Herschel Walker Interview (page: 2 / 3) All-American Football Player	Print Interview

I read about another motivation you had: trying to beat your sister in a foot race.

My sister, she is a little bit over a year older. She was fast, and I was that chubby kid. And she was always beating me, she always beat me. I just felt that I couldn't see a girl beating me all the time. And I said, I got to beat her, I got to beat her. And I just trained and trained, and you know, every time I went up to race her, she beat me. Every time I went up she beat me. And after you been beat over ten times, sometimes people got a tendency of quitting. And I said, no, I'm not going to quit, I'm not going to quit. And I kept doing it until I got where I could beat her. And what was so strange about it, is the first race that I ever beat her, I barely beat her. But I think that was like the spring board.
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Once I saw I can do it, I said, uh-oh, now it's a little different. Now I'm ready. And I think that's the way the mind works. Sometimes you may not think you can do it. You may not think you can do it, but as long as you've got that doubt, you're never going to do it. I think that's what happened. By me continuing to want to race, and continuing to want to race her, sometime you got to win.

You can take two little dogs. One can be a small dog, the other one is a small puppy, but it's going to grow up to be this huge 160-pound dog. And you can take this one 30-pound little dog that is an adult at the time, and this big dog, as he grows up he is being dominated by this little dog. So he always grows up thinking this little dog can beat him. So he can get to his full size of 160 pounds, and this little dog still is only 30 pounds, but the big dog still thinks the little dog can beat him, so he is afraid of him because he doesn't know any better.
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Sometimes that's the way the mind is. If you continue to say you can't do it, you are not going to do it. But sooner or later you got to swing that bat, because you never know what you're going to hit on.

Was there a moment when you realized that you could be special as an athlete?

Herschel Walker: No. I still don't think there was a moment, because I don't think I'm anything special.

You know what I'm talking about. You are not an ordinary athlete.

Herschel Walker: I understand what you are saying, but I think anyone could do it if they really dedicate themselves. It's a lot of hard work.

What did it take for you, Herschel Walker, to go from runt of the family to the Heisman trophy?

Herschel Walker: It takes a lot of hard work. I'm talking mentally, physically, it takes a lot of hard work. You've just got to dedicate yourself. I think that's why I never let anyone read my poetry, I never let anyone see it. I don't think they could ever understand it. When I speak about this, people think I'm absolutely crazy.

I don't drink, I've never tasted alcohol, I don't smoke, I never did any of that, but I can get so high off my belief and my will, that it's almost like you're invincible. I'm so high off God that I don't care what you do to me, you can never destroy me.
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What's been your biggest challenge? What's been the hardest thing you've had to overcome?

Herschel Walker: The hardest thing I had to overcome in life? I think racism. That's so difficult because I don't think anyone can ever understand it. It's not the point that people don't want to understand it, but they don't want to touch it. So, like, that's a subject we can't touch, lets get away from it. But you know, it's there. And as long as it's there you got to cope with it. With me, I'm always the type of person, if something is in front of me, let me deal with it. Lets not push it under the rug, or push it to the side because, no matter what, it's going to keep coming up. You know, if you never deal with that dirt up under the carpet, it's going to get larger and larger, and it's going to keep coming up. Little bit by little, it's going to seep from underneath that carpet. So you deal with it now. You're going to try to get those piles out. I think that's been the most difficult thing.
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How do you deal with something like that?

Herschel Walker: I think believing within yourself. Believing that no one is better than the other.

I grew up in the South. My senior year was a very big racial - the tension in my home town was a very big deal. It's tough, but you're knowing who you are, and you're knowing that no white's no better than you, Herschel, you're no better than they are. And, I think the biggest thing to help me to overcome is when it's all said and done, God is not going to have a list and say, "Oh, geez. You're white, so you are going in, you're black, you're not," or "You're black, you comming in, you are white, you're not." God don't care. My mother once told me - this is almost similar to it - I was going to church one Sunday, and I didn't want to go. I was tired of going to church and stuff. And I hid my shoes, I didn't want to go. It's funny because I went in to my mother, and she said, "You ready to go to church?" And I said, "No, I can't go." She said "Why?" I said, "I don't have any shoes." You know, you only had one pair of Sunday shoes. And I said, "I don't have any shoes to go." And she said, "No, you can come on and go," and I said "I don't have any shoes." She said, "God don't care how you look." I thought about it, and you know, that's true. God don't care how you look. He don't care whether you are white, black, pink. As long as you've been a good person and you believe in Him. And, I said, "That's the key."
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I think we are always putting things in categories. We've got to put someone in a category. He's this, he's that, he's this. You know, that doesn't matter, as long as he can do the job. I think that's what counts.

You are out there in the public eye. You are a professional athlete. You must read the sports pages...

I never read an article about myself. Since I've been playing I've never read anything about myself. I'm not a big sports page reader. I don't read sports pages. One reason was, I don't read about myself because I know myself better than the person that's writing the article. I don't read a lot of the sports because I think people sometimes either build it up, or you have this guy that hates sports that is going to write bad about it, so I figure I'm not going to read it. Because I'm not going to let him put an idea into my head. I think reporters do not realize that they do that. They will continue to say, "We are giving the news." But you put a idea in someone's head. They take an athlete, they build this athlete up, the kids look up to him, and make him the best thing in the world, and this athlete make one mistake, they write bad about him, saying he's a bum, he's this, he's that. Then on the next day, they build him back up again. So a kid may get that idea, and say, hey, I can do that. I can be great, and I can make a mistake, and I'll go down and come right back up. That's not the way life is. And I think when you are writing an article, I feel, you've got to put what's true. You can't fabricate. You can't just build it up. You know, if you want to write for the National Enquirer, you do that, but if you are going to write for the people, lets' write. You got to use the pen in the correct way. That's the reason why I don't read a lot of sports stuff.
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I've read that one thing that you had to do to build yourself up was an incredible amount of push-ups and wind sprints. I mean, give us an idea of the kinds of things you had to do to get to where you wanted to be.

Herschel Walker: I didn't grow up - my parents didn't have a lot of money. My high school didn't have a lot of money to afford a lot of the expensive weights. You know all this stuff. They used that as an excuse. I started doing push-ups and sit-ups during commercials as I was watching TV. And started doing about, sometimes 2,000 push-ups, 3,000 sit-ups, 1500 pull-ups, 1000 dips, or different things like that. I started creating different hand positions for all that, then I learned that could work you out.
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In the olden days, that's what people used to do. People sit around now saying, "Let me create this machine that will work this muscle here for someone, and I can make a billion dollars." He don't even use the machine, but he wants to create it so that he can make money off of it. But I'm doing it to work myself. I have a lot of people that write to me saying "Herschel, why don't you come train me, I'll pay you this, I'll pay you that." And I say no. Your body is different from my body. This may work good for you and not work good for me. Or good for me and not so good for you. I just can't just say this is going to be great for you. Probably it will help you a little bit. But there may be another thing that you need to do, that will be a little bit better.

In all the things that you have done, what gives you the most satisfaction?

Herschel Walker: Of all the things I've ever done, I think getting married. The reason I say that is, I was a person that was always by myself a lot. I think getting married gave me a best friend. It gave me a person that, she may not know all of Herschel, but she knows me better than anyone else. They always say you want to marry someone like your mother, and I don't want to say that my wife is like my mother, but you know, my mother knows me, but then my mother says she doesn't know me. My wife says she knows me and then she says she doesn't. It gave me a best friend, and someone that I can rely on, and I can act silly sometimes, and they are not going to judge me on that act. People sometimes judge you, but you have a right to be free a little bit. You have a right just to laugh and act up, as long as it's not in a bad way.

You say you don't read the sports pages but, growing up as an athlete, you've had to take criticism. You've been judged in one way or another. How do you deal with that?

Herschel Walker: You can't satisfy everybody. Growing up, I knew you can never satisfy everybody, so I'm not going to try to satisfy everybody. I am going to go out and do the very best athletically on the field that I can for my teammates, my friends, for me. But you know, if someone don't like it, I can't do anything else. When we try to satisfy everybody, you can't satisfy everybody. That's tough to do, and if you do it once, you're going to be doing it all your life. I think I started out early not doing it, and I think today I am able to. Everyone else hated criticism; I can let it run off my back. Because if someone is criticizing, he's not doing what he's supposed to do. If we are running a race, and he's thinking "Herschel is running with his knee not in the correct way," sooner or later, Herschel is going to be easing up in front of him, because he is not concentrating on what he is supposed to do. Not speaking of the movie critics, because they criticize so many movies, but a lot of the movies they criticize, I like. Who says that they are the people who decide? That's the way I look at life.

What it is like to be out there, on the field, before a full stadium, carrying the football?

For me it is exciting. I don't get nervous. Knock on wood. I don't get nervous before a game, I get excited because this is an opportunity for me to go out there and show what the Lord has done for me. I'm so excited that the Lord has given me this ability, I'm so excited just to go out there, to put on those shoulder pads, put that helmet on, and then go out there and go with it. It's funny because it's not in my nature. I'm more low keyed, but when I get ready to perform, I don't care if there is no one in the stands. I want to go out there and play, because I am ready to go out there and get better. It's like a high. When you are running the ball sometimes, you can't even see behind you but you can feel a person there. It's so wild when you can just feel things, you don't even have to see it. You get the ball, and everything opens up for you. You can tell where everyone is at. Everything is so slow, but yet, you see it on film, it happened so quick. You can tell how many cleats this guy had on his shoes, but yet, it's so quick you don't know how in the world you counted it. You can see this guy coming to tackle, you can see his eyes. You have time to even say what he's thinking. Sometimes the guy is saying, "Oh, geez. How am I going to tackle this guy?" Whether I'm going to hit him at the legs, or try to jump on him and hold him until this...? You can see all this, but yet you see it on film, and it all happened so quick. So, it's like a real big high for me.
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Are you ever afraid out there?

Herschel Walker: No. I'm not, because there is nothing they can do to me. What's an injury? Everyone gets hurt. So there is nothing they can do to me.

Is there any moment in your athletic career that stands out for you?

Herschel Walker: All of it means a great deal to me. And now it's hard to say because all of it means so much. I don't think I put one over the other, and this is for all the 15 years.

Everything should be looked at in a positive way. Whether it was something bad that happening in your life, but it helped you to get better. Sometimes your parents say don't touch that, it's hot. But if you never touch it, you're never going to know. So even though that was a negative response, it made a positive response in your mind because now you know not to touch it anymore. Mistakes should be taken as a training tool to help you to get better. I lost a brother, and I was so mad at God, I was mad at everyone, but yet, it helped me to understand God a little bit more, because God is never going to give me a burden I can't handle. And yet, I was being selfish. "Herschel, you are being selfish. God is going to take care of your brother better than you could have done if he was here." I was being selfish. So, that negative response came out to be positive because now I know God a little bit more. I know that "Herschel, you were selfish." Now I know how to react on the next go-round.
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What's been your biggest disappointment?

Herschel Walker: My biggest disappointment. Sports or personal? In sports, I haven't won a Super Bowl. but personally, my biggest disappointment?

Do you have any regrets, anything you wish you could do over?

Herschel Walker: No, I don't. Because if I change any little bit of my life, my whole life, I think, will be altered, and I like it just the way it is right now.

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