Charles Walker’s relentless pursuit of his NFL dream
NORMAN — A year ago, Charles Walker was projected to be among the best defensive tackles in the 2017 NFL Draft.
He had a good chance to hear his name called in Philadelphia on the first night of the draft. Now? The former Sooner is hardly on draft boards. Gil Brandt, a former Vice President of Player Personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, doesn’t expect him to get drafted. Mel Kiper Jr., the ESPN analyst who once listed Walker as the No. 4 defensive tackle, dropped him to 16th.
He’s a forgotten player in this NFL Draft, glazed over by analysts who say he’s too injured and by teams who worry about his dedication after he left Oklahoma midway through his redshirt junior season.
But Charles Walker hasn’t forgotten about the NFL, even if his depression and concussions have caused his mind to forget about so much else.
“I’m going to keep working until the teams tell me I can’t do it,” he said after OU’s Pro Day in March. “Other than that, I’m still going to do it. I’ll play overseas, something. I’m going to play this sport because I love this sport, and I’m passionate about this sport because it makes my family happy because I’m happy.
“I’m happy because my accomplishments can build something for their life. That’s what drives me so much.”
Falling in love with football
There was a time not too long ago that football didn’t make Walker happy.
And the NFL? That wasn’t anywhere on his radar.
He was a sophomore at South Garland (Texas) High School, focused more on the hardwood than the gridiron. His true passion was basketball, but with a natural athleticism and a frame that would eventually fill to 6-foot-2, 297-pounds, it was clear Walker fit in better on the football field.
Begrudgingly, he picked up football for his sophomore season, and his junior year was cut short by a concussion.
Walker was poised to open his senior year with the athleticism of a Division I prospect and the attitude and experience of a junior varsity player.
That’s when South Garland football coach Mark Cox sat him down and asked Walker a simple question: Do you love football? Until that point, Walker treated football like a chore, an obligation he was fulfilling because that’s what he was supposed to be doing, what his body dictated he should be doing.
“If you love something, you’ll never see it as work,” Walker said. “I had to figure out if I loved this game, because I’d do stuff just to take myself out. I was just making up excuses. I was really a basketball player. I didn’t want to play football.”
Cox recognized that in Walker and knew it had to be addressed.
“If you don’t love this, stop playing,” Cox told him. “But if you love it and you want to do this, you’ll wake up every day happy.”
From there, the threestar prospect worked hard enough to land at OU.
Plans gone awry
The hit was practically undetectable.
Bob Stoops didn’t see it. Mike Stoops didn’t see it.
Yet, sometime in the midst of OU’s 52-46 win against TCU — Walker’s best game of 2016 — he suffered his second concussion in less than a year.
Even if the collision that caused his brain to bruise was invisible to his coaches, Walker’s symptoms definitely weren’t.
For more than two months, Walker, who hoped to catch the eye of NFL scouts during the 2016 season, had headaches, nose bleeds, loss of balance, lack of sleep and vomiting. Because of the proximity to his last concussion, the symptoms this time around were worse.
Walker’s status remained unchanged for a month and a half until Nov. 15, when Walker informed Bob Stoops his collegiate career was done.
Effective immediately, Walker would be leaving school to begin individual preparation for the upcoming NFL Draft.
For Walker, it wasn’t just about the last concussion.
The year was hardly going like he planned. Before the concussion there was the MCL injury. Before the MCL injury there was the groin, the hamstring. Before those, it was tonsillitis. Week after week, nagging afflictions kept Walker from the dominant season that he once envisioned.
Those injuries would heal. The concussion would subside. But what about the next thing?
Would the next hit, the next tweak, the next misstep, be his last?
“That’s the only thing we know is sports,” Walker said. “We grew up, that’s what we do. Having that taken away, it’s tough. I don’t want it taken away, not yet because this is my way of feeding my family, doing the things my mama did, but I’m bringing more money to the table. I’m bringing more happiness, letting her live her life.
“I just want to give my family an opportunity. I don’t care about me.”
So he made a decision. The first one he said that he’s made for himself in a long time.
“In my situation, it was like life or death,” Walker said. “You’re going to play and risk one more concussion? One more injury and not be able to feed your family and be done with it?”
An uncertain future
Nearly six months after leaving Oklahoma, Walker is in the midst of a total transformation.
He’s eating capital-H healthy foods. The kind of ultra-organic fare that goes bad after sitting for more than a day in the refrigerator. He’s working out at Proactive Sports Performance in Thousand Oaks, Calif., transforming his body into a physical specimen.
And the concussion symptoms? Those are subsiding, he said at OU’s Pro Day in March. The headaches lingered for a long time, finally going away after he got a knot in his neck worked out.
He admits the memory and speech problems persist, but that’s just a reality of playing football, he said.
Recently, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported Walker was reaching out to teams to inform them he had been diagnosed with depression.
“He reportedly battled concussions in his final season, though doctors now think some of the symptoms believed to be concussion-related were actually from depression,” Rapoport wrote.
According to the report, Walker told teams he thinks he’s suffered from depression for years, and he’s now taking a low dose of Prozac.
“Overall, he described improved mood, no anhedonia or loss of interest or motivation problems,” Dr. Ashley Benjamin told Rapoport. “In addition, he felt the medication improves his sleep, appetite, and concentration, memory and focus.”
Despite repeated attempts, Walker wouldn’t discuss his depression diagnosis with The Oklahoman, and he didn’t disclose the diagnosis during the March interview at Pro Day.
There’s no way to know for certain, but Walker’s depression could have been triggered by an earlier concussion, according to Dr. Tad Seifert, an OU Medical Schooleducated neurologist who serves as Director of North Healthcare’s Sports Concussion Program and Head of the NCAA Headache Taskforce.
“If I were the front office for an NFL team,” Seifert said, “despite the fact that he claims his depression is in complete remission, if he’s still reporting concussionlike symptoms even now at present day, that is a bit of a red flag given his concussion history.”
But even if teams are hesitant to draft Walker with his medical history, he doesn’t regret leaving Oklahoma early to pursue a professional career. He knows that his future could be grim, that repeated head trauma could hurt his mind even further. But right now, it’s the only path forward that Walker can see.
“I had to make a decision,” he said. “Who’s going to feed my family? Who’s going to feed my daughter? I don’t want to be messed up. I’m going to be messed up in the future because of my head. It’s just how all football players are.
“It started too early. I’m already going through it. My memories and stuff, my speech is still bad. I’m still going through it, but I don’t complain about it. I’m still waking up every day, and I still have the opportunity to make something happen. So I do it.”