October 4, 2024 • 11 mins
Celebrate 30 seasons of Carolina Panthers football with Jim Szoke. Join him as he sits down with the key figures who shaped the past 29 seasons, reminiscing on the moments that made Panther history. This week's guest is former Panthers tight end, Wesley Walls.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before there was Greg Olsen, there was Wesley Walls, a
five time Pro Bowl tight end for the Carolina Panthers.
He won a Super Bowl with the forty nine ers,
but enjoyed his greatest success here and continues to make
Charlotte his home. Today, coming up, we talked with Panthers
All of Honor member Wesley Walls.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thirty seasons of Panther Football, a celebration of the players, coaches,
and other key figures who've contributed to the organizational success.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Wesley Walls joining us now one of the Panthers greats
and one of the great tight ends of course in
the Ring of Honor. But I see you every year
at Quayle Hollow Country Club, and I know you play
a lot of golf out there, But this celebrity putting tournament,
they've only done it twice and you've won it both times.
He had Greg Olsen out there this year. Jonathan Stewart's
been out there at some tough competition, but somehow you
(00:52):
you're two for two.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Man h Well, you know, Greg and Luke and all
the guys are out there, they're saying you got I
have an advantage because I'm a member and I play
there a lot, but they don't know that the putting
green that we actually do the contest on it never
gets used except for the Wells Fargo Championship or the
PGA Championship or the President's Cup, whatever term. It's mean. Man,
I played out a quest so I really didn't have
(01:14):
an advantage, but I will. It was really I love
the competition with those guys. Greg is so animated during
the whole round. He was putting this year in front
of me and I'm like, man, he's got to be
three or four five up on me. He was celebrating
every putt that he made, and then we both got
in a playoff. It's a lot of fun, Jim. They
(01:35):
raised a lot of money for local charities. I actually
played for Greg's charity this year, which is a great cause,
and he's such a nice guy. He brought me a
nice letter thank for me for if I didn't win,
Greg was gonna win, so all the money was going
to his charity and his family's charity, and he sent
me a lot of swag. I got a new shirt,
I got a Greg Olsen on what he calls Toboggins
(01:56):
or that thing he's got. So I really appreciate him
doing that. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
You two are the best tight ends in the franchise
history for thirty years. And your great friends obviously as well.
Golf what else? What else it feels your days and
family obviously as well.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, yeah, I missed. I mean I almost kind of talked
to my age here. I have five grandkids right now. Yeah.
We have three boys at seven, five, and three that
live in Charlotte, almost three there at the house right now,
and two daughters that live two granddaughters that live up
in d C. And so we fill our time free
time whenever we get a chance to be around those grandchildren,
we do. We take advantage of that. Other than that,
(02:34):
I'm in the construction business and the real estate business,
and that's fun. I enjoy that I work with two
really good, great teams and good, really good people. And
I still I play a lot of golf. I had
to admit I'm getting worse. I've gone my handicaps doubled
in the last two years. You know, birthdays are catching
up with me. But I still like getting out with
(02:54):
my buddies and getting out eighteen holes in and try
to win a little five bucks or something for somebody.
Lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, you know, I've been in this town for thirty
five years. I think now too. But construction in real estate,
I mean Charlotte's booming, right, I mean you probably have
all the work you could handle.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, we live in a great city, and I knew
that when I moved here in ninety six. It just
felt like home. And we're not leaving. I mean, you're right,
people are moving here from everywhere. We're lucky to have
some of our family living here too, close by the
grandkids and stuff, and it's just really become home based
for us. Now, we still go back to Mississippi. I'm never,
never going to forget my roots and Old miss and
my friends back there. So I spent a little time,
(03:31):
a lot of time going to some Old miss football games.
I try to balance my Panther the love for the
Panthers and the love for my Rebels, and the Panthers
win a few more games this year. I know where
that balance is going to head through.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
We're counting on that for sure. You know a lot
of guys had you know, one coaching situation here, you
had three because you came in and you had Caper's
and then you had Seacret and then you had five,
so you kind of caught the gamut of like the
lows and the highs and a lot of different areas
of this panther were oranization.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
We look back, you're right, I tell Jim, it's uh
when I look back in ninety six, Dom Capers and
the staff that he had, Don Bro. I love Don Bro.
