Herschel Walker | Academy Of Achievement

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1981: Herschel Walker in front of Johnson County’s Lovett Stadium. Walker attended Johnson County High School, where he played football, basketball and competed in track. In his senior year of 1979, he rushed for 3,167 yards, helping the Trojans to win their first state championship. The valedictorian of his class, he was awarded the first Dial Award as the 1979 national high school scholar-athlete of the year. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)

Besides your parents, you’ve mentioned a teacher or coach who helped you.

Herschel Walker: There was a high school coach that believed in me.  His name was Tom Jordan. And it was funny, I had two older brothers who were very athletic.  Coach Jordan saw me and how clumsy — and I couldn’t run, couldn’t do anything.  He just said to himself, “If his two brothers are great at sports, Herschel’s got to have something.  He’s got to be good at something.”  So he used to come pick me up at the Sunday school at the church, and on Saturdays, and make me go out to this track and he’d work out with me.  He’d play with me and he made me feel good about myself.  And he said, “Okay.  You’re going to do your homework here.  You’ve got to do this here.”  And he was just like my parents, and he believed in me.  He did teach me that, when they say what teacher you had, and I say a coach, most people say, “Oh geez, that’s just sports.”  But that’s not.  It’s that he was someone that was the role model — was the teacher — in my life.

He always wanted a bass boat and he’s a big fisherman.  It’s funny because he always wanted a bass boat, and growing up in Wrightsville, Georgia, I don’t have any money.  I could barely rub two nickels together.  And then, becoming a professional football player, I got him a bass boat.  And I loved that because, for what he did for me, to put me in the position I’m in right now, you know, a bass boat isn’t enough.  He means a great deal to me.

You talked about exercising to build yourself up. What kind of exercise did you do?

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