BOOMERBRADLEY
11/18/2006, 10:59 AM
http://www.tulsaworld.com/SportsStory.asp?ID=061118_Sp_B1_Findi72966
OU's Marcus Walker discovers father figure in Peterson's dad
WACO, Texas -- Marcus Walker sat there in his living room, all by himself, again. He was getting pretty good at these video games.
His Oklahoma Sooner teammates were out at practice, and Walker was home with his perpetually sore shoulder, wishing he was with them.
Then the phone rang. It was a call from the federal prison in Texarkana, Texas. On the line was Nelson Peterson, father of his famous roommate, Adrian Peterson. It was just the voice Walker wanted to hear.
"It was a blessing for me, man," Walker says, "because I never had a father growing up."
Credit Nelson Peterson, a surrogate father, from over the phone and behind bars, for helping Walker get where he is today.
"I view him just as a son to me," said Peterson, who met Walker for the first time in June, after he was released to an Oklahoma City halfway house following a seven-year prison sentence. Nelson Peterson now visits with Walker all the time, face to face.
"Any problems he has, we talk about them," Peterson said. "Life, football, issues, things not going right. We developed a real, real close relationship."
Walker is the second of three brothers,
raised by their grandmother in Waco, Texas. Walker, a junior, will return to his hometown when the 16th-ranked Sooners visit Baylor for an 11 a.m. kickoff Saturday at Floyd Casey Stadium. OU has won its last five games and is 8-2 overall and 5-1 in Big 12 Conference play. The Sooners -- a 21-point favorite over Baylor (4-7, 3-4) -- have an outside shot at the Big 12 South crown partly because of the emergence of Walker as a premier cornerback.
Walker's lockdown ability as the wide-side cornerback has helped forge the Sooner defense into one of the nation's best. It's been suggested that Walker is playing as well as any OU corner since Derrick Strait, an All-American, winner of the Thorpe and Nagurski trophies and Big 12 defensive player of the year in 2003.
"He's playing in a great way, and as consistent and good as Derrick had in a lot of ways," OU coach Bob Stoops said.
Said OU quarterback Paul Thompson, "His instincts are a lot like Derrick Strait. He's got quick reaction time. His interceptions have shown that he's quick at breaking on the ball. That's what Derrick Strait was. It was almost impossible to throw a slant on Derrick because his reaction time was so quick, he was able to jump in front. I see a lot of that in Marcus."
Pretty high talk considering Walker started this season as an afterthought. Last spring, not yet recovered from his second straight offseason shoulder surgery, Walker wasn't on the two-deep. He was the team's fourth corner when training camp began. But when Reggie Smith moved to safety and D.J. Wolfe moved to the bench, Walker was back in the spotlight.
Walker's first turn on stage came nine games into his freshman season. The 2004 Sooner secondary had been torched aplenty, and another bonfire was raging at Texas A&M. Walker took off his redshirt, helped ground the Aggies' aerial assault and kept OU in the national title hunt.
Two weeks later, at Baylor, he dislocated a shoulder, and injured it again in the Big 12 championship game. The following summer, he injured the other shoulder in two-a-days. When that recurred at UCLA, his sophomore season was all but done.
Two years gone, two shoulders injured, and not a lot of football played.
"You wonder, 'Why is it happening to me?' " Walker said. "It was a rough time, to tell you the truth. It was rough."
That's when Nelson Peterson called with words of encouragement.
Said Peterson, "Adrian explained to him, 'My dad is what he is. He's straight up. If you're going to ask him something, be ready for it, because he isn't going to cut corners.' "
That was what Walker needed.
"After a bad game growing up, I never had that male figure to talk to, just somebody to say, 'You practiced bad today,' " Walker said. "I look at him just like he was my father or something."
Walker's grandmother, Mildred Cox, said she had few reservations about her grandson taking phone advice from someone who once ran a major crack cocaine operation and was now doing time.
"I didn't know Nelson," she said. "I just asked Marcus, 'What did you talk about?' And he said, 'He was just encouraging me to play hard and work hard and stuff like that.' I said, 'Well, if that's all he's doing, that's fine if you want to talk to him.' "
Both families have since grown extremely close.
Cox raised four kids of her own, then raised her daughter's three sons. Now disabled, she still cares for 13-year-old Tristan, while Marcus, 20, and Carl, 22, are out on their own.
"It was a lot easier for everyone if I raised them," she said. "All of them were close to me, but Marcus just hung on me the most. Even when he comes home, he sleeps with me now. He's always had to be close. Whenever I'm around, he has to be close to me. I don't know if he thinks I'm going to leave or what, but I told him I was always going to be there for him. And I will."
Cox comes to Norman on game days, but doesn't go to the stadium because of her disability. Saturday, she said, she'll be in a wheelchair but will watch her grandson live for the first time this year.
"I'm very, very proud of him," she said. "He's turned out to be a young man I really respect, and I'm happy for him."
And as for these comparisons to Derrick Strait?