He's my tight end coach man. He really pushed me
hard and he just is a great coaching And the
team that was built, the foundation that was started with
great players Kevin Green, Lamar Lath and Sam Mills. I'm
(04:23):
gonna leave out a lot of people. Moss to Muhammad
got there in ninety six, Chris mangan was in ninety seven,
a lot of great players, Kerry Collins, and we just
the city, the passion for the football team. It just
seemed incredible to me. And I played with San Francisco
on Super Bowl teams down New Ornans and their fans
are rabbit as well. But that first year here in
(04:44):
Bank of America Stadium where ericson Stadium back then was
a special special year. And then you know, I think
we made some mistakes. I mean, you know, draft trades
or whatever, and we lost Berlin, honestly, and that was
during George Seaferd's tenure. And and enjoyed coach Seyffert. I
played with him five I played for him in San
(05:05):
Francisco for five years. I mean, what a great coach,
what a great success and he had as a coach,
but he had team in the locker room. Was so
much leadership with the forty nine ers. I think that's
one thing we probably lacked during those Seaford years here.
We didn't have a lot of locker room leadership. And
part of that was me. I mean I was on
(05:25):
that team. Uh and we just when things got going bad,
they really got bad. We had that one in fifteen season.
We lost confidence in our coach. The coach lost, coaches
lost confidence in the players, and then we had that
transition to John Fox. And I can tell you this.
The first day John Fox came into the meeting room,
(05:45):
he had a presentation. The had what's the coach out
at UCLA? Wouldn't I mean wouldn't And he had one
of those pyramid of success or something that John Wooden.
He showed it to us and talked to us about it.
I'm thinking you know, you know, let's get talk some football.
And then he did. He said, you know what, every
(06:06):
one of you guys in this room were responsible that
one in fifteen. I don't care how you had. I
don't care if he went to the Pro Bowl. I
don't care if you had a great, great, best season
your career. You were part of a one in fifteen team.
We're gonna change that. We're gonna change that this year.
And I give him credit, man, John Fox came in there,
turned that team around, and toward the end of that
season we were playing really good football. I was injured.
(06:30):
I was not much of a contributor there, and I
knew it was gonna be probably my last year. But
I saw the Seeds planned for the next season when
he took him to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Your tenure here went right up to that year through
two thousand and two, heading into two thousand and three.
Of course the Super Bowl run after that. But yeah,
you mentioned Berlin earlier too. We talked to Steve Burline
while we're doing these interviews, and I told him, be
I'll do what a really good football player was. I mean,
he was a leader and a tough guy. He took
the same number of sax Price Young took life You're
sixty two. I mean that he he had a lot
(07:02):
of boxy, so that was that was difficult once he
wasn't in that locker room anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Wow, I didn't know Bryce got sacked sixty two times
last year, A great stat. And I just gonna tell you,
I've never played with the football players tough is Steve Burline,
And I mean I played with some great ones, great quarterbacks,
Joe Montana, Steve Brett Fahr, Jim Ever, a bunch of them.
Carry Collins. This guy just came prepared every game, whether
he was second team quarterback, and he started a lot
(07:27):
of games here for us. He was ready to play
and you could count on him. I can remember times
in the huddle. Uh he probably didn't like to play
the play call, and he looked over to me and
wink at you. And nothing made me work harder when
I saw that in Steve Barline, because I knew that
guy would do anything to win a football game. And
I was gonna play as hard as I could for him.
(07:49):
And he's just a great leader. It took him about
forty minutes to get all his equipment on Jim, I
gotta take He's putting on his knee pads. Nobody wears
knee pads anymore. Right, knee pads, thigh pad. He's got
hip pads over over here, and he had a ribcage thing,
and he gets all that on there and he's walking
out like a robot. He barely couldn't move. I said,
how do you even throw all that stuff on you?
(08:10):
But he was just a warrior every game and I
have a tremendious respect for him and just some of
the other quarterbacks here, all the quarterbacks here. We we
really had some good quarterbacks over the year. We started
with Carrie Birdline, Rodney Pete, and then Jake Long steps
in and so forth and so on. It was I was,
I was, Steve is one of the best team that's
ever had.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What you mentioned, Greg Olds. And there's so many players
that will be in the Hall of Iner here. What
did that mean to you? It's a short list right now.
