Herschel Walker

• Born: March 3, 1962
• Place of Birth: Wrightsville, Georgia

• SPORT: Football

Early Life

Herschel Junior Walker was born in Wrightsville, Georgia on March 3, 1962, to Willis Walker and Christine Taylor Walker. He was the fifth of seven children. His parents believed in the virtues of persistence, pride, and honesty.

Growing up in the countryside, the Walker children watched their parents work as tenant farmers and later as factory workers. The family attended a local Baptist church, where Herschel sang in the youth choir. True to the principles of hard work they taught their children, the Walkers moved their family to a modest wood frame house on a dirt road when Herschel was eight years old.

Surprisingly, Herschel was the least athletic of his brothers and sisters. His mother called him the runt of the family. He was a shy boy who withdrew into reading and writing poetrylikely reactions to a temporary speech impediment.

When Walker was in the fifth grade, his classmates urged him to play football with them at recess. Out of admiration for his older brothers Willis and Renneth—who were both playing on the local high school varsity football team—Walker finally decided to get involved with sports. He was also upset because his older sister Veronica could beat him in foot races.

The Road to Excellence

When Walker was twelve years old, he went to the local track-and-field coach Tom Jordan and asked him how to go about building muscles. He followed the coach’s advice and developed an intense daily workout of sit-ups, push-ups, and wind sprints. He continued this program throughout his career. By the time Walker was in the ninth grade, he stood five feet ten inches tall, weighed 185 pounds, and could run the 100-yard dash in 9.9 seconds. He could now also outrun his sister Veronica.

Walker started his football career at Johnson County High School as a fullback, but he eventually moved to the tailback position. At 200 pounds and close to 6 feet tall, he bowled over linesmen and earned the nickname “Hurt.” He developed his characteristic “float and glide” style of running. This implied Walker “floated” around his blockers, “glided” past them until he found an opening, and then raced to the end zone.

Walker’s favorite sport in high school was track. He helped his team win the 1979 state class-A track-and-field championship by winning the shot put, and the 100 and 200-yard dashes. He also played basketball as the starting varsity forward. His teammates dubbed him “Skywalker” because of his ability to leap so high when rebounding.

The Johnson County Trojans won the state class-A football championship in Walker’s senior year of high school—he rushed for 3,167 yards and scored 45 touchdowns. Walker was named a consensus prep all-American and Parade magazine’s National High School Back of the Year.

Claiming an A average, Walker would later state he was the valedictorian of his class and president of the Beta Club, a scholastic honor society. Most of these honors would be revealed as fictitious. Decades later, criticisms would emerge that Walker had built a personal image based on the false narratives of a sterling character and educational credentials he never achieved.

The Emerging Champion

Walker's achievements on the playing field brought him national attention. Walker was the most sought-after prospect in the country in 1980. Over one hundred colleges offered him scholarships. Walker’s parents wanted him to go to the University of Georgia in Athens—a small college town only ninety-eight miles from home. Walker’s sister Veronica was already on the Bulldogs track team, and after flipping a coin, Walker decided to join her.

Walker attained national notoriety before he completed his first game for the University of Georgia, and scored two touchdowns in helping defeat the University of Tennessee. Walker became the featured character in a storybook season for the university.

Walker became the regular starting tailback for the rest of the season and set a new freshman National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rushing record with 1,616 yards, eclipsing Tony Dorsett’s mark of 1,568. He finished third in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy—the highest finish ever by a freshman at that time. He was named first-team all-American in six polls. Walker was also the first freshman to ever be selected by the Football Writers Association of America and the Kodak poll.

Most importantly, Walker rushed for 150 yards and two touchdowns in earning the Most Valuable Player award in the 1981 Sugar Bowl victory over the University of Notre Dame. His performance helped secure Georgia’s first national championship ever and made him that state’s favorite native son for many years to come..

Continuing the Story

With Walker in the backfield, Georgia’s football team contended for the national championship for the next two seasons. In 1981, he rushed for 1,891 yards, setting a sophomore record, and finished second in the Heisman vote. In his junior year he scored 17 touchdowns, was a consensus all-American for the third year, and won the Heisman Trophy by a landslide vote.

In three years of collegiate football, Walker set eleven NCAA records, sixteen Southeastern Conference (SEC) records, and forty-two University of Georgia records. However, Walker always claimed to enjoy track more than football where he was also a standout competitor. In the classroom, as a prelaw major with a specialty in criminal justice, he maintained a B average. He told of his desire to work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) once his sports career was over.

Shortly after winning the Heisman Trophy, Walker was jogging on campus when he ran across a burning car. He ripped open the door and rescued the sixty-seven-year-old woman trapped inside. Not waiting for thanks, he finished his solitary run.

