40 Fun Facts About Doak Walker

Which football stadium is nicknamed 'The House That Doak Built' after the crowds Doak Walker drew?

The Cotton Bowl gained about 30,000 seats while Walker played home games there for SMU. He liked to joke that he never got a single blister helping to build it.

Which Hall of Fame quarterback was Doak Walker's teammate in high school and again in Detroit?

Bobby Layne played for rival Texas while Walker starred at SMU, and decades later he presented his old friend for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Doak Walker Award, presented by SMU, honors college football's top player at which position?

Running back is the only position considered, and each winner takes home a bronze sculpture of Walker himself.

Which Texas-born soft drink company teamed with SMU in 1989 to create the Doak Walker Award?

Dr Pepper was created by a pharmacist in Waco in the 1880s and went on sale a year before Coca-Cola.

Doak Walker was in which year of college when he beat Charlie Justice for the 1948 Heisman Trophy?

A junior that season, Walker also finished third in the Heisman voting as a sophomore in 1947 and again as a senior in 1949.

In both his first and last NFL seasons, 1950 and 1955, Doak Walker led the league in which category?

Scoring came from everywhere for Walker, who ran, caught passes and kicked. His 128 points as a rookie were then the second-highest season total in NFL history.

Why did Doak Walker retire from the Detroit Lions at just 28, straight after a Pro Bowl season?

A business career beckoned: an electrical contractor offered Walker the same salary the Lions paid. He said he wanted to leave with his teeth and both knees intact.

Which Texas Longhorns star swapped his No. 34 for Doak Walker's old number in a 1998 tribute game?

Ricky Williams had befriended Walker after winning the 1997 award named for him, and he went on to take the Heisman Trophy later that season.

Doak Walker was born in Dallas in 1927 on which holiday?

New Year's Day 1948 was Walker's 21st birthday, and he spent it playing for unbeaten SMU in a bowl game that ended in a 13–13 tie.

As a boy living near the SMU campus, Doak Walker worked at the school's football games doing what?

Selling popcorn and peanuts put young Walker inside the stadium where he later starred. His father, a teacher and coach, took him to SMU games on Saturdays.

Which team did Doak Walker's SMU tie 13–13 in a 1948 bowl game that broke a color line in Texas?

Penn State refused a request to leave its two Black players at home, and one of them, Wallace Triplett, caught the tying touchdown.

Which Dallas-area high school produced Doak Walker and, decades later, quarterback Matthew Stafford?

Highland Park reached the Texas state final in 1944 with Walker in its backfield, and Stafford, like Walker, went on to star for the Detroit Lions.

Doak Walker served as a radio operator in which service in 1945, just before enrolling at SMU?

The Merchant Marine released Walker in late 1945, and within days he was playing for SMU. The Army then drafted him, which cost him the entire 1946 season.

Which player-of-the-year honor did Doak Walker win in 1947, a year before his Heisman?

The Maxwell Award is named for Robert 'Tiny' Maxwell, a Swarthmore player turned sportswriter. Walker won it while placing only third in that year's Heisman vote.

Which team did Doak Walker's Detroit Lions beat in both the 1952 and 1953 NFL Championship Games?

The Cleveland Browns lost both times to a Walker big play: his 67-yard touchdown run broke open the 1952 game, and his extra point won the 1953 rematch 17–16.

Which Notre Dame end beat Doak Walker to the 1949 Heisman, then joined him on the Detroit Lions?

Leon Hart is one of only two linemen to win the Heisman, and in a 1952 playoff against the Rams he caught a 24-yard touchdown pass thrown by Walker.

Which jersey number did Doak Walker wear at SMU and with the Detroit Lions, who retired it in 1955?

37 was the number of Walker's boyhood SMU hero, Harry Shuford. In college he kept it by luck: it was the only jersey left that fit him.

Which Olympic ski racer did Doak Walker marry in 1969 after meeting her as a ski school student?

Skeeter Werner raced for the United States at the 1956 Winter Olympics and later founded a ski school in her Colorado hometown. The couple eloped to Las Vegas.

In which Colorado ski town, his second wife's hometown, did Doak Walker live for almost 30 years?

Steamboat Springs was Walker's home until 1998, when a skiing accident there left him paralyzed. He died eight months later, aged 71.

After an injury-hit 1949, Doak Walker asked which magazine to give his All-American spot away?

Collier's answered by naming Walker its 1949 Player of the Year for Sportsmanship instead.