What did it mean to be one of the few
to this point that they got that ironer?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Well, I don't know if you've seen the Hall of
Honor video. I got to tell you, I was shocked, honestly,
mister Richardson. They were talking about it going on, and
I had some friends of mine that said, you know,
they were lobbying for me. I guess. But when mister
Temper gave me the call and and I picked up,
was in a hospital with my mom who just had
(09:03):
some surgery. She had she had colding cancer and they
were trying to get it and it was unsuccessful. And
I just got that news and and a phone call
comes in and whatever reason, I took it and it's
mister Tepper and he told me I was in the
Hall of Honor. It was one of the I mean,
I was already upset, crying for a different reason, and
I started crying for a happy reason. And I never
(09:24):
will forget. And this is one of the most special
moments in my life. When I walked back into the
hospital room to talk to my mom and tell her
the news, and I told her, I said, Mom, I
just got a call from the owner, David Tepper of
the Carolina Panthers, and they're gonna put me in the
Hall of Honor. And she said, what's that mean. And
I said, well, my name's gonna go up next to
Sam Mills. And she said, you deserve it. So that
(09:47):
was the best day of my life, worst day, best day,
scenario that could ever happen. But I can tell you this,
the last few days of her life, we celebrated that
phone call on that honor.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I didn't know that story. That's a lot to take
in at once. But well deserved diner in your case.
Sorry about your mom as well for you, but hey,
continued success. I do know this, you will not win
the putting contest this year because, as you know, the
PGA Championship will be in town next year.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, that's right, We're not doing that thing. And I
love doing it and I love the competition. Luke I
thought Luke was going it this year. Luke Keith came
in there and he was showing out a little bit,
and Greg was on fire. He had his son there,
and I was just kind of doing my thing kind of.
And I had to make like six in a row
to even get into the playoff. The putt offf I guess.
(10:35):
And then and since I was defending champ, I will
meant it is advantage to go second. The other guys
went first, and I knew or I had to beat
to get into to win the thing. And uh and
it was owesome. It was Greg and I mean it
was like an inch and Greg was still doubting that measurement.
He's still saying that thing was a little closer than that.
But it's a lot of fun. It's good, you know what,
(10:56):
when you look back at all the players that played here,
and and I really appreciate the younger guys reaching out
to the older guys because we use sometimes you can
feel like left behind or whatnot. But these guys have
reached out. They've done a great job. And what we're
doing here tonight and talking about the first thirty years
of the Carolina Panthers couldn't be a better night tonight
(11:17):
to see all these guys back.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
You know what, You're a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Westley.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Always great to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Thank you you as well. Jim, you've been here a
long time, said.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
All thirty years myself. We've seen it all, right
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Thirty seasons of Panther football.
Before there was Greg Olsen, there was Wesley Walls, a
five time Pro Bowl tight end for the Carolina Panthers.
He won a Super Bowl with the forty nine ers,
but enjoyed his greatest success here and continues to make
Charlotte his home. Today, coming up, we talked with Panthers
All of Honor member Wesley Walls.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thirty seasons of Panther Football, a celebration of the players, coaches,
and other key figures who've contributed to the organizational success.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Wesley Walls joining us now one of the Panthers greats
and one of the great tight ends of course in
the Ring of Honor. But I see you every year
at Quayle Hollow Country Club, and I know you play
a lot of golf out there, But this celebrity putting tournament,
they've only done it twice and you've won it both times.
He had Greg Olsen out there this year. Jonathan Stewart's
been out there at some tough competition, but somehow you
(00:52):
you're two for two.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Man h Well, you know, Greg and Luke and all
the guys are out there, they're saying you got I
have an advantage because I'm a member and I play
there a lot, but they don't know that the putting
green that we actually do the contest on it never
gets used except for the Wells Fargo Championship or the
PGA Championship or the President's Cup, whatever term. It's mean. Man,
I played out a quest so I really didn't have
(01:14):
an advantage, but I will. It was really I love
the competition with those guys. Greg is so animated during
the whole round. He was putting this year in front
of me and I'm like, man, he's got to be
three or four five up on me. He was celebrating
every putt that he made, and then we both got
in a playoff. It's a lot of fun, Jim. They
(01:35):
raised a lot of money for local charities. I actually
played for Greg's charity this year, which is a great cause,
and he's such a nice guy. He brought me a
nice letter thank for me for if I didn't win,
Greg was gonna win, so all the money was going
to his charity and his family's charity, and he sent
me a lot of swag. I got a new shirt,
I got a Greg Olsen on what he calls Toboggins
(01:56):
or that thing he's got. So I really appreciate him
doing that. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
You two are the best tight ends in the franchise
history for thirty years. And your great friends obviously as well.
Golf what else? What else it feels your days and
family obviously as well.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, yeah, I missed. I mean I almost kind of talked
to my age here. I have five grandkids right now. Yeah.