In February 1983, Walker lost his senior season of collegiate eligibility because he had negotiated with a professional team. This was the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League (USFL), The primary owner of the Generals was real-estate developer Donald J. Trump. After signing with the Generals, Walker led the first-year league in rushing with 1,812 yards. That same year he married Cindy DeAngelis Grossman—The two met on the track team at the University of Georgia.

In 1985, the Dallas Cowboys gambled on the failure of the USFL and drafted Walker. He eventually found himself on the same team with the man whose record he had broken in college—Tony Dorsett. In 1989, the Minnesota Vikings, anxious to acquire Walker, traded multiple draft picks and players for his rights. His two seasons with the Vikings were, nonetheless, disappointing. Walker continued to be a triple threat as a kickoff return man, a receiver, and a running back. In 1990, when the Vikings went five games without a loss, most analysts attributed it to Walker “having turned it up a notch.”

In 1991, Walker rushed for 825 yards and ten touchdowns on 198 carries. He spent the next three seasons—1992 through 1994—with the Philadelphia Eagles. He had his best year with the Eagles in 1992, when he ran for 1,070 yards on 267 carries. Walker spent 1995 with the New York Giants. In 1996 he returned to the Dallas Cowboys before retiring from professional football at the end of the season. In August 2000 Walker was inducted into the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame.

Following his football career, Walker became involved in a series of business ventures, including Renaissance Man Food Services. This was a food distributorship that Walker founded in 2002. A year previously, Walker's marriage to Grossman ended. Grossman filed for divorce from Walker after alleging he was physically abusive.

Walker briefly competed in mixed martial arts (MMA) between 2010–11. He later turned to politics after first being appointed to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition by President Donald Trump in 2018. In 2020, he supported President Trump while appearing at the Republican National Convention. In 2021 Walker announced that he intended to run in the 2022 US Senate election in Georgia as a Republican, even as his primary residence was in Dallas, Texas. Walker later won the Republican primary election in May 2022 to earn the Republican nomination.

Walker ran against incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in the November general election. Walker pinned his election hopes on his close relationship with his former employer, Donald Trump. In his election campaign, Walker's carefully crafted public image was punctured. Walker acknowledged inflating his credentials, such as having been a high school valedictorian. He also claimed to be a top graduate at the University of Georgia but had never obtained a degree. Walker admitted to extra-marital affairs and was alleged to have paid for abortions. Walker was revealed to have fathered multiple children to different women out of wedlock. One of his children—his son Christian—publicly opposed his candidacy. Walker articulated political positions such as on the environment that many found nonsensical. Nonetheless, Walker's steadfast loyalty to Trump was enough of a positive point to supporters that his senatorial race with Warnock was tight. In the November 2022 general election, the results were close such that a runoff election between the two became necessary. Neither candidate had achieved the 50 percent threshold required by Georgia state law to win the election. Warnock won the runoff election held on December 6, 2022.

Following Walker's senatorial defeat, he remained primarily in seclusion. In 2023, he re-enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Georgia to finish his bachelor’s degree.

Summary

Herschel Walker captured the attention of the sports world with his dazzling career as a collegiate tailback. He was also a world-class sprinter, and he competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics in the two-man bobsled event. Ever modest, Herschel was one of the most popular sports figures in the nation, and many young players dreamed of someday exploding down the football field just as he did. Walker later returned to the national spotlight after entering the 2022 US Senate race. Nonetheless, because of negative personal information which emerged during the race, Walker's national reputation was greatly diminished.

Bibliography

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Gibson, Brittany. "Republicans Irked That Herschel Walker Is Sitting on Millions in Unspent Campaign Funds." Politico, 28 May 2024, www.politico.com/news/2024/05/28/herschel-walker-republicans-unspent-campaign-funds-00160046. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Jones, Ja'han. “Trump-Backed Herschel Walker Wins Georgia Primary Race.” MSNBC, 24 May 2022, www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/herschel-walker-wins-georgia-primary-results-senate-rcna30271. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Kapur, Sahil. “Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker Are Headed to a December Runoff in the Georgia Senate Race.” NBC News, 9 Nov. 2022, www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/georgia-senate-midterm-2022-race-walker-warnock-heads-runoff-rcna54928. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Pennington, Bill. The Heisman: Great American Stories of the Men Who Won. ReganBooks, 2004.

Samelson, Ken. Echoes of Georgia Football: The Greatest Stories Ever Told. Triumph Books, 2006.

Walker, Herschel, and Terry Todd. Herschel Walker’s Basic Training. Doubleday, 1985.

Vaillancourt, William. "Turns Out Hershel Walker, Who Questioned How Evolution Is Possible, Lied about His Academic Record." Rolling Stone, 1 Apr. 2022, www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/herschel-walker-lied-academic-achievements-georgia-1331380. Accessed 17 June 2024.