Herschel Walker doesn’t sleep. There is too much noise in his brain. There are too many thoughts.

Several years ago they started to leak out and then began to flow. Pen in hand, Walker let the thoughts flood onto the page. For three years the former Georgia star wrote what was in his mind.

“I sent it to Simon and Schuster and they couldn’t believe it was written by a football player,” Walker said. “It was just about the mind and how the mind works.” [Atlanta-Journal Constitution]

Herschel Walker is probably the most revered football player in the state of Georgia after helping lead the 1980 University of Georgia team to a national championship and winning the Heisman Trophy in 1982, but it was shocking to almost everyone when he revealed in January that he has dealt with multiple personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder as it is more commonly referred to today.

Even those close to him, including his father, Willis; his college football coach, UGA legend Vince Dooley’ and good friend Frank Roz, who played at Georgia with Walker, were surprised.

“I know him better than anybody ’cause I raised him,” Willis Walker said in January. “I don’t know nothing about that disorder business.”

Herschel told the AJC that he was picked on when he was a kid for having a speech impediment, which could be the cause of the disorder (as most people who are diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder come from a troubled childhood and often were abused).

Walker didn’t say too much to the AJC or other media outlets as “his publishers have asked him to not discuss the subject until a “60 Minutes” profile is aired April 13 previewing the release of the book.” 

The autobiography, Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder, can already be pre-ordered on Amazon for $16.47 (list price $24.99). It should be an interesting read as Walker discusses his story and how his disorder is a uique method of coping with situations beyond his emotional control.

Instead, of being an autobiography about a football player and his career, Walker lets you into his world and how he managed his life while having a personality disorder. Plus, I’m sure there will be football “sprinkled” in.

Walker’s reasoning behind authoring this book:

“People can see what I have done with my life,” he said.

“I see other professional athletes and people who could read this and it could help them. That is really my reason for writing it. If I can just help one person then I am glad I wrote it.” [AJC]

And this isn’t coming from Dennis Rodman or Mike Tyson, but a man who has repeatedly worked to enrich the lives of others including trying to raise additional funding for physical education in Georgia schools.

Shotgun Spratling

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