Doak Walker Ran To A Heisman Trophy And NFL Titles

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Doak Walker Ran To A Heisman Trophy And NFL Titles

By CLAY LATIMER, FOR INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 08/27/2014 01:23 PM ET

Doak Walker had his hands full one afternoon in the 1947 college football season.

For nearly 60 minutes, with the Southwest Conference championship hanging in the balance, Southern Methodist's charismatic tailback was all over the field against Texas Christian.

He called signals, ran, passed, caught passes, blocked, punted, kicked, returned kicks and played defense.

But when TCU scored the go-ahead touchdown with 90 seconds left, Walker seemed out of options.

Until TCU kicked the ball to him.

He promptly returned the ball 56 yards — while shouting at his own bench: "Send in Johnson."

The coach did, and Gil Johnson threw a touchdown strike with 15 seconds left to clinch the conference title and a Cotton Bowl berth.

"Miracle Man" Walker had done it again.


Walker's Keys
A three-time All-American and Heisman Trophy winner at SMU, the unusually versatile back went on to lead the Detroit Lions to two NFL championships.
Overcame: Relatively small size.
Lesson: Natural ability, humility and passion can be unbeatable.
" 'I' was the least-used word in his vocabulary," said teammate Kyle Rote.

"Doak was the greatest clutch player I ever saw," College and Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Bobby Layne, Walker's teammate in high school and with the Detroit Lions, once said.

Sixty-seven years later, on the eve of the 2014 college season, Doak Walker's legend still shines.

During the 2007 season, ABC ranked him the fourth greatest player in college football history.

Sports Illustrated's Dan Jenkins wrote: "Although he weighed only 166 pounds and stood 5-10, he was quite simply the greatest college football player who ever lived."

To The Max

Landing honors throughout his career, Walker (1927-98) was:

• The first sophomore to win the Maxwell Award, one of the top college football accolades.

• The second junior to win the coveted Heisman Trophy, in 1948.

• The first player to win All-America honors three times.

His fame went way beyond football. Something about Walker fascinated Americans. In the early post-World War II years, his talent, wholesomeness and cover-boy looks seemed to capture an era.

"After the war everyone was looking for a hero, a nonmilitary hero," Tex Noel, executive director of the Intercollegiate Collegiate Football Researchers Association, told IBD. "They looked to the gridiron. At the time, pro football wasn't that big, and Doak Walker was the all-American boy.''

Beginning in 1948, Walker appeared on the cover of 47 national magazines, including Time, Look, Life, the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's.

One day Kyle Rote, Walker's teammate at SMU, saw a man buying a football magazine at a newsstand. "Don't buy that one," Rote said. "It isn't official. It doesn't have a picture of Doak Walker on the cover."

Fans worshipped Walker. The Cotton Bowl in Dallas added 30,000 seats just to fit them, prompting sportswriters to dub it "The House That Doak Built."


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