"I really don't try to compare myself," Walker said. "My grandma always told me, 'Never compare yourself to anybody else, because in the end, you'll end up selling yourself short.' "
OU's Marcus Walker discovers father figure in Peterson's dad
WACO, Texas -- Marcus Walker sat there in his living room, all by himself, again. He was getting pretty good at these video games.
His Oklahoma Sooner teammates were out at practice, and Walker was home with his perpetually sore shoulder, wishing he was with them.
Then the phone rang. It was a call from the federal prison in Texarkana, Texas. On the line was Nelson Peterson, father of his famous roommate, Adrian Peterson. It was just the voice Walker wanted to hear.
"It was a blessing for me, man," Walker says, "because I never had a father growing up."
Credit Nelson Peterson, a surrogate father, from over the phone and behind bars, for helping Walker get where he is today.
"I view him just as a son to me," said Peterson, who met Walker for the first time in June, after he was released to an Oklahoma City halfway house following a seven-year prison sentence. Nelson Peterson now visits with Walker all the time, face to face.
"Any problems he has, we talk about them," Peterson said. "Life, football, issues, things not going right. We developed a real, real close relationship."
Walker is the second of three brothers,
raised by their grandmother in Waco, Texas. Walker, a junior, will return to his hometown when the 16th-ranked Sooners visit Baylor for an 11 a.m. kickoff Saturday at Floyd Casey Stadium. OU has won its last five games and is 8-2 overall and 5-1 in Big 12 Conference play. The Sooners -- a 21-point favorite over Baylor (4-7, 3-4) -- have an outside shot at the Big 12 South crown partly because of the emergence of Walker as a premier cornerback.
Walker's lockdown ability as the wide-side cornerback has helped forge the Sooner defense into one of the nation's best. It's been suggested that Walker is playing as well as any OU corner since Derrick Strait, an All-American, winner of the Thorpe and Nagurski trophies and Big 12 defensive player of the year in 2003.
"He's playing in a great way, and as consistent and good as Derrick had in a lot of ways," OU coach Bob Stoops said.
Said OU quarterback Paul Thompson, "His instincts are a lot like Derrick Strait. He's got quick reaction time. His interceptions have shown that he's quick at breaking on the ball. That's what Derrick Strait was. It was almost impossible to throw a slant on Derrick because his reaction time was so quick, he was able to jump in front. I see a lot of that in Marcus."
Pretty high talk considering Walker started this season as an afterthought. Last spring, not yet recovered from his second straight offseason shoulder surgery, Walker wasn't on the two-deep. He was the team's fourth corner when training camp began. But when Reggie Smith moved to safety and D.J. Wolfe moved to the bench, Walker was back in the spotlight.
Walker's first turn on stage came nine games into his freshman season. The 2004 Sooner secondary had been torched aplenty, and another bonfire was raging at Texas A&M. Walker took off his redshirt, helped ground the Aggies' aerial assault and kept OU in the national title hunt.
Two weeks later, at Baylor, he dislocated a shoulder, and injured it again in the Big 12 championship game. The following summer, he injured the other shoulder in two-a-days. When that recurred at UCLA, his sophomore season was all but done.
Two years gone, two shoulders injured, and not a lot of football played.
"You wonder, 'Why is it happening to me?' " Walker said. "It was a rough time, to tell you the truth. It was rough."
That's when Nelson Peterson called with words of encouragement.
Said Peterson, "Adrian explained to him, 'My dad is what he is. He's straight up. If you're going to ask him something, be ready for it, because he isn't going to cut corners.' "
That was what Walker needed.
"After a bad game growing up, I never had that male figure to talk to, just somebody to say, 'You practiced bad today,' " Walker said. "I look at him just like he was my father or something."
Walker's grandmother, Mildred Cox, said she had few reservations about her grandson taking phone advice from someone who once ran a major crack cocaine operation and was now doing time.
"I didn't know Nelson," she said. "I just asked Marcus, 'What did you talk about?' And he said, 'He was just encouraging me to play hard and work hard and stuff like that.' I said, 'Well, if that's all he's doing, that's fine if you want to talk to him.' "
Both families have since grown extremely close.
Cox raised four kids of her own, then raised her daughter's three sons. Now disabled, she still cares for 13-year-old Tristan, while Marcus, 20, and Carl, 22, are out on their own.
"It was a lot easier for everyone if I raised them," she said. "All of them were close to me, but Marcus just hung on me the most. Even when he comes home, he sleeps with me now. He's always had to be close. Whenever I'm around, he has to be close to me. I don't know if he thinks I'm going to leave or what, but I told him I was always going to be there for him. And I will."
Cox comes to Norman on game days, but doesn't go to the stadium because of her disability. Saturday, she said, she'll be in a wheelchair but will watch her grandson live for the first time this year.
"I'm very, very proud of him," she said. "He's turned out to be a young man I really respect, and I'm happy for him."
And as for these comparisons to Derrick Strait?
"I really don't try to compare myself," Walker said. "My grandma always told me, 'Never compare yourself to anybody else, because in the end, you'll end up selling yourself short.' "