AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Dexter Walker describes the pain in football terms, saying it feels like a bad stinger.
For those who have never had one, a stinger brings debilitating, radiating pain from the shoulder after a violent collision. It doesn’t last long, but it’s a terrible experience for a few minutes.
And for Walker, an Air Force senior linebacker, it happens over and over.
Walker understood this was going to be the way of things if he opted against offseason surgery that could correct a shoulder problem but would cut into his season.
“I had to make a choice. But in order to get better at my position and show the leadership to fight through injuries and keep playing and be there for the team, I made the decision not to have surgery before the season so I could play my senior year,” said Walker, a three-year starter.
Does he feel like he made the right call, even as the injury is painfully aggravated on a regular basis?
“Of course I’m happy with my decision,” Walker said. “This is life.”
Playing through injuries has quietly become Walker’s standard operating procedure. During his sophomore year he delayed surgery on his torn meniscus in his left knee to play for the final three weeks of a season in which the Falcons finished 2-10. He asked his doctor at that time what the long-term repercussions might be if he continued to play on the damaged knee. Told it would increase his chances of arthritis, he blew it off, figuring arthritis was coming anyway after a lifetime of competitive sports.
This time Walker just chose the lesser of two evils. No, he doesn’t particularly enjoy leaving the field roughly once a game — and sometimes in practice — in excruciating pain. But surgery could have meant losing his spot to Jacob Onyechi, and Walker doesn’t seem the type to want to sit.
“Just as a warrior, he’s what you want in a cadet,” Falcons coach Troy Calhoun has said of Walker.
Although Walker has proven to be a big hitter, forcing five career fumbles, it’s his speed that sets him apart.
That speed will be particularly important this week, because Walker’s position is the one that primarily defends Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds — who is four shy of the FBS record for career rushing touchdowns, with 73.
“Mainly I’m the pitch key read, so the quarterback pitches off me,” Walker said. “So when I slow-play it, I’ll let the rest of my team rally to the ball and he finally pitches the ball, if he does pitch the ball, I think having the speed in order to come off of him and get to the pitch back, I think that helps me out a lot.”