We have three boys at seven, five, and three that
live in Charlotte, almost three there at the house right now,
and two daughters that live two granddaughters that live up
in d C. And so we fill our time free
time whenever we get a chance to be around those grandchildren,
we do. We take advantage of that. Other than that,
(02:34):
I'm in the construction business and the real estate business,
and that's fun. I enjoy that I work with two
really good, great teams and good, really good people. And
I still I play a lot of golf. I had
to admit I'm getting worse. I've gone my handicaps doubled
in the last two years. You know, birthdays are catching
up with me. But I still like getting out with
(02:54):
my buddies and getting out eighteen holes in and try
to win a little five bucks or something for somebody.
Lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, you know, I've been in this town for thirty
five years. I think now too. But construction in real estate,
I mean Charlotte's booming, right, I mean you probably have
all the work you could handle.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, we live in a great city, and I knew
that when I moved here in ninety six. It just
felt like home. And we're not leaving. I mean, you're right,
people are moving here from everywhere. We're lucky to have
some of our family living here too, close by the
grandkids and stuff, and it's just really become home based
for us. Now, we still go back to Mississippi. I'm never,
never going to forget my roots and Old miss and
my friends back there. So I spent a little time,
(03:31):
a lot of time going to some Old miss football games.
I try to balance my Panther the love for the
Panthers and the love for my Rebels, and the Panthers
win a few more games this year. I know where
that balance is going to head through.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
We're counting on that for sure. You know a lot
of guys had you know, one coaching situation here, you
had three because you came in and you had Caper's
and then you had Seacret and then you had five,
so you kind of caught the gamut of like the
lows and the highs and a lot of different areas
of this panther were oranization.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
We look back, you're right, I tell Jim, it's uh
when I look back in ninety six, Dom Capers and
the staff that he had, Don Bro. I love Don Bro.
He's my tight end coach man. He really pushed me
hard and he just is a great coaching And the
team that was built, the foundation that was started with
great players Kevin Green, Lamar Lath and Sam Mills. I'm
(04:23):
gonna leave out a lot of people. Moss to Muhammad
got there in ninety six, Chris mangan was in ninety seven,
a lot of great players, Kerry Collins, and we just
the city, the passion for the football team. It just
seemed incredible to me. And I played with San Francisco
on Super Bowl teams down New Ornans and their fans
are rabbit as well. But that first year here in
(04:44):
Bank of America Stadium where ericson Stadium back then was
a special special year. And then you know, I think
we made some mistakes. I mean, you know, draft trades
or whatever, and we lost Berlin, honestly, and that was
during George Seaferd's tenure. And and enjoyed coach Seyffert. I
played with him five I played for him in San
(05:05):
Francisco for five years. I mean, what a great coach,
what a great success and he had as a coach,
but he had team in the locker room. Was so
much leadership with the forty nine ers. I think that's
one thing we probably lacked during those Seaford years here.
We didn't have a lot of locker room leadership. And
part of that was me. I mean I was on
(05:25):
that team. Uh and we just when things got going bad,
they really got bad. We had that one in fifteen season.
We lost confidence in our coach. The coach lost, coaches
lost confidence in the players, and then we had that
transition to John Fox. And I can tell you this.
The first day John Fox came into the meeting room,
(05:45):
he had a presentation. The had what's the coach out
at UCLA? Wouldn't I mean wouldn't And he had one
of those pyramid of success or something that John Wooden.
He showed it to us and talked to us about it.
I'm thinking you know, you know, let's get talk some football.
And then he did. He said, you know what, every
(06:06):
one of you guys in this room were responsible that
one in fifteen. I don't care how you had. I
don't care if he went to the Pro Bowl. I
don't care if you had a great, great, best season
your career. You were part of a one in fifteen team.
We're gonna change that. We're gonna change that this year.
And I give him credit, man, John Fox came in there,
turned that team around, and toward the end of that
season we were playing really good football. I was injured.
(06:30):
I was not much of a contributor there, and I
knew it was gonna be probably my last year. But
I saw the Seeds planned for the next season when
he took him to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Your tenure here went right up to that year through
two thousand and two, heading into two thousand and three.
