Source: MetroPulse, New York Times
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Nobody who knows the area's football history disputes the accomplishments of Jackie Walker, a local high school football star and pioneering all-American linebacker at Tennessee from 1969 through ’71.
At Fulton High School here, he averaged 23 tackles a game his senior season. He went on to become the first African-American football player in the Southeastern Conference to be named an all-American and the first to captain an SEC team. And almost four decades after his college career ended, and six years after his death, Walker remains in the NCAA record book for his ability to return interceptions for touchdowns.
Despite Walker’s accomplishments, few know much, if anything, about him. And that, largely, is because of the way he lived his life off the field after his playing days.
Walker was gay, which he made no effort to hide after his senior season at Tennessee. That is why his name has faded from memory, according to his brother, Marshall, and several of his teammates and coaches.
When Walker was dying of AIDS in 2002, his brother told him he would change that, pledging to help get him into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame -- something Jackie Walker was convinced would never happen.
Marshall has now received word his brother will be inducted into Knoxville's Hall of Fame this July.
Marshall Walker told local station WBIR that his brother would have been pleasantly surprised by the news. "He would laugh, and I would say, a long time coming, but it finally happened," Marshall Walker said.
Marshall has been pushing for various halls of fame to recognize his two-time All-American brother.
The induction class will be made public Sunday. It's the first hall of fame to induct the Fulton High School graduate, and Marshall hopes it's not the last.
Jackie Walker’s talent, success and historical significance as a football player are undeniable, Tennessee's MetroPulse wrote in a major 2007 profile that reintroduced Walker to Knoxville and Tennessee fans.
Tennessee integrated its football team in 1967, and when Walker became eligible to play in 1969, he was one of only three African-Americans on the team.
He was not the first African American to play in the Southeastern Conference, but he was the first African-American star. In a time when captains were elected by their teammates, he was the first African American to captain an SEC team. He was the first African American in the SEC to be named an All-American -- a feat he would repeat his senior season.
By the time of his senior season in 1971, six African-Americans were playing football for the Volunteers. When the team elected Walker captain for the 1971 season, one of the two alternates was Phillip Fulmer, now the Vols’ coach.
“Though he was always undersized, he was a great player -- smart, great speed and toughness,” Fulmer told the New York Times after a recent spring practice session. “And he was a great person.”
His NCAA career record for interceptions returned for touchdowns has been tied, but remains unbroken. He led Tennessee to a record of 30-5 from 1969-1971, winning the SEC Championship in 1969 and the Liberty Bowl in 1971, and his quiet intelligence and winning personality made him a media favorite. The New York Times noted at the time that he’d had a singing, dancing role in a campus production of Fiddler on the Roof the summer before his senior year, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes flew him to Miami to sing at one of their national meetings.
As a sophomore at the University of Tennessee in 1969, Jackie Walker and his teammates Lester McClain and Andy Bennett had become the first blacks to play against Alabama on Legion Field, and Walker had returned a bobbled pass for a touchdown.
He’d pretty much owned the Alabama "Tide" in that game and the next match between the two teams. But in their game in October, 1971 Alabama coach Bear Bryant made sure that Jackie Walker would receive the full attention of Alabama’s massive offensive line, which was anchored by 265-pound guard John Hannah, who later became a 10-time Pro Bowler in the National Football League and was named “Best Offensive Lineman of All Time” by Sports Illustrated.
Tennessee junior linebacker Jamie Rotella was an eyewitness to the mayhem, and the memory of Walker’s valiant, hopeless battle in the 32-15 loss still burns bright.
“Jackie literally knocked himself out trying to stop Alabama’s offense,” he told MetroPulse. "He bore the brunt of their attack, and they kept coming after him…. I’m telling you, Jackie took them all on,"
But the relentless pounding took its toll, Rotella recalled. "I was shocked. I couldn’t believe Jackie was wearing down, because every game up to this, he’d been Superman. And every game after this, he was Superman.”
Rotella told the New York Times for a feature on Walker printed this week that the triple-teaming scheme was the only time in all the games he played alongside Walker that his teammate was effectively blocked. With Walker neutralized, Alabama prevailed, 32-15.
“We didn’t talk about concussions back then,” Rotella said. “But in hindsight, I guess that’s what happened to Jackie. He was in the defensive huddles and didn’t know where he was. It was really disheartening for the rest of us to see our hero get dinged. He had always been invincible. Of course, it took three of them to do it.”
