Walker Ready To Start Next Chapter With Bears

BOURBONNAIS, Ill. (AP) _ Darwin Walker was on the interstate after a Philadelphia Eagles loss a few years ago when a fan pulled up alongside and offered some consolation. <br/><br/>``Hey, you stink,''

Thursday, August 16th 2007, 8:16 pm

By: News On 6

BOURBONNAIS, Ill. (AP) _ Darwin Walker was on the interstate after a Philadelphia Eagles loss a few years ago when a fan pulled up alongside and offered some consolation.

``Hey, you stink,'' the guy yelled.

Walker grins when he thinks about that ride home and about his seven years in Philadelphia, rough crowd and all. He enjoyed his time there, but is looking forward to a fresh start with the Chicago Bears after being acquired in a trade with Buffalo late last month.

Chicago would appear to be a good fit.

Walker gets to suit up for the defending NFC champions and a team that happens to play in his wife's hometown.

The Bears get someone with 26 1/2 sacks in the past five years, fourth among defensive tackles during that span, to replace the troubled Tank Johnson. They add a menacing presence on the field who spends his free time helping run an engineering consulting firm, rather than into trouble with the law. And they acquire a player who already considered Chicago a ``second home.''

Walker's wife, Danielle, is from the South Side and her father, Charles Smith, is a retired deputy chief of the Chicago Police Department.

Walker's agent, Albert Irby, described them as ``just a great couple and a great family.''

A 6-foot-3, 294-pound package of determination, Walker seemed destined to study engineering from the start. The son of contractors, he started working for his father when he was a teenager in South Carolina.

``We worked so hard that football and the time that it took away from working was a good pastime,'' Walker said. ``But it taught us how to survive and how to manage your time and be a productive citizen.''

All those traits came in handy when he was studying civil engineering and playing football at Tennessee. When teammates were hanging out, Walker often was studying. And while other students were wondering why they chose such a tough major, Walker was trying to get the work done after taking a beating at practice.

``It was extremely tough, and I wasn't the smartest student in the class,'' Walker said. ``I was just an average student that overachieved, so that meant hard work and persistence because I really had to stick with it.''

And dropping engineering wasn't an option.

In fact, Walker and a friend decided they would eventually form a company, and they did during Walker's second year in the NFL, calling it Progressive Engineering. Around that time, he met Danielle while she was studying for her MBA at Penn's prestigious Wharton School, and she helped run the firm before it merged with Pennoni Associates Inc. in Philadelphia.

The company now employs about 930 people in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

``I've been blessed to have the opportunity to do what I do,'' Walker said. ``In our company, we have good people and we try to do good work.''

Now, he's joining another team with a good record the past few years, and he's settling in quickly after an eventful offseason that included a trade from Philadelphia and a standoff with Buffalo.

First, the Eagles dealt Walker to the Bills for linebacker Takeo Spikes and backup quarterback Kelly Holcomb in March, but he never reported because of a contract dispute.

Walker wanted the Bills to re-negotiate the remaining two years on his contract, which would have paid $1.3 million this season and $1.4 million in 2008. A holdout ensued, and the Bills would have been required to return him to Philadelphia in exchange for a sixth-round pick had he not reported by Aug. 5.

But the Bears stepped in late last month and offered a conditional draft pick. Walker then agreed to a five-year, $25 million deal with Chicago, one of the teams he was interested in joining when the Eagles allowed him to seek a trade last spring.

The Bears had still been committed to Johnson, who served two months in jail on gun-related charges. Their patience ran out after he was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving, and they were back in the market for a defensive tackle after releasing him.

``He's a nice guy, very friendly, easy to talk to,'' Bears special teams coordinator Dave Toub said of Walker, who he worked with in Philadelphia.

The Eagles' assistant special teams coach and defensive line coach from 2001 to 2003, Toub remembers a player whose ``motor'' would never stop, who would ``play so hard that he would have to come out because he was exhausted.''