Of course the Super Bowl run after that. But yeah,
you mentioned Berlin earlier too. We talked to Steve Burline
while we're doing these interviews, and I told him, be
I'll do what a really good football player was. I mean,
he was a leader and a tough guy. He took
the same number of sax Price Young took life You're
sixty two. I mean that he he had a lot
(07:02):
of boxy, so that was that was difficult once he
wasn't in that locker room anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Wow, I didn't know Bryce got sacked sixty two times
last year, A great stat. And I just gonna tell you,
I've never played with the football players tough is Steve Burline,
And I mean I played with some great ones, great quarterbacks,
Joe Montana, Steve Brett Fahr, Jim Ever, a bunch of them.
Carry Collins. This guy just came prepared every game, whether
he was second team quarterback, and he started a lot
(07:27):
of games here for us. He was ready to play
and you could count on him. I can remember times
in the huddle. Uh he probably didn't like to play
the play call, and he looked over to me and
wink at you. And nothing made me work harder when
I saw that in Steve Barline, because I knew that
guy would do anything to win a football game. And
I was gonna play as hard as I could for him.
(07:49):
And he's just a great leader. It took him about
forty minutes to get all his equipment on Jim, I
gotta take He's putting on his knee pads. Nobody wears
knee pads anymore. Right, knee pads, thigh pad. He's got
hip pads over over here, and he had a ribcage thing,
and he gets all that on there and he's walking
out like a robot. He barely couldn't move. I said,
how do you even throw all that stuff on you?
(08:10):
But he was just a warrior every game and I
have a tremendious respect for him and just some of
the other quarterbacks here, all the quarterbacks here. We we
really had some good quarterbacks over the year. We started
with Carrie Birdline, Rodney Pete, and then Jake Long steps
in and so forth and so on. It was I was,
I was, Steve is one of the best team that's
ever had.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What you mentioned, Greg Olds. And there's so many players
that will be in the Hall of Iner here. What
did that mean to you? It's a short list right now.
What did it mean to be one of the few
to this point that they got that ironer?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Well, I don't know if you've seen the Hall of
Honor video. I got to tell you, I was shocked, honestly,
mister Richardson. They were talking about it going on, and
I had some friends of mine that said, you know,
they were lobbying for me. I guess. But when mister
Temper gave me the call and and I picked up,
was in a hospital with my mom who just had
(09:03):
some surgery. She had she had colding cancer and they
were trying to get it and it was unsuccessful. And
I just got that news and and a phone call
comes in and whatever reason, I took it and it's
mister Tepper and he told me I was in the
Hall of Honor. It was one of the I mean,
I was already upset, crying for a different reason, and
I started crying for a happy reason. And I never
(09:24):
will forget. And this is one of the most special
moments in my life. When I walked back into the
hospital room to talk to my mom and tell her
the news, and I told her, I said, Mom, I
just got a call from the owner, David Tepper of
the Carolina Panthers, and they're gonna put me in the
Hall of Honor. And she said, what's that mean. And
I said, well, my name's gonna go up next to
Sam Mills. And she said, you deserve it. So that
(09:47):
was the best day of my life, worst day, best day,
scenario that could ever happen. But I can tell you this,
the last few days of her life, we celebrated that
phone call on that honor.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I didn't know that story. That's a lot to take
in at once. But well deserved diner in your case.
Sorry about your mom as well for you, but hey,
continued success. I do know this, you will not win
the putting contest this year because, as you know, the
PGA Championship will be in town next year.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, that's right, We're not doing that thing. And I
love doing it and I love the competition. Luke I
thought Luke was going it this year. Luke Keith came
in there and he was showing out a little bit,
and Greg was on fire. He had his son there,
and I was just kind of doing my thing kind of.
And I had to make like six in a row
to even get into the playoff. The putt offf I guess.
(10:35):
And then and since I was defending champ, I will
meant it is advantage to go second. The other guys
went first, and I knew or I had to beat
to get into to win the thing. And uh and
it was owesome. It was Greg and I mean it
was like an inch and Greg was still doubting that measurement.
He's still saying that thing was a little closer than that.
But it's a lot of fun. It's good, you know what,
(10:56):
when you look back at all the players that played here,
and and I really appreciate the younger guys reaching out
to the older guys because we use sometimes you can
feel like left behind or whatnot. But these guys have
reached out. They've done a great job. And what we're
doing here tonight and talking about the first thirty years
of the Carolina Panthers couldn't be a better night tonight
(11:17):
to see all these guys back.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
You know what, You're a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Westley.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Always great to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Thank you you as well. Jim, you've been here a
long time, said.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
All thirty years myself. We've seen it all, right
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Thirty seasons of Panther football.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!