If you’re a defensive tackle and you come into a small city where John Barrow and Angelo Mosca made the position synonymous with Steeltown Toughness, how can you possibly make your mark?
You play like Mike Walker.
And because Mike Walker always played like Mike Walker—meaning hard, fast, aggressive, communicative but take-no-prisoners, football,—he now joins Barrow and Mosca on the Ticats Wall of Honour.
The Tiger-Cats Alumni Association announced Wednesday that Walker will get his name on the Wall along with the late Bernie Custis. Walker becomes the 25th player to carve out his piece of coverted real estate on the west wall of Tim Hortons Field while Custis joins Ralph Sazio and Jake Gaudaur as builders.
Walker’s former teammate, close friend and partner-in-crime-against-quarterbacks Grover Covington is also on the wall, which many people believe is even more difficult to reach than even the Canadian Football Hall of Fame which is housed inside the stadium.
“When I got to Hamilton I really didn’t know about the history until I started hearing about John Barrow and then I started reading up on him, seeing his statistics, how many Grey Cups he won,” Walker told Ticats Today in an interview that can be seen and heard in its entirety on the Ticats Audio Network.
“And then Angelo Mosca of course, the whole town of Hamilton knows who he is, and what he meant. And I remember saying to Grover, ‘We got to represent, man. You’re talking about Hamilton. You’re talking about defensive line. That’s what they’re known for.’ We made a pact that it was up to us.”
They delivered on that pact. Big time. Covington is in the Hall of Fame and on the wall. Walker joined him in the Hall in 2021 and will be unveiled on the wall on Oct 4, during a game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The criteria for being selected to the Wall of Honour are hard, and deep and Walker meets them all. He came from Washington State to play for the Ticats from 1982-89, and those teams made the Grey Cup four times, winning it all in 1986, their third straight year as East champions. He made a stunning 21 sacks that season, one of three years he was on the CFL all-star team. His 95.5 sacks – tough to accomplish for an interior defensive lineman—are still the 14th most in CFL history.
And Walker absolutely excelled at other key requirements set by the Ticat Alumni Association which chooses the Wall of Honour inductees through a special selection commitee: personal character, respect from his teammates and heavy involvement in the community.
Jason Riley, the former all-star offensive lineman who was his teammate for six years recalled that Mike and Kristen would live with Riley and his wife Paulette during training camp before moving into their own accommodations for the regular season and “Mike was a big part of what we did in the community. Whenever we had a function or event he was always first in line.”
Riley was an eastern all-star on offence when Walker had his dominating 1986 season and they won the Grey Cup together, first overcoming a 26-point deficit on the road in Toronto in the two-game total-point East final, then overwhelming favoured Edmonton in the Grey Cup, after jumping to an unanticipated 29-0 lead.
“In his time I think he was the best DT in the league,” Riley said this week. “With him, Grover Covington, Mitch Price, Rod Skillman, Dave Sauve and Leon Lyszkiewicz, we had the best defensive line in the league. And we practised against them every day. We were in full pads and we did live one-on-ones every single day. We had a top O line and we had a top D line going against each other and it made both sides better.
“Mike had a combination of power, quickness and lateral movement like you wouldn’t believe. One minute he was there and the next minute he was gone. You were punching air. He could bring any combination of moves. If you stopped his first move he’d have a second ready to go.”
Mike McCarthy who became the Ticats’ director of player personnel in 1985 says, “Mike had a great move inside, he was smart, he had good hands, swimming by a blocker. He could split a double-team and always had good football position, a power-hitting position, and got off the ball quickly to neutralize blocks. The quarterback would be forced to move and here comes Covington! They worked very well together.
“He had an outstanding year in 1986 and should have been Defensive MOP of the league.
“And he was a great team guy. His teammates loved him.”
After the 1989 Grey Cup, arguably the greatest ever played, Walker wanted to be closer to his Washington State home and finally agreed to terms with Edmonton for the final two years of his career, but to Ticat Nation he never looked right in green and gold.
He went into a very successful coaching career with a long stint at his Washington State alma mater and also with the Argos, Roughriders and Edmonton.
But surgery on his neck and lower spine forced him to spend a year in a wheelchair in 2018 and since then he’s taken exhaustive rehab therapy. He used walking sticks, like ski poles, to be able to make it across the stage at Tim Hortons Field for his 2021 Hall of Fame induction.
Walker discusses his rehab and surgeries in one of the Big Four questions we’ve culled from his lengthy interview on Ticats Today. As usual we’ve condensed and conflated his answers, and our questions, for clarity.
