golf Association, working 13 junior golf tournaments across the West Coast. While working these events, McCrary served as the official photographer, official scorer and coordinated with local media to promote and cover these golf tournaments.
McCrary served as the Director of Media Relations for the Atlanta Silverbacks Women from 2013-14. In this role, he designed season tickets and game day guides and also staffed the home games and wrote press releases. He also served as a freelance sports reporter for the Gainesville Times newspaper in October 2012, covering high school football throughout the North Georgia area.
A native of Dahlonega, Georgia, McCrary has served time as on-air talent on the North Georgia SportsLink Internet radio, covering Lumpkin County, Dawson County and North Forsyth High School football and basketball games as a play-by-play announcer, color commentator and sideline reporter. He currently serves as the pregame and halftime host as the in-studio producer for all NGSL broadcasts. He also is a play-by-play voice for the Hampton Pirates men's and women's basketball teams on 88.1 FM WHOV.
McCrary completed his undergraduate work in May 2016 at the University of Georgia. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Statistics as well as a Certification in Sports Media from the nationally-acclaimed Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
McCrary married the former Charlotte Greenway in December 2021. The two reside in Norfolk.