Rotella’s recollections of the 'Bama game are borne out in East Tennessee State University professor John David Briley’s book, Paul “Bear” Bryant and the 1971 Season of Change. Alabama lineman Jimmy Rosser paid Walker a supreme, if backhanded, compliment:
“There was a nose guard on Jimmy Grammer, but his primary blocking assignment was on Walker. It was Jimmy’s responsibility to stand him up on this play. After that, I would hit him on the right side, and then either Kraft or Hannah would come in and hit him from the left side. It was kind of like a sandwich. We did this on other people that year, but it was called the Jackie Walker Play after that.”
Rotella didn’t know the play had a name, but he’s not surprised.
“Jackie weighed 188 and these guys weighed 275 -- so come on -- three on one? It was the only time Jackie Walker was ever neutralized,” he says. “Can you understand how shocked I am to hear that he’s not in a single hall of fame?”
The next spring, Rotella said, he heard that Walker was gay.
“I was totally shocked,” he said. “But it didn’t affect the way I admired and respected him. We were confused, but everybody had too much respect for Jackie, for his character as well as for his football play. Jackie was a private person, very humble. Whenever he did speak, his words were sincere, reflecting his character. He was a silent leader. He didn’t say much, but when he did, you listened.”
Players as good and as significant to the game as Walker are usually memorialized in multiple halls of fame soon after their playing days are over. Their stories are recounted for young players and their feats on the field recalled -- and sometimes even exaggerated -- by young players who yearn to play for the same school.
But Jackie Walker has not been named to the National Football Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, or -- until this summer -- in the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame. His picture doesn't hang on the Wall of Fame in UT’s Black Cultural Center.
“They’ve tried to wipe Jackie’s name out of history because of his sexual orientation,” says Marshall, who is on a quest to keep a promise he made to Jackie before he died of AIDS in 2002, even though Jackie was dubious about it.
Rumors that Jackie was gay started circulating after his senior season and just before he was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 1972, MetroPulse reported last year. Rotella refused to believe what he was hearing:
“I’ve always tried to be open-minded, and when the rumors first broke -- remember, it was a different time back then, and ballplayers were protected, insulated from a lot of things -- when I heard it, I thought ‘What is it with these people? They’ll make up anything to gossip about.’”
But it was no surprise to Marshall, who had known the truth since the year before, when he’d run into Jackie in the lobby of Hess Hall, where both their girlfriends lived. Jackie was sitting on a rail looking forlorn.
“I asked him what was wrong, and he said ‘I told Melanie.’ I said ‘You told Melanie what?’ He said, ‘I told Melanie that I’m gay, and, man, she’s upset. She didn’t take it very well.’ Jackie had this secret life for a long, long time,” Marshall says. “The girlfriends? That was just a show. At that point, he could NOT let most of his teammates know. I promise you, it was ugly.”
Betty Bean wrote the MetroPulse feature that reintroduced Walker to Knoxville sports fans. Bean's feature, printed in November, 2007, finally got former players and coaches to listen to the pleas that Marshall Walker had been making for years.
Lon Herzbrun, who coached Walker at Fulton and in college, was one of the many people Bean interviewed for her feature . A Hall of Famer himself, Herzbrun said Walker “should have been inducted long before I was.”
A candidate’s sexual orientation, he added, should not be considered. “He didn’t do any of the things some of the guys today do -- no drugs, none of that,” he said. “He was just the most accomplished player I’ve ever been around.”
Jackie didn’t find much success in the NFL. Herzbrun believes that the 49ers weren’t patient enough while trying to convert him into a defensive back. Jackie told Daw-U Smith -- a friend in Atlanta, where he moved after giving up his NFL dreams -- that he was cut from the team when the organization found out he was gay.
“Football was never the end-all for him,” Marshall Walker said in a recent interview with New York Times. “Playing sports wasn’t going to make him or break him.”
By the time Walker became eligible for the local Hall of Fame, five years after his playing career, he was out of football and living in Atlanta. He had little, if any, contact with Tennessee or Fulton High School and returned to town only for visits with family and friends.
Marshall Walker told MetroPulse's Bean that Jackie found peace in life after football. “When I visited Jackie in Atlanta, I met a lot of prominent people in his environment. Would he bring his partners around? Yes. But he was still discrete. Did I ever see him holding hands, sharing hugs and kisses? No, I never saw any of that. He always had a certain reserve about himself, and he had a lot of pride. I never knew Jackie to intentionally want to harm someone, even as an adult. If you crossed the line, he would settle it right then. Could those rumors about cross-dressing have gotten back to the Athletics Department? Yes.”
Full article: The Jackie Walker Story | MetroPulse
Long in the Shadows, a Player’s Legacy Is Restored | New York Times
hattip: GLAAD