Book to reveal Walker's multiple personality disorder

ATHENS, Ga. — University of Georgia football legend Herschel Walker will detail in an upcoming book that he has a multiple personality disorder.

The book, "Breaking Free," chronicles Walker's life with the disorder, according to the book's publicist at Simon & Schuster.

That Walker, who won the Heisman Trophy and a national championship while playing tailback at Georgia in the 1980s, has the disorder was surprising to his former Georgia teammates, as well as his former coach.

"I'm probably one of his closest friends and that's news to me," said Frank Ros, a Coca-Cola executive who played linebacker and was captain of Georgia's 1980 national championship team. "I knew he was working on a book but I just thought it was about football. He does 100 things at once and always has projects going on — but that blows me away."

Said his former coach, Vince Dooley: "That's all news to me. All I know is whatever personality he had when he had the football was the one I liked."

The book will be published in August. Shida Carr, the publicist, would offer no other details and declined to provide excerpts.

"We're not doing anything quite yet," Carr said. "There's some buzz out there and we're letting people know we have this book coming out."

Walker has lived in Dallas, where he played for the NFL's Cowboys from 1986-89, since retiring from the NFL. He could not be reached for comment.

Preorders for the book, which will retail for $24.95, are available at Amazon.com, and other online bookstores. No other information is available.

Both Ros and Dooley said they never saw Walker act strangely and, in fact, thought him to be very consistent in his behavior.

"That's interesting stuff," Dooley said. "I'll look forward to reading it."

Walker grew up in Wrightsville, about 155 miles south of Atlanta. He led Johnson County High to a state championship in 1979, and then signed with University of Georgia.

In three seasons in Athens, he led the Bulldogs to a 33-3-1 record, before leaving school after his junior year to sign with the New Jersey Generals in the now-defunct United States Football League.

He went onto play in the NFL for the Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants.

He was inducted into the National College Football Hall of Fame in 1999.

Multiple personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder (DID), as it is more commonly referred to today, is a rare mental condition in which one person has two or more distinct personalities, according to the Merck Manual of Medical Information.

The personalities may or may not be aware of each other and a particular personality may not have access to all of the individual's memories. The switch from one personality to another can be very disorienting and the active personality may have memory lapses or feel that he or she has lost track of time. Persons suffering from this disorder may refer to themselves in the plural or in the third person.

Victims of DID have usually experienced a severe, traumatic shock of some kind and most report being abused as children. Treatment for this illness involves integrating the various personalities into one and usually requires psychotherapy that may continue for years, according to Merck.

Dr. Jerry Mungadze, a psychologist, wrote the foreword for the book. He also did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Chip Towers writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.