It’s not often that a story in politics makes you smile, especially these days. But that’s exactly what’s happening with the news that Herschel Walker, the former University of Georgia star running back, is graduating this week with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia at the age of 62.
Like a lot of people, Walker had planned to get his degree long ago, but, as he explained, “life and football got in the way.” In his case, “life” meant a lot — starting with getting married and signing a multimillion-dollar contract to play for Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals in the short-lived USFL. From there, he moved to Texas to play for the Dallas Cowboys before becoming a sort of journeyman — playing for three more NFL teams and eventually returning to Dallas to play for the Cowboys once again.
Along with playing football, Walker joined the U.S. bobsled team and competed in the Olympics. He started a number of businesses, became a motivational speaker and tried his hand as a mixed martial arts fighter. From a distance, he seemed to excel at everything he tried. And he remained such a beloved figure in his home state of Georgia that it seemed like a stroke of genius for Republicans when Trump recruited him to challenge U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, in 2021.
But the Senate campaign did not go as planned and, looking back, it’s clear that Walker probably should not have run. In the combat of the campaign, Walker’s private struggles and family secrets spilled into full display. Past abuse was detailed, and previously unknown children were revealed. Even his contention that he’d graduated from UGA with a degree in criminal justice turned out not to be true.
Politics is a terrible business and, for anyone with anything to hide, it’s designed to destroy, even people with good intentions. The media gantlet is meant to ensure transparency and to hold people accountable before they assume public office. But it’s a gutting process, especially for a person such as Walker, who began as a hero to many but ended up being just as flawed as the rest of us, if not more so at times.
Despite Washington Republicans’ most aggressive defense during the campaign’s frenzied final weeks, Walker lost to Warnock in a runoff and quickly disappeared from public view. He put his house in Atlanta on the market, cut off contact from most of his political staff and, for all anybody knew, returned to Dallas where he’d started out.
But then, more than a year after the campaign ended, came a picture. It was Walker, tucked into a tight desk-and-chair combo, snapped in a classroom during summer classes on UGA’s main campus in Athens. A call to the registrar’s office confirmed that he had quietly reenrolled as an undergraduate at UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences where he began more than 40 years earlier. Yes, at the age of 62, Walker was a college student again.
It’s important here to say that this was no publicity stunt. There were no press releases to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution nor quiet tipoffs from Walker or his team. He simply seemed to be back in Athens to take care of long unfinished business.
Unlike many of today’s college football standouts, Walker enrolled for in-person, rather than just online classes. He was spotted frequently around Athens, one time pedaling his bike near campus, with his immense frame balanced carefully on top. On another occasion, he walked through the Tate Student Center, smiling and stopping occasionally to sign autographs or take selfies with star-struck students.
Charlie Ferguson, a third-year finance major, had heard often about Walker’s football heroics growing up in Atlanta, and is one of the students who saw him on campus. “I think it’s awesome that he decided to come back and get a degree, even though it’s years later,” Ferguson said.
Like all students, Walker had an online profile on the UGA student LISTSERV, including his email address and motto, “If you work hard, you will be hard to beat.” One fellow undergrad posted to Walker’s social media account that after a group of friends tried to persuade their English professor to cancel class on the Friday ahead of the famous Georgia-Florida football game, they spotted Walker coming out of the class before them.
“She said, by God, if Herschel can go to class on that Friday, we could as well.”
There’s a humility involved in going back to school as an adult that is hard to describe unless you’ve been there. When I began studying for a master’s degree in my 30s, the first student I met asked me if I was his professor. “No,” I said, laughing. “I’m just here to learn, like you.”
By being back in Athens, Walker is publicly admitting that, no, he didn’t graduate the first time around, but that it is still important to him to finish what he started long ago. It doesn’t erase everything we learned in his Senate campaign. But it adds so much to what we thought we knew.
There’s an old saying that politicians love to attribute to Winston Churchill (who may or may not have said it originally): “Success is never final and failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”
Walker will inspire more people by walking across that graduation stage this week, 44 years after he enrolled as a freshman, than he probably ever would have in today’s take-no-prisoners politics. By simply showing up and finishing his degree, he has shown that failure is never fatal, no matter what you’ve lost before.
Way to go, Herschel Walker.
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