By Carroll Fadal
A familiar Texas adage holds that there are but two sports seasons, football and recruiting. The spring season, the one played out in eight-point type in such lists at the Hot 100 or the Fab 44, finds football fanatics poring over recruiting charts and knowing dozens of names, heights, weights, high schools and 40-yard dash times by heart.
But on every successful team, guys whose names no one knew during the spring season play vital roles. They are the walk-ons, the players who were not quite tall enough, fast enough or good enough to get a Division I-A scholarship but could not get football out of their systems. So they try out, make the team, spend years portraying the next opponent on the scout team, and, if they're lucky, get real-game action on special teams or in mop-up duty. Every once in a blue moon, a walk-on makes the starting lineup, but for most, if they really hit the jackpot, they'll earn a scholarship.
Such is the case for three Baylor seniors, Staron Faucher, Cornell King and Matt Waller. All have toiled in relative obscurity for years, all were put on scholarship this fall, and all have made valuable contributions on special teams.
"Now that I've been put on scholarship, I appreciate the books and the tuition and not having to go stand in line for loans and everything like that," said King, a Dallas native who transferred to Baylor from Florida A&M in 2000. A defensive back by trade, King sees all his action on special teams.
"I walked on under Coach (Kevin) Steele in the spring of 2000," King said. "I chose Baylor because they had five defensive backs graduate that year, and I just figured I could come here walk on and try to find my niche in the program. I have found a spot, whether it be on the scout team or special teams or whatever, I've found my spot.
"Really, I want to play football. If it means I have to play special teams and there are other players who can play on the field, whether it's defense or offense, and my role is to play special teams, that's where I want to play, because I want to see us win more than anything."
Despite their lack of playing time, walk-ons make a big difference in a program, according to graduate assistant coach Mark Perry, who coordinates Baylor's non-scholarship program.
"I think it's tremendously important," Perry said. "It adds to your talent pool. If you're recruiting 25 guys a year and you get another five-to-10 quality walk-ons, guys who might have been an inch short or a step slow, once you get them in here, the scholarship guys and walk-on guys are all the same. It's like training camp in the NFL. You'll see some free-agent guys or guys from smaller schools who are going to start sometime down the road.
"I think that's very similar in recruiting. You go off of what you observe on film and sometimes in person or what a (high school) coach tells you, but there's always some different characteristic in a player that the film doesn't show. Maybe they're a "gym rat," and those guys sometimes develop into better players than some of your scholarship guys."
Indeed, Baylor has seen its share of walk-ons emerge into prime-time players, particularly starting middle linebacker Stephen Sepulveda and his younger brother, Daniel, who has become one of the country's premier punters.
But for the most part, the walk-ons' stories mirror those of Faucher, King and Waller.
Waller, the deep snapper, has been at Baylor five years, three of them as a backup to another former walk-on, Charles Hall.
"You kind of have a dream in your heart and in your head that you just want to play football," Waller said. "You just can't give it up quite yet. It's kind of an honor to be on a Big 12 football team. You end up being part of a team, part of something that's bigger than you, with the hope that you contribute. Your first couple of years, you don't always contribute. You play on the scout team, but to get to the level where you contribute on the field and make a difference is a different kind of drive.
"I've had it in the back of my mind that I was going to start my senior year, and that's really been fun," the Houston native said.
An offensive lineman and deep snapper in high school, Waller received absolutely no attention from college recruiters and ended up at Baylor after he ran into Steele when visiting the campus for Spring Premiere.
"I was eating breakfast with my family at Damon's, and the coaches were having a meeting in there," Waller said. "For some reason, Coach Steele came up and talked to me about the walk-on program, and my dad said, 'Hey, yeah, he wants to do it,' and I was like, 'Yeah, I want to do it.' I think he could tell from my size that I was a football player."
It would not be his size that would cause anyone to suspect Faucher would be a football player. The diminutive running back nonetheless is a feisty performer, as noted when he got into the game for mop-up duty in the Bears' victory over Sam Houston.
"It felt really good getting in there and running the ball," the Aldine native said. "I got in against Southern Illinois a couple of years ago, but this felt really good. It was a nice crowd out there, and my brothers and sisters were in the stands. I was really excited."
Faucher arrived on campus in 2000 but did not try out for football until the following season, opting to play rugby, a club sport, as a freshman.
"I missed football so much, I decided to come over here and play," he said. "I went to one game my freshman year, UNLV, and I thought, 'No way.' Then I went back to another game again, and I wanted to play so bad, so the next semester, I walked on.
"It has been a great experience for me, and it has helped me get through a lot of things. My freshman year, I thought about transferring, but being on the team made me feel like I was a part of something, and I decided to stay."
And while the thrills on the field have been great, King said his best memory came before one practice.
"Actually, we were supposed to report to two-a-days at a certain time this summer," King said. "Maybe two hours before that, they called me to come to the stadium, and that's when Coach (Gerald) Carr pretty much told me I was on scholarship. They had told my father first, then they told me, and I was just ecstatic over it. It was a prayer that got answered."
Just as the walk-ons answer coaches' prayers for hard-working, dedicated team members who love the game and being part of a team more than they care about glory.
