Fact Check: Did Herschel Walker Get His NFL Retirement Date Wrong?

Former NFL star and Georgian Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker has courted much controversy and attention recently over allegations he paid a woman to have an abortion in 2009.

Walker, who has denied the allegations, has made his opposition to abortion a major part of his campaign as he faces a close race against Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia.

Accused of “lying” by his son and parodied on SNL for other claims he made about how to solve air pollution, it’s now been suggested the ex-NFL star can’t recall when he stopped playing football either.

Former NFL star and senatorial hopeful Herschel Walker claimed that his football career ended 40 years ago. Pictured here, Walker is seen on the sidelines prior to the Chick-fil-A Kick-Off Game between the Oregon Ducks and Georgia Bulldogs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on September 3, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

The Claim

A Facebook post sent on October 3, 2022, says Herschel Walker incorrectly claimed his football career ended 40 years ago.

The post states: “Herschel Walker: ‘I haven’t played football in over 40 years.’ Fact Check: Herschel Walker last played in 1997, 25 years ago. He’s off by 15 years.”

The Facts

Troubling headlines have put a dent in Walker’s election campaign over the past week, even as he received warm support from Donald Trump, among others.

As his media strategists prepare to fend off uncomfortable questions, it may be prudent to start with the basics because, as it turns out, Walker is indeed 15 years off the mark when he claims his career ended 40 years ago.

The tweet referenced in the Facebook post is from the PatriotTakes account, shared on October 2, 2022.

The interview that it quoted was taken from “African-American owned” media organization Rolling Out, posted online on 27 September 2022.

During the conversation, interviewee Christal Jordan asked Walker “I would assume that there are some things that you’ve learned, that you were put into playing football early on that, that translate to life, right, and translate to politics at this point is, what do you think?

“What characteristics would you say that you’ve been able to pull from what you learned, playing football and being an athlete at that level that you feel like will translate?”

Walker mentioned other work and business opportunities since and tried to contextualize those against his NFL career.

“And you know, I’ve been in the business world, where I know about budgeting. I know how to budget, I know how to sign people’s paychecks.

“See, people don’t know they, you know, I think God blessed me to play football but I haven’t played football in 40 years, and people are still talking about me playing football. Check out my business that I’ve done, check that out… check out my military program that I’ve done.”

Not only is it widely noted that Walker’s career ended in 1997 with the Dallas Cowboys, he said as much in his 2008 book Breaking Free, an autobiographical text that details his diagnosis with dissociative identity disorder.

Describing issues with his spouse, Walker said “The decline in my marriage coincided with the appearance on the horizon of the end of my career. I’d say that during the eighteen months before my last season of playing in the 1997 season, things between Cindy and me started to change.”

Later, he goes on to write “Before things started to slide, Cindy had always been there for me, and we almost always did everything together. After I didn’t show up for camp in 1998, I was going to be home full-time. Cindy was pleased to hear that.”

Even more recently than that, in 2011 Walker spoke about returning to the NFL when he turned 50 years old (he was 48 at the time).

Speaking to ESPN, Walker said: “I want to be the George Foreman of football, come back and do that one more time…The two teams I would come back to play for are Minnesota or Atlanta. It would probably be Atlanta because that’s home for me.”

It’s not clear therefore why Walker made such a discrepancy about his retirement.

One might assume (as suggested by the tone of the interview) it to be an attempt to put distance between his political and football careers, or a deliberate exaggeration for rhetorical purposes.

It could be that Walker also misspoke, or actually said “14” not “40,” though the recording doesn’t seem to support that idea and in any case even 14 years would not be accurate, unless he had a final “one off” game in 2008 (Newsweek could not find any evidence of such a match taking place).

Another possibility is that he was in fact referencing the beginning of his career: he signed a professional contract with the New Jersey Generals in 1983, which would indeed be almost 40 years ago. But his phrasing gives no indication that this is in fact what he meant.

Newsweek has contacted Herschel Walker for comment.

The Ruling

Needs Context.

The interview referenced in the Facebook post is real.

While Herschel Walker, in an interview with Rolling Out in September 2022, did appear to say that his career ended 40 years ago, it’s widely known that is not the case. Walker retired from the Dallas Cowboys in 1997.

It is however worth noting for context that he may have said “14 years,” not “40”; he also could have been referencing the start of his career, not the end, though this explanation is speculative.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team