First player to score a kick return TD in Super Bowl dies at age 58

Fulton Walker, who returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown as a Miami Dolphin in Super Bowl XVII, died on Wednesday at age 58.

“Fulton passed away of cardiac arrest and in fact, he was on his tractor on his farm cutting hay,” close friend Rick Pill said Thursday on MetroNews “Talkline.”

With the score 10-10 in the second quarter, Walker took a kickoff at the 2-yard line and returned it all the way to give the Dolphins a 17-10 lead. It was the first kickoff -- or punt -- return for a touchdown in a Super Bowl. In the game he had four kickoff returns for 190 yards, then a Super Bowl record.

The advantage did not hold up as Washington scored 17 unanswered points in the second half to post a 27-17 victory.

Walker, who was from Martinsburg, West Virginia, spent four seasons with the Dolphins and another two with the Los Angeles Raiders, most of his success coming as a return specialist on kickoff and punt teams.

Walker finished his career with 145 punts returns for 1,437 yards and 167 kickoff returns for 3,779 yards and a touchdown.

“Too young,” said Rick Wachtel, who spent time as Walker’s agent. “It’s sad, really sad.”

The Dolphns drafted Walker in the 1981 draft’s sixth round out of West Virginia.

Walker spent four seasons with the Dolphins and another two with the Los Angeles Raiders, most of his success coming as a return specialist on kickoff and punt teams.

“He was a total athlete,” Wachtel said of Walker, who played both football and baseball in Morgantown.