Kenneth Walker III is the Seattle Seahawks running back who is playing in Super Bowl LX against the New England Patriots at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on February 8, 2026.
Walker, who rushed for 1,027 yards and five touchdowns during the 2025 regular season, has been the focal point of Seattle’s offense in the postseason, posting 38 carries for 178 yards and four rushing touchdowns entering the Super Bowl, according to NFL.com. Those four playoff rushing scores match Marshawn Lynch’s single-postseason franchise record set in 2013.
Walker, 25, has been Seattle’s leading rusher in each of his four NFL seasons since being drafted in the second round out of Michigan State in 2022. He became the first Seahawks player since Lynch in 2014 to have consecutive playoff games with 100-plus scrimmage yards, according to Seahawks.com.
“Man, that’s a really fun person to talk about because he’s just playing his best football at this time of the year,” offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak told NFL.com.
Despite his importance on the field, Walker has been one of the quietest stars at Super Bowl week. ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington noted how little media attention Walker has received compared to other Super Bowl stars: “He’s not your typical ‘talker,’ and he’s pretty soft spoken. But like, this dude could wind up at the Super Bowl MVP. And he’s just…hanging.”
Here’s what you need to know about his family:
1. Kenneth Walker III’s Parents Are Kenneth Walker Jr. & Shaunteshia Brown, His Father Worked the Night Shift & Trained Him Starting at Age 4
Kenneth Walker III was born on October 20, 2000, in Arlington, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis, to Kenneth Walker Jr. and Shaunteshia Brown. His parents separated when he was around 7 years old, according to the Detroit News, but both remained deeply involved in their son’s life and athletic development.
Kenneth Walker III’s father, Kenneth Walker Jr., worked the third shift at Rich Products in Arlington, the Detroit News reported.
After getting home from work, he would rouse his son out of bed on weekend mornings for grueling training sessions. “Grown men didn’t want to do the workouts I was putting him through,” Kenneth Jr. said.
Walker credits his father for his physical foundation more than anyone.
“My dad, that’s who really instilled that in me as a kid. I probably was four when I started working out, and I worked out with my dad 24/7,” Walker told Fox Sports in December 2025. “There would be times when I didn’t want to work out, and he would make me. And I’m over here crying, I had tears in my eyes while we were working out. But it brought me to this point in my life, and I thank him for it.”
Their home doubled as a gym. “You go upstairs and to the left side you got ellipticals, treadmills and bikes,” Walker told Fox Sports.
Kenneth Walker III’s mother, Shaunteshia Brown, raised Kenneth and his siblings in the Memphis area. “Kenny was the child that never asked for anything,” she told the Detroit News. “That’s the type of kid he was.”
Walker talks to both parents after every game to get their honest feedback. “I talk about my pops a lot. He’s always in my corner,” Walker told Fox Sports. When asked during Super Bowl week about his future with the Seahawks, he credited both parents for keeping him grounded during difficult moments: “They just told me not to make a decision based on emotion,” Walker said, according to Town & Country.
2. He Nearly Lost His Football Career to Blood Clots in His Lungs Before His Senior Year of High School
Before his senior season at Arlington High School in 2018, Walker woke up with difficulty breathing. His mother rushed him to the emergency room. After a second opinion, doctors discovered blood clots in his lungs and shut him down from all sports, according to ESPN.
“I get a text, it was sometime early in the morning, I can’t remember what it was, after midnight,” Arlington head coach Adam Sykes recalled to WMC Action News 5 in February 2026, remembering the scare.
Walker was placed on blood thinners and had to take a shot twice a day for three months to recover, ESPN reported. During that time, he participated in non-contact workouts with his father to stay in shape.
In a video interview, Shaunteshia recalled, per Town & Country, that when the doctor told her son he would never play sports again, she believed that would not be the case.
Walker returned for his senior season and was dominant, rushing for 1,403 yards and 27 touchdowns despite missing three games, according to Seahawks.com. Over his junior and senior seasons combined, he tallied more than 3,000 scrimmage yards and nearly 50 total touchdowns, per WMC Action News 5.
“If I had quit, I wouldn’t have made it this far,” Walker told Fox Sports.
3. Kenneth Walker III Is 1 of 7 Siblings & Grew Up in a Large Memphis Family
Kenneth Walker III is one of seven siblings. He grew up in the Memphis area with three older sisters, an older brother and two younger brothers, according to Town & Country.
Some of his siblings have been publicly identified as Marcel, Louis and Mariah Walker, though Walker keeps most of his family life private.
