Smell that? Yup, smells like Herschel is full of it

This is what I believe Walker is doing. Walker's using an alleged disorder to excuse some awful actions he has committed throughout his life.

When he allegedly held a gun to the head of his now ex-wife, that was no disorder. It was Walker simply being a violent thug.

This is the brilliance of what Walker is doing. Not only is he going to convince people, fool some of them, really, about an alleged disorder, he's going to profit off of it by writing a book.

And this is the key aspect of this Walker news that hasn't been totally addressed yet: Walker has taken excuse-making for the misbehaving professional athlete to an entirely new excuse-making level.

It used to be when a hockey player was excessively violent he blamed his behavior on alcohol. When a golfer beat his wife, she was asking for it. When an NFL player failed a drug test, it was the supplement's fault.

Those were the good old days of not taking responsibility for your actions.

Walker has added a new dimension to the excuse parade: It wasn't me who scared the hell out of my wife by supposedly pointing a loaded gun at her in one instance or allegedly threatening to kill her in another, it was my other personality.

Man, Walker's good. He's really, really good.

It's not that I don't believe in mental illness; of course I do. It's just that there are some people who successfully manipulate others with tales of mental duress when in fact they're just stone, cold operators.

The Walker I knew when covering professional football was the grandest storyteller of all. He'd brag about doing 1,500 pushups and 2,500 sit-ups each day. Or was it 2,500 pushups and 1,500 sit-ups? I forget. He was a bobsledder, a football player in two leagues and a ballet dancer. Just recently, in November of 2007, Walker declared he would take part in an MMA fight.

Walker hasn't done all of these things because of a psychological disorder, Walker has done them because he was an attention whore.

This book is simply an extension of that.

There used to be some NFL players that when you mentioned Walker's name, they'd roll their eyes. I remember a Minnesota Viking player telling me once: "If you ask me about Herschel, I'm punching you in the mouth." There was a Minnesota journalist who did a delicious imitation of Walker complete with Walker's constant third-person references.

Walker told ABC that he doesn't remember winning the Heisman Trophy yet I recall one specific conversation with Walker years ago in which he described his emotions in winning the trophy quite explicitly. Was that one of Walker's alter-egos speaking to me?

I just want some of these athletes to take responsibility for their mistakes. If you beat a woman, say you're terribly sorry, and accept your punishment.

Don't dare say you can't remember doing it.

In other words, don't be so full of ----.