Herschel Walker was a 19-year-old college junior when bumper stickers around the University of Georgia campus implored, “Herschel for Governor.” The exhortation had nothing to do with young Walker’s political stances, executive experience, legislative ambitions or anything of the kind. It merely reflected the ga-ga adoration for a star athlete, the non sequitur leap from celebrity status to legislative bona fides.
Forty years later, it is Walker himself proposing “Herschel for Senator,” even though his resume remains essentially the same: Football player of legendary proportions. He has whopping name recognition but no government-related training or experience. And there are some skeletons in his closet that still have skin on them.
He has acknowledged dealing with a multiple-personality disorder and violent behavior, has been accused by his ex-wife of death threats, and his current wife is being investigated for voting illegally. He is running for a Senate seat representing his native Georgia but has lived in Texas for decades. He has been cited for greatly exaggerating business profits while dramatically undercounting the number of his employees to apply for a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan.
So the question is whether mere sportsworld fandom, with its low threshold of curiosity regarding administrative knowhow or personal flaws, might again lift a well-known athletic figure into office, as it did with former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville. Caitlin (ne: Bruce) Jenner might be counting on a similar dynamic in California’s gubernatorial recall.
Walker did attain electoral victory in winning the 1981 Heisman Trophy, college football’s top honor—when all the voters were sportswriters, sportscasters and former Heisman winners.
That prompted him to skip his senior year at Georgia and commence an impressive 16-year professional playing career, first with the upstart—and short-lived—USFL’s New Jersey Generals before playing 13 years for four NFL teams. The Generals, originally owned by Oklahoma oil tycoon J. Walter Duncan, were sold in Walker’s second season to a New York real estate developer named Donald Trump, who now happens to be the loudest voice pushing Walker’s senate run.
Now 59, Walker long has considered himself a renaissance man—he has branded his food services business with that title—who never saw the need for traditional job preparation. He declined to participate in spring football practice at Georgia because he preferred running track and he eschewed weight lifting because he “reckoned” he was plenty strong without it.
“All my life,” he said, “people would say, ‘Herschel, you can’t do this. Herschel, you can’t do that.’ All my life I’ve done things I’m not supposed to be able to do….As long as you don’t tell your mind what you are, you can be anything you want.”
Admirable self-confidence. But his “anything” always was rooted in his football reputation, including being recruited to attempt Olympic bobsledding, a sport with a tiny talent pool in the United States. He met the basic requirements of having sprinter’s speed, to propel the sled’s start, and 212 pounds of ballast, to hurry it down the mountain. (He and his sled pilot finished seventh at the 1992 Winter Olympics, only Walker’s second and final competition in the sport.)
Upon Walker’s declaration last month to seek the senate, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported from his rural Georgia hometown of Wrightsville (population: 3,600) that the town’s favorite son—whose name graces his old high school football field and a road leading to the school—is widely loved by local residents and can’t help but win the election. Minus any policy discussion.
