Titans' Delanie Walker collects records on, off field

Delanie Walker hops up the familiar cracked concrete steps of a Nashville record store, slips past the old wood and glass door, the fliers and band posters, and heads toward the back, where he begins flipping through albums.

The heavily tattooed tank of a man sorely sticks out from the store's hipster clientele, despite on this day having traded a football helmet for a fedora.

"You know what most of our customers look like — or don't look like," said Anna Lundy, the manager at Grimey's New and Preloved Music. "THAT is what they don't look like. They don't look like professional athletes. But there's one particular gentleman who comes in and buys stacks of records sometimes, and looks like he could be a linebacker or some other football position that I don't know the name of."

Lundy also doesn't know Walker's name. He commands attention on the gridiron, where the Titans star leads all NFL tight ends in catches this season, but shies from the spotlight elsewhere.

Walker has been collecting records since long before Dec. 13, when he set the Titans/Oilers single-season franchise mark for most receptions by a tight end. He broke the record set by Frank Wycheck in 2000. Despite Walker's success, this season has been a disaster for the team. One game remains, and the Titans are buried, tied for the league's worst record at 3-12.

Now, on Dec. 15, his weekly day off, Walker is digging through a bin at the back of the store, looking for something in particular and eager to unearth unexpected gems. Online fan voting for the Pro Bowl ends in a few hours. It's not looking good for Walker, among the league's top tight ends, to achieve one of his biggest individual professional goals. To this point, he isn't polling in the top 10 at his position.

'Respect'

Walker was raised by his mother and grandmother in Pomona, Calif., on the hardscrabble, gang-saturated outskirts of Los Angeles in a home teeming with extended family. As a child in the late 1980s and early '90s, he, his younger brother and cousins would slip out of bed, peek around the corner and absorb the late night celebrations — "adult hour," it was called — the dancing fueled by cans of Budweiser, straight cognac and the crackling warmth of analog music.

The record player — "an old, wood, big ugly one," Walker recalled — provided the soundtrack of his childhood.

His mother, Vicy Walker, collected vinyl and had mastered lowering the needle onto the edge of the album. Slowly, steadily, perfectly, the metal barely touching the disc.

Ssssssst.

Otis Redding. The Isley Brothers. Jimi Hendrix. Aretha Franklin.

Walker's uncle, "Big Stan," would have the kids haul crates of records to the Firebird so he could DJ neighborhood parties.

Walker didn't appreciate records back then.

He and his friends would throw them at each other like Frisbees, and snap the discs over their knees.

"Breaking history," he says now.

In time Walker, inspired by a different uncle, became a star wide receiver at Pomona High School and was named first-team all-region as a senior by The Los Angeles Times.

Away from the field, however, he befriended the wrong people, and his poor grades and discipline issues cost him a Division I scholarship.

Walker attended nearby Mt. San Antonio Community College, and after two seasons, he was rated among the top junior college players in America. But his schoolwork continued to suffer, and he hesitated to accept the only offer to come his way — leaving the big city and his family, including his unborn son, for rural Division II Central Missouri State University.

Walker was drafted in the sixth round by the San Francisco 49ers in 2006, a low-stakes gamble with the 175th pick, 169 spots after they'd selected fellow tight end Vernon Davis sixth overall.

Seven years later, in his final game in a Niners uniform, Walker grabbed three catches for 48 yards and delivered a critical block against perennial All-Pro safety Ed Reed, allowing Frank Gore to score a touchdown in Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans. The 49ers lost, 34-31, to the Baltimore Ravens.

Hours later, not far from the Superdome, his aunt "Peaches" and uncle Bryan were killed by a drunken driver.

'Work Song'

The day after Walker breaks Wycheck's franchise record, Titans interim coach Mike Mularkey addresses the media and says his tight end belongs in the 2016 Pro Bowl.

"He's good for this locker room, he's good for this organization and for anybody to think he is not a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end," the coach says, "he has had as good of a season as anybody in this league. And he deserves a chance to be recognized, irrelevant of records."

Down the hall, in the room where the tight ends study film, sits a large plastic jar wrapped in tape, a hole cut in the top. Once, it was filled with powder to make protein shakes. Now, it's stuffed with cash.

Walker, a national spokesman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is collecting funds for the Delanie Walker Gives Back Foundation, which provides scholarships and educational resources to needy, inner-city children. In the tight end room, when a player is fined, the money goes into the jar.

Finable offenses?

"Dropped passes in the game, jumping offsides, fumbling, holding, you name it," Walker said. "Not finishing (plays). ... If you fart in the meetings. Just all type of stuff."

Titans' Delanie Walker frustrated by Pro Bowl snub

For the second time in three seasons, the Titans nominated Walker for the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which recognizes a player for excellence on and off the field.

"I don't do this for awards," Walker said. "I do it because I feel like we should give back. Growing up the way I grew up, if I had someone like myself doing that in our community, I think more people in my community would have went on a different path."

Walker's path is unique, as is his skillset. At 6 feet and 248 pounds, defensive backs struggle to bring him to the ground. He's too quick for linemen and linebackers. And he's a reliable route-runner — easily rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota's favorite target.

Walker leads the Titans in catches and yards receiving for the second consecutive season, and entered the Dec. 13 game at the New York Jets three catches shy of matching Wycheck's record of 70. He ended up with seven.

The next week, on the road against the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, Walker catches two passes for 64 yards and two touchdowns, giving him 935 yards receiving this season, adding another franchise record to his collection. It breaks the mark he set in 2014. He needs six yards in the season finale at Indianapolis to reach 1,000.

'Sorry'

Last offseason, Walker bought a turntable at a yard sale in L.A. It's automatic, unlike his mom's. He twists a knob and the arm drops onto the album.

"Some people like the manual, but you can scratch it up," he said. "Because if you're not good at it, if you don't got steady fingers putting it down … You be like, 'Uggghhhh!' when the needle touches."

His mom gave him some of her records, most warped from heat from improper storage over time. They hold a special place in his collection. Old jackets smell like history. Sam Cooke. Jerry Lee Lewis. The cover art transports him to another time.

Walker has collected nearly as many albums as catches this season. He imagines filling a closet.

"It's not even just to hear the music. I think it's just the collection," he said, "to have something that's so viable. People don't realize how available vinyl is. We neglect it. We grew up in the '80s and the '90s and it was obsolete. No one listened to vinyl. So I look at it as just history."

The turntable is a conversation starter. But Walker often sits alone in his apartment in the Gulch listening to music, reflecting on where he's going, where he's been.

"It helps me cope," he said. "Sometimes it makes me sad. I think about a lot of stuff when I listen to my vinyls.

"I've been playing this game for 10 seasons," Walker said. "And I didn't think I would be here for 10 seasons and losing at this point, so it's kind of confusing. But then I get upset because I try to go out there and play as best as I can and we still lose. And I kind of put it on me, since I'm a captain and a lot of guys on the offense look up to me, and when we don't get the job done, it's just frustrating."

Walker enjoys a diverse array of music, including contemporary artists.

He has his staples.

Hozier. Leon Bridges.

"I caught him singing Adele a couple of times," tight end Anthony Fasano said.

"He's like obsessed with Adele," said safety Marqueston Huff, at the locker to Walker's left. "That's what he be talking to me about — Adele — and I'm like, 'Bro, I don't even know who that is.' "

Walker, discussing the first track on Adele's latest album, confuses the title with a different song stored on his phone. He quickly corrects the mistake.

"I'm thinking of Justin Bieber," he said. "I don't have Bieber on vinyl, though. No, I wouldn't buy Bieber on vinyl. That, no, that can't happen. But I've got Justin Bieber.

"He go hard."

Defensive lineman Al Woods, at an adjacent locker, is laughing.

"You listen to Justin Bieber?" Walker asks.

"(Expletive) no."

Walker doesn't talk much with his teammates about music. Not in the locker room.

"They think it's soft and (expletive)," he said. "But they don't know. Then when they see vinyl, they be like, 'Why you listening to vinyl? You can't even skip to the music, the song you want to listen to.' That's the point. You should listen to the whole album, appreciate the album."

'Coming Home'

Weeks earlier, Walker visits his favorite record store with a friend.

He is patient, selective, and his companion grows agitated.

"How long we gonna be here for?"

"I've gotta go through…" Walker says. "I go through them one by one."

"You lyin'."

"Nah, I'm dead serious. There's a coffee shop right over there if you want to go wait."

An hour later, his friend returns.

"You only got three records?! In all this time you been in here?!"

Walker studies each jacket, takes note of every song.

"You should listen to the whole album."

A track you don't like? You sit through it.

Walker, 31, is in his third season of a four-year deal he signed with the Titans, closer to his career's outro than the overture. He didn't make the Pro Bowl, finishing ninth in fan voting, but was tabbed a first alternate once coaches' and players' ballots were tallied. Free agency looms, barring an extension.

There's no skipping ahead.

Walker's 11-year-old son, Delanie Jr., visited from L.A. for Thanksgiving.

He grabbed his dad's records.

"These big old CDs?"

"He was like messing with them and flexing them," Walker said, "and I'm like, 'That's the same thing I was doing.' I was trying to explain it to him, like, 'These are valuable.' I grew up with it, and I never understood it until now."

Back at the record store, Walker's stack grows.

He tucks seven albums wrapped in paper under his arm as he leaves the cashier, slips out the door, bounds down the steps.

Today, Walker's purchases include a variety of genres, from Ice-T's greatest hits to a Jackson 5 Christmas. He also scored the record he was looking for — "Purple Rain" — Prince's iconic sixth studio album and soundtrack of a film by the same name.

In the movie, released the same summer Walker was born, Prince plays "the Kid," a burgeoning superstar who uses music to escape his rough upbringing and gain acceptance, despite struggling to avoid making the same mistakes as his father, manage a love interest and overcome tension within the band.

The lyrics of the title track have been stuck in Walker's head.

I never wanted to be your weekend lover

I only wanted to be some kind of friend

Baby, I could never steal you from another

It's such a shame our friendship had to end

Reach Jason Wolf at jwolf@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter at @JasonWolf and on Instagram at TitansBeat.

DELANIE WALKER

Born: Aug. 12, 1984

Which makes him: 31 years old

From: Pomona, Calif.

Goes by: His middle name

Don't call him: By his first name; he was named after his dad. "I beat up people for less."

Has two kids: A son, Delanie Desean Walker, 11; and a daughter, Erra Paris Walker, 4 months

Also, one sibling: Anthony Walker, two years younger

Went to: Mt. San Antonio Community College, Central Missouri State University

Drafted: In the sixth round, the 175th overall pick, by the San Francisco 49ers in 2006

Pets include: An Irish Wolfhound named Lord Cushman

Who has: Been entered in dog shows, winning first place for best in breed

And: A yorkie and a malti tzu (maltese-shih tzu mix)

Which are much smaller, but: "The Irish Wolfhound thinks he's a small dog because he grew up with the little ones."

They stay at: His house in Franklin, about 20 miles south of his downtown Nashville apartment

Also there: A gleaming white baby grand piano

And he plays well?: "Nah, I don't play it at all. It's just for looks."

Another collection: Cars

But that's on hold, because: "They're way more expensive than vinyl. And I kind of grew out of it a little bit. When you have seven cars, you just don't have room for any other ones."