WALKER, (Ewell) Doak, Jr.

(b. 1 January 1927 in Dallas, Texas; d. 27 September 1998 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado), college football legend who was one of the first players to earn consensus All-America honors three consecutive years, the first junior to win the Heisman Trophy, and a member of both the college (1959) and professional (1986) football Halls of Fame.

Always called "Doak," perhaps to distinguish him from his father, Ewell Doak Walker, Sr., Walker made football history at Highland Park High School in North Dallas and at Southern Methodist University (SMU)—both institutions were located within a few blocks of the Walker family's Stanford Avenue home. His father, a one-time teacher and coach who became the assistant superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, and his mother, Emma, also a teacher, encouraged Walker to participate in sports even though he was of less-than-average size. Walker's parents, especially his father, taught family values long before the phrase became a buzzword. Walker explained that as a young adult, "My dad taught us to be competitive, but he was also very big on sportsmanship. … The values I have lived my life with, I got from my father a long time ago."

While Walker was at Highland Park High, another football immortal, Bobby Layne, was in the same backfield. Layne was a year ahead of Walker, and although they chose different colleges, they were reunited in the backfield of the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) in the franchise's championship days of the 1950s. After Walker graduated from high school in 1944, he and Layne joined the merchant marine together in January 1945. When World War II ended, it was assumed that Walker would join Layne on the University of Texas Longhorns. He almost did. The two buddies were discharged in New Orleans in October 1945 and decided to stay over and see the sights, also taking in the SMU-Tulane football game. Their old Highland Park coach Rusty Russell had become an assistant coach at SMU and offered Walker a ride back to Dallas on the team train. By the time the team arrived home, Walker was a member of the SMU Mustangs; a week later he faced Layne across a Dallas gridiron. A touchdown pass by Layne won the game for the Longhorns, 12–7. Although Walker only played five games in 1945, his performance with SMU was so stellar that he was voted to the All-Southwest Conference team.

Despite having served in the merchant marine, Walker was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1946. He returned to SMU as a sophomore in 1947 and again began leading the Mustangs to success. As a consensus All-American and a triple-threat tailback, Walker paced the SMU team to a 9–0–1 record. Only a 19–19 tie with Texas Christian University (TCU) marred a perfect record. In the postseason Cotton Bowl, SMU was tied again, 13–13, by Pennsylvania State University.

Although SMU lost to the University of Missouri, 20–14, and tied pesky TCU, 7–7, Walker was even better during the 1948 season. He was a unanimous All-American and became the first of only a handful of juniors to win the Heisman Trophy. The Mustangs were again in the Cotton Bowl after the regular season of 1948. They defeated the University of Oregon, 21–13, as Walker rushed for sixty-six yards and completed six of ten passes for seventy-nine yards. His only punt of the game traveled seventy-nine yards, and he kicked two extra points.

Walker's senior season was disappointing. Injuries caused him to miss several games, and the team slipped to a 5–4–1 record. Walker wrote to the All-America selection board and asked them not to consider him, since he had missed some important games. His request was ignored and he became a consensus All-American for the third consecutive year. During this time Dallas's Cotton Bowl became known as the "House That Doak Built." The on-campus 17,000-seat SMU stadium was too small to accommodate all those who wanted to see "the Doaker" play. Mustang games were moved to the 45,507-seat Cotton Bowl, which was further enlarged to 67,431 seats before Walker's illustrious career was over. Walker graduated from SMU in 1950, earning a B.S. degree.

In an era before mass communication, Walker was a legitimate national hero. He graced the covers of many magazines, including Life. He and his fiancée, Norma Peterson, were featured on the cover of Collier's. The couple married on 17 March 1950 and later had four children. As a professional player, Walker was the cover subject of an early issue of Sports Illustrated (3 October 1955). Walker left SMU as a bona fide Texas legend and with a bundle of records—3,582 total yards split almost evenly between running and passing, 38 touchdowns, 57 extra points, 288 points in 41 games, 27 receptions, 8 interceptions, a near-40-yard average on punts, a 15-yard average on punt returns, and a 29.4-yard average on kickoff returns—including a nation-leading 38.7-yard average in 1947. His coach Matty Bell added, "Doak could have been an All-America on his blocking alone."

Walker's size (five feet, eleven inches tall and 168 pounds) was on the low end of average for college backs in his era, but was decidedly small for a professional football halfback. Nevertheless, in 1950 he was reunited with his high-school buddy Layne on the Detroit Lions. His professional career was brief—only six years—but brilliant; he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Walker led the NFL in scoring as a rookie with 128 points and was named the Rookie of the Year. He was selected to five Pro Bowls and led the league in scoring in his final season (ninety-six points in 1955). When the Lions won championships in 1952 and 1953, Walker contributed mightily with a sixty-seven-yard touchdown in the 1952 title game, and the winning extra point in the 17–16 victory in 1953. When he retired after what was really a five-anda-half-year career (he only played seven games in 1952), his career point total of 534 was incredibly the third all-time in NFL history.

After retiring as a player, Walker became a national sales representative in the construction business and eventually relocated to Denver. After he and his first wife divorced in 1965, Walker married Gladys "Skeeter" Werner, of the famous Olympic skiing Werner family, in 1969. He loved Colorado, skiing, and living in Steamboat Springs, despite once having been caught in an avalanche. On 30 January 1998 Walker was involved in a skiing accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He died of complications early that autumn and was cremated. His ashes were scattered at Longs Peak, Colorado.

Walker was one of football's all-time greats, and a modest, humble, and sincere celebrity for all of his adult life. He had a knack of doing whatever it took on the gridiron. His friend Bobby Layne said, "When the score was 20–0, we're ahead, Doak wasn't worth a damn. But tied 7–7 or down 13–14 and not much time left, he'd do the unbelievable." In Texas—where everything seems bigger, including legends—Walker's legend was bigger than most. His name continues to come before the public each year when college football presents the nation's top running back with the Doak Walker Award.

There are two biographies of Walker: Dorothy Kendall, Doak Walker: Three-Time All-American (1950), and Whit Canning, Doak Walker: More Than a Hero (1997). Walker's life and career are discussed in Kern Tips, Texas Style (1964), and Dan Jenkins, I'll Tell You One Thing (1999). An obituary is in the New York Times (28 Sept. 1998).

Jim Campbell