Which Big Ten school's players won the Doak Walker Award four times between 2012 and 2019?

Wisconsin won it through Montee Ball, Melvin Gordon and two-time honoree Jonathan Taylor in that stretch, adding to Ron Dayne's trophy from 1999.

LaDainian Tomlinson won the 2000 Doak Walker Award while starring for which Texas university?

TCU's Tomlinson had rushed for 406 yards in a single game the year before, then a Division I record, and the school later retired his No. 5.

Which Alabama star won the Heisman Trophy and the Doak Walker Award in the same 2015 season?

Derrick Henry ran for 2,219 yards that season, breaking Herschel Walker's SEC record on the way to a national title with the Crimson Tide.

Darren McFadden won the Doak Walker Award in both 2006 and 2007 while starring for which SEC school?

Arkansas saw McFadden become the first sophomore to win the award, and he finished second in the Heisman Trophy vote in both of those seasons.

Which USC star won the 2005 Doak Walker Award alongside a Heisman Trophy he later forfeited?

Reggie Bush gave up his Heisman in 2010 during an NCAA investigation into improper benefits, and it was formally reinstated 14 years later.

Which Washington Huskies star became the very first winner of the Doak Walker Award in 1990?

Greg Lewis was also the Pac-10's offensive player of the year in 1990, though his NFL career lasted just two seasons with the Denver Broncos.

Which Boise State star won the 2024 Doak Walker Award and finished runner-up for the Heisman Trophy?

Ashton Jeanty led the FBS in rushing yards and touchdowns that year, then went sixth overall to the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2025 NFL draft.

Which scrambling quarterback entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame alongside Doak Walker in 1986?

Fran Tarkenton had retired only eight years earlier, while Walker waited three decades because some voters felt six seasons were too few.

In which now-defunct league did Doak Walker's SMU win back-to-back titles in 1947 and 1948?

The Southwest Conference lasted from 1914 to 1996, and Walker was named to its all-conference team in each of his four seasons.

Besides football, Doak Walker earned varsity letters at SMU in which two other sports?

Basketball and baseball were only part of it: in high school Walker had been a five-sport athlete, adding swimming and track.

Doak Walker's bust has stood since 1986 in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, found in which Ohio city?

Canton won the Hall partly because the NFL was founded there in 1920. Walker, out of the game for 31 years by then, joked at his induction that he could finally retire.

Which Penn center, later an Eagles legend, finished third behind Doak Walker for the 1948 Heisman?

Chuck Bednarik, nicknamed 'Concrete Charlie', went first overall in the 1949 NFL draft, two picks ahead of Walker.

Which SMU teammate, later a New York Giants star, was a groomsman at Doak Walker's 1950 wedding?

Kyle Rote was the Heisman runner-up in 1950 and the first pick of the 1951 NFL draft, and he later became the first elected president of the NFL players' union.

Norm Van Brocklin quarterbacked which team against Doak Walker's SMU in a January 1949 bowl game?

Oregon shared the Pacific Coast title with California, which took the Rose Bowl berth, so the Ducks travelled to Dallas and lost 21–13 after Walker scored first.

Which short-lived NFL team drafted Doak Walker third overall, then traded his rights to Detroit?

The Boston Yanks were owned by Ted Collins, manager of the singer Kate Smith. They never got Walker into uniform: the franchise had left Boston before he turned pro.

Which coach led Doak Walker's Detroit Lions to two NFL titles, then quit abruptly at a 1957 banquet?

Buddy Parker stunned a preseason dinner crowd that was expecting a keynote speech by announcing he was quitting. Detroit won the 1957 championship without him.

On Doak Walker Day in 1955, the Lions gave him which gift engraved with his teammates' names?

A silver football bearing the names of his teammates and coaches was presented at his final regular-season game, the same day the club retired his jersey.

Which College Football Hall of Fame coach led SMU throughout Doak Walker's college career?

Matty Bell had taken SMU to the Rose Bowl a decade before Walker arrived, and he retired from coaching after Walker's senior season in 1949.

Which on-campus home did SMU leave in 1948 because Doak Walker's crowds had outgrown it?

Ownby Stadium held fewer than 25,000 fans. It was demolished in 1998 to make way for Gerald J. Ford Stadium, where a plaza now honors Walker.

At which Detroit ballpark, later named for the Tigers, did the Lions hold Doak Walker Day in 1955?

Briggs Stadium was also home to the Detroit Tigers, and the Lions played there until 1974. It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961, six years after Walker retired.