The Green Mountain State has never been a hotbed of football talent. While many Vermonters have played small college football at the NCAA Division II and III levels, very few have cracked Division I, the sport’s highest collegiate level. It doesn’t help that the state’s lone D-I school, the University of Vermont, hasn’t fielded a football team since 1974.
The ranks of Vermonters who’ve made the pros are even slimmer. The most successful was Bob Yates, a Montpelier-born offensive lineman who played for the Boston Patriots in the 1960s, just before the merger of the American and National football leagues in 1966. The last Vermonter to be drafted into the NFL was Brattleboro quarterback Joe Shield in 1985.
Hinesburg’s Graham Walker could well be next.
“I like to think that I am a tight end who has the skills of a wide receiver.” Graham Walker
In January, Walker, 24, declared for the NFL Draft, to be held later this month in Green Bay, Wis. According to draft pundits, the six-foot-three, 230-pound tight end out of Texas’ Rice University may be selected in the later stages of the seven-round draft. Even if he isn’t, Walker will almost certainly be signed by an NFL team as a free agent soon after the three-day televised event.
Every year, NFL teams sign dozens of undrafted players to compete for positions at preseason training camps. Plenty will make the cut — every NFL roster includes numerous undrafted players. More than a few clubs will be intrigued by Walker’s blend of size and speed, not to mention the former wideout’s NFL pedigree. You might have heard of his half brother: Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Walker and Mahomes share a father, Pat Mahomes Sr., who pitched in Major League Baseball for 11 seasons. Both Mahomeses have been supportive of Walker’s pursuit of a professional football career. Like his older half brother, Walker is represented by Equity Sports and has been training six days a week at APEC, an elite facility in Fort Worth, Texas, where Mahomes Jr. and other NFL players have also worked out.
But unlike the two-time NFL MVP, who grew up in football-obsessed Texas, Walker was raised by his mother, Jessamyn Walker, and stepfather, Gerry Howatt, alongside two half sisters in Vermont. Graham’s father and half brother have played a more pronounced role in his life as he has pursued a pro football career.
Graham credits his upbringing in a close-knit Vermont family and community with keeping him grounded amid the rarified air of big-time athletics. “Growing up here taught me to get along with the person next to you,” Graham said by phone from Texas, “which really is a Vermont thing on a grander scale.”
Growing up in Shelburne and Hinesburg, Graham knew early in life that he wanted to play professional sports. His first love was baseball, followed by basketball and football.
Gerry realized that Graham was a special athlete from the time they started throwing the ball around in the yard. Despite Gerry being a self-professed “lousy thrower,” he said, Graham caught virtually every pass.
“He was wearing me out, and he was, like, 5 years old,” Gerry said.
During one backyard session, Gerry decided to throw a deep pass for Graham to chase down, with Jessamyn filming.
“He ran as fast as he could, and I put a little mustard on it,” Gerry recalled. “He was looking for it over his right shoulder, but I threw it over his left shoulder. He just spun and caught it with one hand and didn’t break stride.”
Unfortunately, the camera wasn’t working. Still, that was the moment his parents realized the kid could catch anything. To this day, when their family and friends are watching a football game and a receiver drops a pass, someone will inevitably say, “Graham would have caught that.”
Graham’s first taste of organized football was in fifth grade with the Chittenden South Buccaneers, a youth team he played for through eighth grade. Practices were held “out in the cow pasture,” as Graham put it, on Shelburne Falls Road in Hinesburg. Graham played wide receiver for the Buccaneers, putting his great hands to good use.
Graham entered Champlain Valley Union High School in fall 2015, the same year Mike Williams took over as varsity head football coach of the school’s Redhawks. The new coach had heard rumors of a phenomenal athlete coming up from middle school, but Williams didn’t realize what he had until Graham moved up to varsity his sophomore year.
Graham was a two-way standout almost immediately. On defense, he started at free safety and used his athleticism and football smarts to regularly make big plays. On offense, Williams moved Graham from wide receiver to quarterback, initially as a backup. When the starting quarterback suffered a season-ending injury in the season’s second game, Graham took over.
CVU played a run-oriented triple-option offense with little passing. On most plays, the quarterback would either hand the ball off to one of two running backs or hang on to it and run himself. Keeping the ball in the hands of the ultra-athletic sophomore seemed like a sound coaching strategy.
“He did an outstanding job running our offense,” Williams said. “He was the best athlete on the field.”
Displaying impressive football savvy, Graham led the Redhawks to the state semifinals, where they lost by one point to St. Johnsbury Academy.
The following season was a down year for the team, which posted a 3-6 record. But Graham starred again at quarterback and free safety while asserting himself as a team leader.
Graham was also a standout basketball player. He made varsity as a sophomore and, in his junior year, led the team in scoring and rebounding while earning an All-State honorable mention.
But football was clearly his path forward, athletically. Going into his senior year of high school, Graham and his parents started looking for opportunities to increase his chances of playing major college athletics. One such route was transferring to a prep school, where he would be more likely to gain the attention of college scouts.
