Herschel Walker

Herschel Walker at NFL.com

Herschel Walker (born March 3, 1962 in Wrightsville, Georgia) was a professional American football player in the United States Football League and later, the National Football League.

Profile

• Height: 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
• Weight: 225 lb (102 kg)
• Birthday: March 3, 1962
• Hometown: Wrightsville, Georgia

Career

In college football, he played running back for the University of Georgia, where he was an All-American and won the 1982 Heisman Trophy. Walker's freshman season in 1980 is widely regarded as one of the best seasons ever by a first year player. His college career is also widely considered to have been one of the best in American college football history. In its list of the 100 greatest college football players ever, CollegeFootballNews.com placed Walker at #2. [1]

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Hershel runs for Georgia

In the formation of USFL, he saw an opportunity to do something then forbidden by NFL rules, namely turn professional after the end of his junior season rather than waiting for his collegiate class to graduate (four years after the high school graduation of his peer group). He also sought to choose where he would play professionally, as he felt he could make considerable money from product endorsements, being quoted on one occasion as saying: "I don't know if I would want to play in the NFL unless it was for the two New York teams or the Dallas Cowboys." (As it turned out, however, Walker landed only one major advertising role, in a joint promotion by McDonald's and athletic-shoe manufacturer adidas; in the ad, Walker's line was, "First the Big Mac meal — then the adidas deal," referring to discount coupons on adidas merchandise that could be obtained by purchasing a Big Mac at McDonald's).

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Herschel the General

USFL

With endorsement considerations in mind, Walker signed with the New Jersey Generals (who, like the NFL's New York Giants, played their home games at the Meadowlands Sports Complex) in 1983, owned by Oklahoma oilman J Walter Duncan. (Duncan would sell the team to real estate mogul Donald Trump after the 1983 season) Although this move was challenged in court, Walker and the USFL prevailed and Walker began play with the Generals, winning the USFL rushing title in both 1983 and 1985 and in the latter year also gaining over 4,000 yards. He holds the Pro Football Record for Single-Season Rushing Yards with 2500 yards in 1985.

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Herschel Walker

NFL

The NFL's Cowboys suspected that the USFL was not going to last. They acquired Walker's NFL rights by selecting him in the fifth round of the 1985 draft. When the USFL in fact succumbed after its essentially unsuccessful antitrust suit against the NFL in 1986, Walker went to play for the Cowboys, eventually establishing himself as a premier NFL running back with two consecutive Pro-Bowl seasons (1987,1988). In 1989, at the height of his NFL career, the Cowboys traded his rights to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for a total of five players. This was judged to be one of the seminal events in the return of the Cowboys to the top echelon of the NFL and the trade would ultimately overshadow Walker's NFL career achievments.

Walker did quite well by most standards for several seasons with the Vikings before his rights were later acquired by the Philadelphia Eagles, and, subsequently, the New York Giants. Eventually and ironically, he was acquired by the Cowboys again. In this second tour with the Cowboys, he was used as a flanker and other offensive positions, not exclusively at running back. In addition to running and catching passes, Walker was also often used to return kickoffs throughout his career.

Career Overview

If Walker's USFL and NFL numbers are combined, he ranks as one of the most productive professional football runners in history. Many are reluctant to do this, however, because of the disagreement as to whether the level of play of the USFL was in any way comparable to that of the NFL.

Even without taking his USFL numbers into account, his NFL stats are exceptionally high. In his 12 NFL seasons, Walker gained 8, 225 rushing yards, 4,859 receiving yards, and 5,084 kickoff return yards. This gave him an impressive 18,168 total combined net yards, ranking him high among the NFL's top 20 all time leaders in that category at the time of his retirement. He also scored 82 touchdowns(61 rushing and 21 receiving)

Even so, most football experts rank Walker's professional career as something of a disappointment. This must be due to the high, perhaps unrealistic expectations that were placed upon him due to his college career and the scrutiny which was entailed by so much being traded for him by the Vikings. Additionally, he was never on a championship NFL team. Some observers, however, claim that Walker was at least in part a victim of the package of rules changes the NFL had adopted in the spring of 1978, which were widely assumed to discourage offenses from running (rather than passing) most of the time; in addition, the NFL teams on which Walker played seldom used the I-formation, out of which Walker ran so successfully throughout his career.

Legacy

Walker was a highly popular and visible personality, even in his college days, as evidenced by the fact that both a thoroughbred and a standardbred race horse were named after him, the former while he was still in college; the thoroughbred, whose name was officially spelled as a single word — "Herschelwalker" — broke the track record for 5 furlongs (1006 m) at Belmont Park in his first start, then lost narrowly to Conquistador Cielo in a stakes race run at Saratoga in 1981 (the following year Conquistador Cielo would win the Belmont Stakes by 14 lengths and be named the champion 3-year-old colt of 1982). Since his retirement he has attracted little publicity, although he did make a guest appearance on The Hour of Power, hosted by noted televangelist Robert Schuller. Despite Walker's performance as a Minnesota Viking, his trade was widely perceived as an exceptionally poor move for what the Vikings had to give up in order to get him, and remains one of the most frequently vilified roster moves of the team's history (indeed, in the history of Minnesota sports). "Herschel the Turkey," a mocking "honor" given out by the Star Tribune newspaper to particularly inept or disgraceful Minnesota sports personalities, is named for him.

Walker competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics in bobsled, finishing seventh. He also won back-to-back American Superstars competitions in 1987 and 1988. He is a sixth-level black belt in tae kwon do. He is a born-again Christian who frequently talked about his faith during his USFL interviews.

On the Fox Sports Net show Sports List, Walker was named the best college football running back of all time, beating out the likes of Jim Brown and Barry Sanders.

Quotes

• "I hope to see that number 34 down the field about 25 times a game"

--Coach after Walker was traded to the Vikings.

External links

Career NFL Stats: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/WalkHe00.htm

Bio: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wal0bio-1

Georgia Bio: http://georgiadogs.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/walker_herschel00.html