ATLANTA -- Herschel Walker will reveal that he has multiple personality disorder in a book scheduled for an August release, according to a story in Friday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A publicist at Simon & Schuster, which is publishing the book, said that "Breaking Free" will cover Walker's life with the disorder, the paper reported. Shida Carr offered no other details and would not give the Journal-Constitution an excerpt, according to the report.
Multiple personality disorder is also commonly known as dissociative identity disorder (DID).
Walker won a Heisman Trophy for the University of Georgia in 1982. He was third on ESPN's list of the greatest college football players ever, unveiled this year.
In three seasons at Georgia, Walker led the Bulldogs to a 33-3-1
record, three straight Southeastern Conference championships and
the 1980 national title.
He left Georgia to join the USFL after his junior season, then played in the NFL from 1986-97 for Dallas, Minnesota, Philadelphia and the New York Giants.
According to the Journal-Constitution, a number of former Georgia players were surprised that Walker reportedly has multiple personality disorder, which is a relatively rare mental condition where a person has two (or more) distinct personalities.
"I'm probably one of his closest friends and that's news to me," Frank Ros, a Coca-Cola executive who played linebacker and was captain of Georgia's 1980 national championship team, told the Journal-Constitution. "I knew he was working on a book but I just thought it was about football. He does 100 things at once and always has projects going on but that blows me away."
"That's all news to me," former Georgia coach Vince Dooley told the paper. "All I know is whatever personality he had when he had the football was the one I liked."