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 Friday, September 21, 2001
Back on the front line
By Marc Connolly
ABC Sports Online
There was a time last season when Tyson Walter didn't know if he'd be able to walk again, never mind return to his familiar left tackle spot on the Ohio State O-line.
All of a sudden, the prospects of starting for a fourth consecutive year since taking over for Orlando Pace and attracting a bevy of NFL scouts didn't seem to matter all that much. That's what a mysterious infection in his lower back estimated to have occurred only 116 times over the past century will do to your mindset.
|  | | Tyson Walter was named Offensive Lineman of the Week in his first return to action in two years against Akron on Sept. 8. |
At 6-foot-5, 300 pounds, it takes a lot to make the Bainbridge, Ohio, native wince in unbearable pain. An infection doesn't sound like much to the normal person. Everyone has them. But Walter's was an internal aching in his SI joint that no five-dollar tube of Neosporin could ward off.
"For oversimplification, it's the joint where your back and your hip meet," says Walter, who started his six-year career as a Buckeye as a redshirt in the fall of 1996. "It got infected and took about 10 days being totally in bed, not being able to move, let alone walk, before they were able to diagnose it."
This happened at the beginning of last season. At the time, his status was so unknown around the OSU program that he was listed game-to-game, and a team of doctors was telling him that he might be able to play after missing a few games. Yet, as matters got worse, Walter had bigger problems to worry about than his expected return date to the gridiron.
"The infection got in there and I couldn't walk for six weeks at all," he said. "Tensing any muscle would set it off. It was absolutely ridiculous. I was in the hospital for a week and back at my place for five more weeks getting antibiotic treatments twice a day for two hours each day and taking all these medications.
"The doctors really didn't know what was going on, so everything was up in the air. It was a very trying time to say the least."
As he lay in bed during those five weeks, Walter's whole mindset changed. The lure of putting on the famed scarlet and gray jersey he'd worn so many times and watched his idols put on when he was young, or counting the Buckeye Leaves on his helmet for pancake blocks was replaced by one simple goal: to be able to walk across the grassy campus to his classes.
"The motivation was to be able to walk without pain," he said. "Each week I was working to be able to walk around. It was that serious. Once I was able to walk around, then I set my sights for being able to run normally."
As his teammates closed out what ultimately amounted to a mediocre 8-4 season, Walter slowly started to get his legs back under him. He was running without a hitch, and hitting the weight room with vigor. His progress was solid enough that he appealed to the NCAA for a sixth year, even though he had already earned a degree in finance. So when the NCAA granted him an extra year of eligibility, his decision was easy.
"Once I knew I was going to be able to play, there was never a question as to whether I was coming back or not," he said. "I knew immediately that I would."
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Hopefully, I can get an MBA in New York at Columbia or NYU and work on Wall Street when football does come to an end.
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— Tyson Walter |
He worked his way back to football shape and into the first-team again over the spring and summer with a renewed focus that wasn't consumed just by matters in The 'Shoe or about making it to The Show when it's all said and done.
"I've learned to have fun," says Walter, a nominee for a National Football Foundation scholarship this year and an Academic All-America candidate. "Sometimes when you just get into the groove, you may take it a little bit for granted. If you manage to have fun the whole time, it keeps you on target.
"And the main thing I've learned through my injuries, and that's how you can't bank on anything. I would love to play in the pros, everyone would. I've got one degree complete, I'm getting three more."
That's no misprint. Walter could easily bank on his finance degree and take a light load the rest of the fall before heading to the NFL Combine in February. Instead, he's pursuing degrees in economics, risk management and information systems, which should be accomplished by next June. Not exactly Basket Weaving or Intro to Golf.
"Hopefully, I can get an MBA in New York at Columbia or NYU and work on Wall Street when football does come to an end."
In the meantime, he's now back in the starting lineup again, looking for his 39th career start against UCLA on Saturday (ABC, 3:30 p.m. ET), and enjoying his status as the team's elder statesman.
"You feel your age," he says. "I'm 23 and (running back) Lydell Ross is 17, so you have a true six-year difference between the two of us. When I was a senior in high school, he was in sixth grade. We can still relate, but we're in different phases of our lives."
What Walter aims to bring is an attitude and belief that stems from his days playing with the likes of Pace, Joe Germaine and David Boston on an offense back in the mid-to-late '90s that had the Buckeyes ranked No. 1 in the country several times.
"There was an absolute tenacity and belief amongst the players that we just absolutely couldn't be stopped," he recalls. "The level of the confidence was just amazing. It really seems like a different world ago.
"As a freshman and sophomore you always think they're invincible and are going to play forever. I realize that there is life after football now and I'm beginning to prepare for that inevitability whenever that may be."
Sometimes, there are moments in a young man's life that put everything in its rightful place and proper order. Before recent events changed the collective view of a nation, that happened to Tyson Walter.
Marc Connolly is a senior writer for ABC Sports Online. He can be reached at marc.connolly@abc.com.
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