The 'rest of the story' of the 2026 Pat Tillman draft pick

Tillman dog tags

Walz then reflects goes back to his third season with the Cardinals and with Tillman as a teammate. Glenn Pires, the team’s assistant linebackers coach, gave players “Tiffany-like” gold-plated engraved dog tags.

Knowing how some people have issues with football being compared to war, Walz said, “He (Pires) had the best intent, right? It was just to show solidarity through the linebackers. I think so many of the analogies, they ring pretty hollow when you think about it now, but the point (he was making) is you guys are soldiers, you're in this together, we're a team, we're laying it on the line. And I kind of said some of this during my eulogy, but he meant well with it.”

Not long after that, following 9/11, Tillman famously left football to become part of the Army special forces.

Walz said, “Then you got a guy who actually enlists and he's actually putting his life on the line, right? He's actually a soldier. And you know, here we are, millionaires for the most part, wearing these Tiffany's gold-plated dog tags as just a show of like, we are responsible to one another. It was an effort to bring us together.

“And when Pat enlisted, I called him, I talked to him, I want to say a month or two into his basic training or wherever he was at that point. He was on a break and we talked for an hour and a half, just about everything. And it just dawned on me. “Dude, like I've got these dog tags from my coach. Is there any way you can like send me a dog tag? I don't know how that works with the military. Do you get an extra pair? I'd rather wear your dog tag than the Tiffany's one that has my name on it.’ ”

Walz said he didn’t know what would happen, but not long afterward, a package arrived in the mail with an extra set of Pat Tillman dog tags that he then wore everywhere.

That changed after he told the story during his eulogy for Tillman following his death in 2004.

“I came home and everywhere I went in Arizona, people wanted to see them and they wanted to hold them,” Walz said. “They wanted to try them on. They wanted to take pictures with them. And it got a little bit scary. People were kind of grabbing them.”

He then decided “these things belong in a case and I have them preserved in a case with my trophies. They are the crown jewel of my trophy case for sure.”

But they came out in Pittsburgh and he wore them during the announcement.

“It’s very meaningful to me,” he said.

The T-shirt

It was only about a week before the draft that Walz was asked to be part of the Tillman Pick presentation. He knew he wanted to wear a shirt with Tillman’s face on it “that people haven’t seen. And I wanted it to be like a black and white one with an outline of his face.”

However, a few days passed and before he knew it, it was Wednesday evening, he was flying to Pittsburgh on Friday morning and “I still didn't have a shirt. I just sort of dropped the ball of putting it together.”

That’s when he sent an email to Shirt52 in Tempe and told them what he was doing.

“The owner (Zach Houser) called me in 30 seconds and he said, ‘Get down here.’ He worked until like 10 o'clock that night at his shop with a designer. He created the design that I gave to him. And we put it on a T-shirt.”

The silhouette design of Tillman’s face was based on a picture Walz believes was from his freshman season at Arizona State when he had a mullet.

Walz said, “That was the concept because even in silhouette everybody knows who it is.”

The reaction was instantaneous. People reached out to Walz on LinkedIn. Friends and strangers told him how cool it is. Tillman’s wife, Marie, told Walz, “I love the T-shirt.” People want one.

Legend Pat Tillman T-shirt

Walz hopes they can be produced to raise money for the Pat Tillman Foundation. He said, “I just want to raise awareness. I would love for this thing to take off because it sounds like it's kind of on its way.”

As famous radio personality Paul Harvey always said at the end of his broadcasts, "And now you know the rest of the story.”

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This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: The 'rest of the story' of the 2026 Pat Tillman draft pick