“There isn’t really a big emphasis on football in the state of Vermont,” Williams said. “You always have good athletes; you always have tough kids. But it’s a state where there’s only 30 teams that play. It’s a numbers game.”
“I believed I had a better opportunity of getting recruited if I went to prep school,” Graham said.
Graham visited Avon Old Farms, an elite New England prep school near Hartford, Conn. Avon players regularly go on to Division I college football programs, and the school currently has two alumni on NFL rosters. Avon’s football team employed a pass-heavy spread offense that provided Graham with more opportunities at wide receiver, his preferred position. He excelled on the football field and in the classroom there for the next two years.
“What really made him stand out was his positive attitude,” Avon wide receivers coach Shelton Magee said. “It was infectious, and that carries over into big spots in the game.”
The coach cited Graham’s game-winning catch on a Hail Mary pass against the Williston Northampton School and his overtime touchdown catch against the Brunswick School, both in 2019, as two of the biggest plays in recent Avon football history.
“He was a team leader by example and attitude,” Magee said. “He wasn’t really a rah-rah, get-everyone-going kind of guy.”
Graham earned all-conference football honors at Avon and twice was named the school’s athlete of the year. He landed on the dean’s list, too, making him particularly attractive to Ivy League institutions, which recruit heavily from New England prep schools.
Among numerous suitors, Graham accepted a scholarship to play football at Brown University. The Providence, R.I., Ivy League school’s academic reputation goes without saying. The Brown Bears football team, too, offered Graham an excellent opportunity to maximize his talents. Brown ran a passing-oriented spread offense like the one at Avon.
Neither Graham nor his classmates played a down of football during his first autumn at Brown, as the pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2020 Ivy League season. He didn’t even practice until the following spring.
But once he got on the field, Graham turned heads. He was the most productive first-year receiver in the Ivy League in 2021, earning him Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors from esteemed college football writer Phil Steele.
“Any ball up in the air is his,” said Eric Bunker, Graham’s wide receivers coach at Brown. “That’s Graham’s superpower: His size and athleticism enable him to box guys out and get the ball.”
Bunker said Graham became a genuine student of the game at Brown, putting significant effort into watching the game film of his opponents as well as his own team.
“He always wanted to get better, all year round,” Bunker said.
Graham earned All-Ivy League honors in all three of his varsity seasons. And he took his studies as seriously as his football.
Initially, Graham considered studying archeology before venturing into political science. He landed in the philosophy department, which fostered his interest in ethics, particularly as it pertains to questions of fairness and equal opportunity. He cites Immanuel Kant and John Locke as among the classic authors in philosophy whose ideas he finds particularly relevant to present-day concerns. Graham graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in spring 2024.
After finishing his degree, Graham had remaining eligibility as a college player. He considered opportunities to play for a higher-profile school against stronger competition, which would improve his chances of making the NFL. He toured Rice University in Houston with his father, Pat Mahomes Sr., who has mentored him in his pursuit of a professional sports career.
“Rice was open to giving me an opportunity, and I seized on it,” Graham said of the American Athletic Conference school.
Graham prepared for the rigors of major college football with an offseason workout program aimed at increasing his size and muscle. Since high school, Graham has added approximately 60 pounds to his frame.
At Rice, Graham volunteered to move to tight end to contribute to the team’s pro-style offense, which features the position more prominently than Brown’s system. Graham embraced the role and called the season a “crash course in tight end training.”
Last season, Graham was named All-AAC honorable mention at tight end, catching 24 passes for 252 yards while providing support for the Rice Owls running game as a blocker.
“I like to think that I am a tight end who has the skills of a wide receiver,” Walker said.
During his time at Rice, Graham said his famous half brother offered guidance and encouragement.
“I know Patrick has been watching the games, and he’s reached out and said the good things that I’ve been doing,” Graham said. “When someone who’s accomplished so much can say you’re doing well, it really feels good.”
Graham’s friends, family and coaches universally described him as fun, easygoing and kind. He’s also grounded, which will serve him well in his professional life, football or otherwise.
“He knew what he wanted ever since he was really young,” his mother, Jessamyn, said. “He’s never stopped working for it. He’s never gone off the path.”
And she’s been right there with him, stride for stride.
At Graham’s games, she said, her husband is “jacked” but she’s a wreck.
“I am so nervous,” she said. “It’s hard for me to get through a game because I love everything about Graham catching the ball and anything he does, but I’m so terrified of him getting hurt.” One imagines she’ll feel a similar mix of excitement and anxiety come draft day.
As for where he might go in the NFL, Graham will likely find out while back in Vermont. He’s coming home to watch the draft with family. If he is signed as an undrafted free agent, it may well happen in the immediate aftermath of the draft, as teams scramble to secure the many talented players still available to sign.
Said Jessamyn, “The only thing he is more devoted to than football is his family.”
The NFL Draft begins Thursday, April 24, at 8 p.m. It continues Friday, April 25, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, April 26, at noon. nfl.com
The original print version of this article was headlined “Catching On | Hinesburg’s Graham Walker, half brother of pro football player Patrick Mahomes, is closing in on his own NFL dream”
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2025.
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