Missouri State

BILL WALTER
Football, 1988-91
Inducted 2015

Bill Walter was a four-year starter and letterman at defensive tackle for the grid Bears of coach Jesse Branch, earning all-conference second team selection as a sophomore and all-league first team honors as a junior and senior. A native of Oklahoma City, Okla., Walter was one of the leading tacklers on the Missouri State team all four years, and he was a key performer on the Bears league champion and NCAA FCS playoff teams in 1989 and 1990. The Bears won the 1989 Gateway Conference crown and defeated Maine in the playoff opener before losing at Stephen F. Austin State in the quarterfinals to finish the season with a 10-3 record. The Bears then shared the league championship in 1990 on their way to the playoffs and a first round setback to the University of Idaho in a 9-3 MSU season. Walter was a consensus All-America, gaining first team honors in 1990 and 1991 from Football Gazette, and in 1991 from The Sports Network, Walter Camp Football Foundation and American Football Coaches Association. He was a Bears' co-captain and Missouri State Coors Player of the Year in 1991 and was on the Missouri Valley Football Conference All-Decade team in 1994. Walter had double figures in tackles in six games each of his last three seasons. He recovered a fumble and returned it 17 yards for a touchdown against Northern Iowa his sophomore year. His four-year total of 385 tackles was third all-time on the career list when he graduated, is still sixth nearly a quarter century later, and is the best total for a lineman on the career list. His 40 career sacks are second-best all-time, just one away from Dennis Heim's career mark of 41. Walter led the Bears in 1991 with 105 tackles, including 13 sacks. Walter lives in his native Oklahoma City and works as an IT Engineering Architect for Devon Energy Corporation.