Growing up, Walker was a multi-sport athlete. He excelled at basketball and baseball and even wrestled for a time at his father’s insistence, the Detroit News reported. But football was always his favorite. He earned the nickname “Thundershoes” as an eighth grader at Arlington.
“He was in a different league by himself; you could tell he was special,” Sykes told WMC Action News 5. Arlington’s third-term mayor, Mike Wissman, who used to work the chains on the sideline for local high school games, told the Detroit News: “They called him ‘Thundershoes’ and he just ran over and around everybody.”
4. Kenneth Walker III Went From Overlooked Recruit to Doak Walker Award Winner After a Life-Changing Transfer to Michigan State, but Always Had the Support of His Dad & Mom
Despite rushing for 3,485 yards and 41 touchdowns over his high school career at Arlington, Walker was rated just a three-star recruit, the 57th-best player in Tennessee and the 143rd-best running back nationally, according to 247Sports’ composite rankings via the Detroit News.
“I used to hear about them stars and it really was an insult,” his father told the Detroit News. “I didn’t know where they were getting it from.” Walker was equally baffled: “I was confused. How come I’m not getting offers?”
He received interest mostly from FCS schools like Eastern Kentucky, Old Dominion and Illinois State. Walker verbally committed to Kent State in November 2018 before signing with Wake Forest a month later, per the Detroit News.
The Wake Forest visit itself almost didn’t happen, but when Walker’s parents were unable to drive him, former Arlington assistant Andrew Atkins volunteered for the 19-hour round trip from Memphis to North Carolina and back. “Anybody else in my position or our positions would do the same,” Atkins told the Washington Post.
Walker rushed for 1,158 yards and 17 touchdowns in two seasons at Wake Forest but felt limited by the Demon Deacons’ read-option offense, according to Michigan State Athletics. He entered the transfer portal in January 2021, and within four days of reopening his recruitment, committed to Michigan State after a virtual Zoom visit with the coaching staff.
“He was ready to go the next day,” his mother told the Detroit News, laughing, “and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, Kenny.'”
The move proved transformative. In his first carry as a Spartan, Walker sprinted 75 yards for a touchdown at Northwestern. He finished the 2021 season with 1,636 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns, according to Michigan State Athletics, winning the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s best running back and the Walter Camp National Player of the Year Award. He finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting and earned unanimous All-American honors.
The Seahawks selected him with the 41st overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, the highest a Michigan State running back had been drafted since T.J. Duckett went 18th overall to Atlanta in 2002.
Walker’s father, who had made the trip up from Memphis for the Michigan State debut, wasn’t surprised by any of it. “He’s been doing this since he was a little kid,” Kenneth Jr. told the Detroit News. “So it wasn’t nothing new.”
5. He Keeps His Personal Life Extremely Private & Is Often Confused Online With YouTuber Ken Walker
Kenneth Walker III is one of the most private players in the NFL. His Instagram feed, @kenneth_walker9, is almost entirely football highlights, workouts and team content. He has not publicly discussed a romantic relationship, and there is no verifiable reporting about a girlfriend or partner.
“If you were to see him walking around our school during classes, you would never know he was this big-time football player,” Sykes told the Washington Post.
One recurring source of confusion online involves a completely different person: Ken Walker, a Dallas-based YouTuber and content creator formerly known as one half of the popular DK4L (De’arra and Ken 4 Life) YouTube channel. That Ken Walker, who previously dated YouTuber De’arra Taylor and is now in a relationship with content creator Justice Bennett (known as Juju Bricx), has an active social media presence and is a frequent subject of entertainment gossip. Because both go by “Ken Walker,” fans searching for the Seahawks running back’s relationship status often land on results about the YouTuber instead. The two are not related.
The Seahawks running back seems comfortable with his low profile. Walker has said his approach to football mirrors his personality off the field. “Just played the game,” Walker told NFL.com during Super Bowl week. “I feel like if you try to prove people, people are going to have something to say either way, you know what I’m saying, if you do good or bad. So I can’t really prove it to nobody.”
Walker is set to become an unrestricted free agent after the Super Bowl. Both he and the Seahawks have said publicly that they want to work out a deal to keep him in Seattle. “Of course, we want Ken back,” head coach Mike Macdonald told NFL.com. “He’s a phenomenal player. He’s a great person. He’s a great teammate.” Walker reciprocated: “If it was my choice, though, I’d definitely stay.”
Kenneth Walker III’s Family: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know