Only human: Javon Walker’s twin comeback quests

By Os Davis  |   Monday, August 04, 2008  |  Comments( 17 )

Oakland Raiders
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Everybody loves a good comeback story, and few in today’s NFL are so in need of a bounce-back from ill fortune and bad reputation than Oakland Raiders wide receiver Javon Walker; because of that, the well-publicized report of Walker’s considered retirement was an unfortunate one.

It's sad that Walker’s attempt at a fresh start was set back somewhat by the ugly incident in Las Vegas earlier this summer. It's sad that Walker felt he was playing so badly in the preseason that he wanted to hang up on a dream at just 29 years old and forfeit $11 million rather than play a game. And saddest of all is perhaps that this larger-than-life persona of the professional athlete may not perform the miracle we expect from our heroes.

Unfortunately, any inconsistent play on the part of Walker has to do with that unfortunate happening of New Year’s Day 2007 when then-Denver Broncos teammate Darrent Williams died in a drive-by shooting with Walker present. In the first four years of his professional career, Walker’s problems were of a strictly football variety; while earning something of a bad reputation for defending himself against a few inflammatory remarks from his old quarterback, Green Bay's Brett Favre, his skills were all under control with both teams, culminating in a 2006 season which had Walker running up 15.7 yards per reception on the way to 1,084 yards.

Carrying a ton of baggage, Walker played half a season as half a player in 2007, and the Broncos were willing to trade the suddenly troublesome receiver for pennies on the dollar, but couldn’t. Pumped to join the Raiders and seeing opportunities to avenge his perceived mistreatment by an AFC West rival, things looked positive for Walker again.

Sadly, though, there was the Las Vegas weekend in June. Foolish, decadent partying activity or no, Walker surely didn’t deserve the senseless beating he took at the hands of a couple of lowlifes in the morning’s wee hours. Though reports out of Raider camp do not generally share the opinion of Walker’s self-assessment, one wonders if Walker is feeling the effects of the damage to the eye area he suffered. Or even post-traumatic stress disorder.

About seven years ago, I was covering sports for a weekly newspaper when a figure high in stature and rife with self-destructive tendencies was screwing up his life again. The parameters of Darryl Strawberry’s self-abuse was as different from Walker’s as was his sport, but Strawberry was suffering just as much from a damaged inner self as Walker and many more everyday folk.

At that time, I interviewed Dr. Chris Stankovich, a sports psychologist then (and still) employed at the Champion Athletic Consulting psychology clinic in Columbus, Ohio. As a professional athlete, said Stankovich, “you live in a fishbowl. When you have unlimited resources, you can get yourself into trouble.” Little has changed with this aspect of the American sports world since Strawberry played with the Mets, and those “unlimited resources” do not include superhuman reserves of psychological strength.

Why are we (and even more so, mainstream media) so fascinated with the ills of high-level athletes, celebrities and the like? Perhaps because the fallibilities and vulnerabilities make them appear real again; despite the fact that fans even use the first-person plural “we” in speaking of the team, maybe failure makes the hero more self-identifiable. Further, maybe sometimes it does us sports fans good to be reminded that those who are habitually called “huge,” “larger than life,” and sometimes even “godlike” are ultimately just people.

We will probably never learn what exactly Al Davis said to Walker in getting his man back on the field (and perhaps in turn back to a winning position in the game called life), but if Walker does manage to feed heartily from the owner's words, he’ll owe Davis a lot more than $11 million; he’ll owe him an intangible that is, as the old commercial might say, “priceless”: A fair estimation of his own self-worth as a person.

Everyone loves a comeback and RF365 is no exception. Here’s to hoping Javon Walker comes back in both his games.

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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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