Twin Rivers coach Kelly Null directs her team during a scrimmage Friday in Broseley. Null takes over the Lady Royals program after longtime coach Jeff Walk left to coach Three Rivers Community College. (Rob Tate/DAR)

ROB TATE ~ DAR Sports Writer

BROSELEY -- Anyone who follows local basketball, particularly the Twin Rivers girls team, already know that it's a dawn of a new era for the Lady Royals.

When head coach Jeff Walk, who left this past summer to coach at Three Rivers Community College left, he took with him a two-decade long legacy of great basketball. He also took his trademark with him that probably won't show up again anytime soon.

"People wonder if I'll stomp (my feet) as loud as he does," new coach Kelly Null said last week. "I don't think I can. That's kind of his legend."

That won't be the only legend of Walk that will be missing.

Gone are Walk's 356 career wins at Twin Rivers. Gone are his nine district championships and one sectional title.

In is a new coach. But she isn't so new.

Null, who played for Walk in her four seasons at Twin Rivers in the mid-'90s, has also been an assistant on Walk's bench the past six seasons.

"I always knew that he would go to Three Rivers," Null said. "If there was ever a chance that Jack Childress was going to leave, that's where he would go."

Walk, who is co-coaching with Childress at Three Rivers this season, had always been a special figure in Null's life on and off the court, she said. From her teenage years to adulthood, Walk has always been a mentor to her.

"He was one of the best role models in my life as far as high school," Null said. "I had a lot of things going on at home and he was always constant with me. We always knew what he expected and I knew if I worked really hard he was going to be pleased with me.

"He was big for me growing up as a teenager and all that."

Even when Null became a coach at Twin Rivers, Walk was big for her development as an adult as well.

"When I got to working here, I still wasn't completely grown up," Null added. "I helped him and he helped me a lot. I took over the volleyball program and he taught me through a lot of it because I didn't know the sport very well and dealing with teenage girls and all the drama with that.

"He really helped me develop into the person I am."

Walk is happy to know that things are good hands at Twin Rivers.

"You couldn't ask for a better situation," Walk said. "She knows how to play and how to communicate with those girls."

In a pinch, Null knows that her mentor will never be too far away if she needs someone to talk to.

"I used to talk to him every day when I first started (as head coach) because of my athletic director job," Null said. "I had questions every day but now its probably once a week. We talk about certain players, we talk about who we're playing against and he talks about his team."

Said Walk, "She's a quick study, she don't make the same mistake twice. I think she'll do a tremendous job and she has the respect of the kids."

Twin Rivers senior Torey Davis, who played varsity three years for Walk, felt there wasn't much of a change in comfort level because everyone is so familiar with Null. Davis along with teammates Stephanie Jennings, Mallory Douglas, Tabitha Hackle and Danielle Cole, all just completed the volleyball season with Null as head coach.

"It feels the same because she was always around and we've known her and she knows how Coach Walk coached so it's about the same as far comfort," Davis said.

Davis said the team's style will be good mix of things Walk did as well as some things Null will have her signature on.

"We run some of the same plays but we still run different ones that Coach Null was taught, not only by Coach Walk but by her other coaches," Davis said. "And we also run a lot more. (Coach Null) ran a lot when she was in college."

Walk, who has the Lady Raiders at 6-2 so far this season, will still keep up with Twin Rivers at his leisure. He felt that even though they are still young with just one senior with experience and one junior, the team can compete in the Ozark Foothills Conference.

"Everybody lost a lot of players last year," Walk said. "This year with all the new coaches, its opened up a bit."

Even through Twin Rivers has had all the years of success Walk in charge, it's been down times lately as the team has had three losing seasons out of the last four years.

"The last few years even though we've kind of had losing records, it hasn't been horrible," Null said. "But coaches have always given him the respect of 'He's Coach Walk, he's gonna pull them out.' I just haven't earned that yet. It's gonna be rough but I'm prepared for that. I'm willing to work, the girls are willing to work and we're all on the same page."

Given enough time, results should follow. Null just brought in the school's first volleyball district title this past October and maybe in the near-future she might add her own girls district basketball banner to the wall inside the Twin Rivers. It would be the first girls basketball banner to not say "Head Coach: Jeff Walk."