Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1976
As a freshman, Waller played four sports for the Deacons, but he concentrated his efforts on the hardwood 1937 to 1939. For three varsity seasons, he won All-State and All-Southern honors, captaining the Deacon team his senior year. In addition, his senior year he was Southern Conference scoring champion and was selected for the All-Eastern team. Always active in student affairs, he found time to be student body president his senior.
Despite incomplete statistics and the tendency for basketball games of that era to be extremely low-scoring, it has been calculated that Waller scored over 1,500 points in his varsity career at Wake Forest.
Waller went on to the Wake Forest School of Law following graduation, then served in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1950 he was named Police Chief of the City of Winston-Salem.
Among his many honors as civic leader were appointment to the Director of Public Safety post; various positions and committees in the International Association of Chiefs of Police; pioneering of the fire-police concept; the Presidential Award for Service to Youth presented by the Pop Warner conference in 1958; and the 1952 Mission Golf Seal of Progress Award as the state's outstanding police chief. In all, he contributed 28 years of meritorious law enforcement to the local community.
The highlight of his years at Wake Forest was undoubtedly the school's first trip to the NCAA Tournament in 1939, where the 5-11 Waller dazzled fans with such as yet unheard of moves as the hook shot, and drawing fouls with a pull-up jump shot.
Waller was a native of Bogalusa, La. He graduated from Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville, TN. He passed away of cancer in 1969 at age 51.
