Kenneth "Ken" Walter (born August 15, 1972) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

punter of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). He played for the

Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. ...

from

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

–

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

, the New England Patriots from 2001– 2003 and 2006 and the Seattle Seahawks in 2004. He played collegiately for

Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in ...

. On the Patriots, Walter served as the holder for placekicker

Adam Vinatieri Adam Matthew Vinatieri (born December 28, 1972) is an American former football placekicker who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 24 seasons with the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. Considered one of the greatest ...

. He successfully held for both of Vinatieri's Super Bowl winning kicks in

Super Bowl XXXVI Super Bowl XXXVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion St. Louis Rams and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...

and Super Bowl XXXVIII. He also held for Vinatieri's famous kicks in the

Tuck Rule Game The 2001 AFC Divisional Playoff game between the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders, also known as the Tuck Rule Game or the Snow Bowl, or sometimes referred to as Snow Bowl 2, took place on January 19, 2002, at Foxboro Stadium in Fox ...

against the Oakland Raiders. At the end of the 2003 season, Walter wasn't re-signed by the Patriots. Walter struggled at the tail end of that season, was cut for a week as he lost his job to

Brooks Barnard Brooks Alexander Barnard (born November 4, 1979) is an American football punter. He played professional football for the New England Patriots in the National Football League (NFL) and for the Rhein Fire in the NFL Europe. He played college foot ...

, then re-signed for the Patriots' final surge to their Super Bowl XXXVIII championship. Walter's career appeared over, but he was signed by Seattle in November 2004 and punted in six regular season games and one playoff contest. Yet no team called in 2005 and Walter, who underwent surgery on his left shoulder in October, filed his retirement papers with the league. As Walter rehabilitated his shoulder injury, he was motivated by his

physical therapist Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patien ...

to make a comeback. He told the ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' that he had been striking the ball as well as he ever has, and both the Texans and

Jaguars The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the thi ...

had him in for tryouts. Walter was re-signed by the Patriots on November 22, 2006, after Josh Miller was placed on injured reserve. However, Walter himself suffered a season-ending injury December 17 against the Houston Texans, and was placed on injured reserve two days later.

External links

NFL.com player page
1972 births Living people American football punters Kent State Golden Flashes football players Carolina Panthers players Seattle Seahawks players New England Patriots players Players of American football from Cleveland {{Amfoot-punter-stub