I’m in shock. Caught totally off guard.

From May 6th, 2008

I’m in shock. Caught totally off guard.

One of the soul pleasing aspects of writing my memoir Walk-On is traveling back into time, looking at the life I lived as a twenty year old, now that I’m fifty plus. There has been joy, some sadness and many laughs but, until now, there has been no shock; up until now.

Reading the May 1^st issue of the New York Times, I learned that an old football nemesis from the University of Tennessee died six years ago. I didn’t know Jackie Walker personally. I only knew him as a fierce, talented football player who made All-America at Tennessee, the first African American in the Southeastern Conference to do so. As a senior in 1971, with just three blacks on Tennessee’s team, his teammates thought enough of him to name him captain. He still holds the NCAA record for returning interceptions for touchdowns. At Auburn, when we played Tennessee the entire offensive game plan was geared around trying to block Jackie Walker. Bear Bryant at Alabama designed the “Jackie Walker Play” to contain Walker by having three men block him. He was one of the best college linebackers I’d ever seen.

I found out in the Times, that Jackie Walker was gay.

I’m being honest when I say I’m shocked. Am I being homophobic by not imagining this great football player could be gay? I’m sure there is some of that. But more relevant to the topic I’ve been researching, I’m trying to imagine what his life was like being one of the pioneer African Americans football players in the Southeastern conference and gay.

I know the loneliness and isolation I felt being one of only two blacks on Auburn’s 1970-1973 football teams. I remember the secret lives I had from the coaches and administrators. Secret lives that included who I dated (especially if she was white). Secrets about how I really felt about things that happened or did not happen on the field, the lack of social life and what it was like to have teammates but not many who were friends.

I can only imagine the secrecy required to hide the stigma of being a pioneering, black, gay All-America football player in the Southeastern conference in 1970. That would be a tough act, even today. According to the article in the Times, after playing ball at Tennessee, he lived in Atlanta and made no effort to hide his sexuality. He had little contact with Tennessee and returned only for visits with family and friends.

This week, almost four decades after his football exploits and six years after his death from AIDS, Jackie Walker will be inducted with the latest class into the Knoxville Sports Hall Of Fame. There are questions as to why it has taken so long, when others of far less athletic notoriety have gone in before him. Did his sexuality have to do with the delay?

His brother Marshall Walker thinks so. As a matter of fact when Jackie was dying of AIDS in 2002, Marshall made a pledge to Jackie that he would get him into the Greater Knoxville Hall of Fame. Jackie Walker, never thinking it would happen, laughed. But it has happened and many say it’s past time.

Testimonials from friends, teammates, and others describe a man, well respected and liked both on and off the football field. Upon finding out he was gay, old teammate Jamie Rotella said, “I was totally shocked. 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.”

David Smith, a co-worker in Atlanta, describes Walker this way. “Jackie Walker was like a brother to me, just a wonderful friend. My kids called him Uncle Jackie.”

“Jackie was a great football player. But I knew him after football, and his football accomplishments pale compared to what a great person he was.”

Marshall Walker says of his brother, “Football was never the end all for him. Playing sports wasn’t going to make or break him.”

I wish I had been lucky enough to get to know him.