One of my favorite Irish football players past or present is Shane Walton. Walton’s story has been well documented. Recruited as a soccer player to Notre Dame, Shane was given the chance to walk-on during spring practice. After a handful of practices, coach Bob Davie and the defensive staff knew they had someone special, and the rest is history. Shane was named a consensus All-American cornerback during the magical 2002 season, the Irish’s first consensus All-American since Bobby Taylor in 1994. His 2001 season included two interceptions, one a 60-yard interception return for a touchdown against Purdue quarterback Drew Brees.
It was great catching up with a former classmate, who now lives and works back in his hometown of San Diego. Here’s more from Shane Walton.
ON BEING RECRUITED TO NOTRE DAME:
I wasn’t recruited really at all to play football. My only offer was to play wide receiver at Fresno State. It was actually my soccer coach, Mike Berticelli, who got me my tryout. He originally wanted me to play soccer for two years, and I’d play spring football for my freshman and sophomore years, and make a decision on what I wanted to do then. I don’t know if he thought I’d be a good football player or not, but he was actually the guy who spoke to Coach Davie and the staff, and got me a tryout with the football team in the spring. After three or four practices in the spring, Coach Davie saw that I could play, and he offered me a scholarship.
ON THE TRANSITION FROM SOCCER TO FOOTBALL:
There were parallels between the sports, but I basically had to reprogram my entire body. I went from being able to run fast for a long duration of time to having to add 25 pounds of muscle and being built more for quick bursts. That process took about a year to really transform. That was the toughest challenge. The parallels from soccer to football were tremendous, especially as a cornerback. Being able to read plays and what’s developing, and the balance it takes to play soccer, that’s incredible. The body control really helped me to be a good corner.
ON HIS MAGICAL SENIOR SEASON:
There are three types of people that play sports. There are people who don’t mind losing. There are people who don’t like losing. And then there are people like me, who hate and despise losing. I always expected to win, so when I lost, or when the team lost, I was devastated. That was the mentality of the entire defense. We never expected to lose. We didn’t care what the situation was. I think that mindset permeated throughout the entire team.
ON BEING NAMED AN ALL-AMERICAN:
To be honest, it didn’t really hit me until I was at the All-American things with all the other big time players. It’s actually crazy, I never had a chance to sit back and look at what I accomplished until I was done playing football. I remember my mother and my friends being so proud of me, and I was like “what’s the big deal, this is just what I do.” You know, you write for NBC, other people go to work and climb telephone polls, and we all just try to do the best that we can. And that’s what I did. It just so happens that what society likes is athletics, so I’m in the limelight. It never really dawned on me. I never changed who I was, it just was something that I happened to do, and I was blessed to have a skillset that made me a decent corner.
ON TAKING DREW BREES TO THE HOUSE:
I used to love playing against Purdue, because that’s when the DBs and corners had the most chance to succeed and shine. We knew coming into the game that Purdue was going to put the ball up 30-35 times. That was always a game I marked in the calendar that was fun.
As for the play, we were in man coverage, and my guy just ran basically a four to five yard cross. The inside linebacker made him bump over the top of him and that gave me the chance to get in front of him, and I just hopped in front of the pass. I don’t think Brees ever even saw me. I just stepped in front of it and took it to the house.
ON GOING IN THE 5TH ROUND OF THE NFL DRAFT:
NFL coaches are egomaniacs. They feel like they can’t coach you to run a 4.3 forty, to bench press whatever, to jump out of the stadium, but they feel they can make you into a player. That’s why you hear of guys who have never done anything in college and they become great players, but you also hear of guys who were supposed to be great, got drafted high, but they never do anything. The NFL drafts on potential. They don’t draft on what matters. They don’t draft on heart, intelligence, because there’s no real way to measure those. They draft off stuff that they can see. But what I had was heart, desire, intellect, and instincts, but there’s no way to measure any of that.
ON A CAREER CUT SHORT:
I hurt my back in preseason. I just kept trying to fight through it. I was probably never over 80 percent at any time in my NFL career. I just remember playing against the Raiders, and I really tweaked my back, and I just kept fighting. They say, “You can’t make the club from the tub.” I was told to fight, to push through the injuries, that is was just sore and tightness. Then I remember we were playing Atlanta, and I couldn’t feel my left leg. I was running down the field and I had no control of my left leg. It was hitting up against my right leg. I remember getting yelled at for not sprinting down the field. They finally determined I was having back issues so they gave me epidurals in the back at the doctor, until I finally flew out to see a surgeon in Los Angeles. He told me I needed surgery 3 months ago. It was just bad business all the way around, and one of the reasons I’m happy I’m not in the NFL right now.
I had a ruptured disc. My disc exploded and spinal fluid leaked onto my nerves, damaging and almost killing my nerves that went to my left leg. I couldn’t lift my foot, couldn’t do a heal raise. If you pinched my left leg I couldn’t feel it. The leg shrunk an inch-and-a-half around. It was miserable. I couldn’t stand up for more than a minute, couldn’t sit down for more than two minutes, all I could really do was lay down in bed.
I got put on IR for the rest of the season. I rehabbed back home and was trying to come back in St. Louis during the offseason, but still wasn’t healthy. They released me, then Pittsburgh picked me up for camp. I was out there for a couple weeks, and hurt my back again. I knew right there it was tough to bounce back. I had never had an injury that I couldn’t bounce back from, but this was the one that I couldn’t overcome.
ON DEALING WITH HIS CAREER BEING OVER:
It was tough for one reason. I would have rather been not good enough. I would’ve rather been cut because I wasn’t good enough to make the team. I was 80 percent and I still made an NFL team. That’s what kills me. In my heart and in my mind, I was picking up the game. I really thought that I was going to be one of the best playmakers in the NFL. That’s me having confidence in myself, because that’s what I thought I could do. Never knowing because of the injury is what’s tough. It’s like when a movie ends but they don’t tell you the ending. I’d have rather been cut because I wasn’t good enough, it’d be easier looking in the mirror.
ON THIS YEAR’S IRISH:
I follow them faithfully. As much as I hate saying this word, there’s potential. I feel like they have the guys there, they have the talent, they have the speed, they have the depth, but I don’t think they’re living up to their potential right now.
ON PLAYING WITHOUT MICHAEL FLOYD:
First off, I think Floyd is amazing. He’s a special player that only comes around every so often. But I do think, and I will always think this, it is still Notre Dame and we still have some of the greatest players to play college football on that team right now. So somebody needs to step up. If Rhema McKnight doesn’t go down and get hurt, we never know about Jeff Samardzija. Same thing now. The talent is there, and someone needs to step up and become a man.
ON CHOOSING NOTRE DAME:
There were three things I was looking for. I wanted to go to a great academic institution. I wanted to go to a school with a great sports program as well. I’m a competitor and I like to be able to compete at the highest level. The third thing kind of tipped things in Notre Dame’s favor. I’m a fan of history and tradition of schools, and Notre Dame outweighed everyone else. I was basically down to Stanford and Notre Dame. My mindset has always been that I played for my teammates that were here in the huddle with me, but I also played with all the people who wore the jersey before me. I don’t think you can say that with a lot of schools, but at Notre Dame, that means something.
