Another fortune awaits Walker

[EnviedOne]

When Reggie Bush, the runner, and Vince Young and Matt Leinart, the quarterbacks, are swept up off the top of the National Football League Draft April 29-30, the transition to the pros, in whatever order, will make them millionaires.

Not Darius Walker. He already is one. Whenever he leaves Notre Dame, he probably will be the first millionaire ever to enter the draft, rather than emerge from it as one.

A junior at South Bend, he has been known for some time as "The Million Dollar Man," a tribute to a multimillion-dollar bankroll. More about him in a moment.

As for the upcoming NFL auction of college football flesh, the Houston Texans will keep quarterback David Carr, making it all but a lock that they will go right off for the heroic Bush of Southern Cal, even if he was on the losing end of the national championship game with Texas.

Getting him, of course, is one thing. Signing him is another, and that will be an adventure all its own, as it often is with these prima donnas.

Vince Young created the monumental upset and the national title in one memorable performance for Texas, and in the process may have replaced Southern Cal's Leinart in the alignment of draft prizes.

Actually, Texans, who are devoted to two sports, football and spring football, are even pushing Young, rather than Bush, as their top choice, but they are not likely to make it happen.

Anyway, that's this year. When he decides to come out, Darius Walker, the runner, could be as big a prize as Reggie Bush, Vince Young, Matt Leinart or any others still in the wings.

Notre Dame, which always needs victories to justify its exclusive national TV outlet, got them last year under new coach Charlie Weis, who shaped a 9-3 recovery. Walker could have been a prominent defector if he had wanted to try the draft.

Next season he could be the next Reggie Bush. Without a single buck from the NFL, he is already well fixed for cash, or should be, but not for any reason involving football. Nor was it from an inheritance, or from the family's modest existence.

On March 5, 1999, Darius, then a minor, and some friends went to see a movie in Lawrenceville, Ga. After, Darius called his mother to pick him up at the front of the theater. His friends were still inside, visiting the bathroom.

Outside, Darius found himself the only black person among a crowd of whites. That, as related in court testimony, drew the attention of a theater security guard named Kevin B. Kellas. Draw your own racial equation.

When Darius momentarily could not find his ticket stub, and after a reported physical brush with Kellas, he was arrested. But a ticket manager later said the stub was found, in Darius' pocket.

Once that happened, the courts took over.

First, misdemeanor charges against Darius were dismissed. Then the Walkers filed suit against the theater and security guard Kellas. For three years, the case wound through the legal system before a Fulton County jury found for Darius. Before the trial, he had asked for $300,000. The jury gave him a tick over $3 million. Guard Kellas also was hit, for $2,000.

After his arrest, Darius' schoolmates had jokingly called him "The Criminal." After the trial, they changed it to "The Million Dollar Man."

And that was the tag he carried with him when he entered Notre Dame. The ordeal reportedly left Darius with no bitterness, no animosity, no cold stares. Of course, I suppose it helped that it left him with $3 million.

As a schoolboy All-America in a Buford, Ga., school, Darius attracted a stream of college recruiters, including Tyrone Willingham, then the Notre Dame coach. Willingham, who was to give way to Weis, knew about this kid and regarded him as pure gold.

As related in an excerpt from a book, "Signing Day," Willingham made Darius' hometown, Lawrenceville, Ga., his first stop on his December 2003 recruiting tour. He became one of only three coaches the Walker parents, Jimmy and Laverne, would let talk to their son in their home.

Willingham made the most of it. He stayed into the evening, then joined the Buford school concert chorus in singing Christmas carols. It was the least a coach could do when he has a recruit in his sights. At the same time, he discovered something else about Darius Walker. The kid had a wonderful singing voice.

Willingham, the millionaire coach, pulled it off. Darius Walker, the millionaire high school football player, would be headed for Notre Dame, and inevitable stardom.

The kid is described as an excellent student with an infectious personality. He is also, apparently, one hell of a football player.

Records fell the moment he went into action. He set the school rushing record for freshmen with 786 yards. That warmed him up for a 2005 soph season, in which he logged 1,196 yards rushing and 351 yards on 43 receptions, the second most by a Notre Dame running back since Bob Gladieux caught 37 in 1968.

He's 5-10 and 208, shorter but heavier than a Reggie Bush, and as noticeable on the Notre Dame campus as he was back in Lawrenceville, Ga. If he pulls off the season expected of him next fall, there's no telling what they will call him.

Source: NJ.com