“Big Toe” to present NFL?golden football to Cairo High School

One of the all-time greatest athletes to graduate from Cairo High School will be back at the school next week to make a special presentation on behalf of the National Football League.
As part of the nationwide Super Bowl 50 celebration, the NFL has initiated the Super Bowl High School Honor Roll program to acknowledge schools and communities that have directly influenced Super Bowl history and impacted the game for the better.
“The Big Toe from Cairo” Bobby Walden will present a Wilson Golden Football to his alma mater, Cairo High School, in a ceremony tentatively planned for 1:30 p.m. next Wednesday, Nov. 18.
High schools from across the country and around the globe will be presented with golden footballs from every player or head coach who graduated from the school who was on an active Super Bowl roster.
More than 2,000 high schools, including Cairo High School, and roughly 3,000 players and coaches will be recognized.
In addition, Cairo High School will have the opportunity to apply for grants of up to $5,000 to support its football programs, along with a new character education curriculum.
Bobby Walden played for 14 years in the NFL, first with the Minnesota Vikings then with the Pittsburgh Steelers where he was part of two Steelers Super Bowl Championship teams in 1974 and 1975. Walden also played for three years in the Canadian League.
A 1957 graduate of CHS, Walden lettered in track, football and basketball at CHS. He was among the first class of inductees into the Grady County Sports Hall of Fame in 2009 and is a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
Before going pro, Walden led the nation in average yard per punt in 1958 and is a University of Georgia punting record holder.
In his long regular season NFL career, Walden is credited for punting 40,529 total yards.
Walden told Georgia Trend Magazine in 2009 that scholarships rolled in but when he broke his leg in a game, most colleges backed off except for Georgia “Coach (Wally) Butts never flinched. He told me his scholarship offer still stands broken leg or not and that I would have my scholarship whether I was able to play a single game or a season. If you break the other leg, you will still have the scholarship, Butts told me,” Walden said.
The golden football Walden will present to CHS next week will feature the name of the school and the name of the honoree and the two Super Bowls he participated in.
Super Bowl 50 will be played on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2015 at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco.