No one ever said that it would be easy. Certainly not Wally Henry.

While at Lincoln High School in San Diego, Calif., he was told that he would never play college football. That was less than correct. And while playing for two years at San Diego City College and two years at UCLA, where he caught two touchdown passes in the 1976 Rose Bowl to help the Bruins upset undefeated Ohio State, he was told he would never play in the NFL. That would prove to be incorrect as well.

Undrafted, the 5-foot-8, 170-pound wide receiver followed his college coach Dick Vermeil to Philadelphia in 1977 with the mindset that he'd try to prove the cynics wrong again.

"When he left UCLA, he took a lot of the staff with him. So I had two coaches [Vermeil and Carl Peterson] that knew my ability and consequently that enabled me to get a tryout with the Eagles," says Henry. "I had a few teams that gave me free agent offers, but when you're trying to get into the league it's best to go with people that know your abilities and your capabilities."

KR/PR Wally Henry

A more than capable special teams performer in college, Henry was UCLA's top kick returner as a senior and he had a notion that that ability would be his calling card for recognition at the Eagles' training camp.

"Well, basically, that was going to be the only way I could probably break into the league, being a punt returner or a kick returner. And then go from there to try to get into the receiver position as a backup," Henry explained.

A good plan, but not without a few potholes littered along the path.

"I was the last one to be released after camp and they brought me back," Henry said. "And then going on into the season we had an offensive guard that went down and I was the least expensive guy to let go so they let me go again and I was brought back. And then the third time, we needed a receiver and so we got Kenny Payne from Green Bay and they let me go again. But then he had an emergency appendectomy and so they re-signed me. Actually, I always got released on a Monday night and Tuesday was our day off and I was brought back on Wednesday."

Despite the seemingly all too common 36-hour periods of unemployment, Henry played in 10 games as a rookie. And when the 1978 campaign rolled around, he returned a punt 57 yards for a touchdown in the season opener against the Rams, the first Eagles' punt return for a score since Alvin Haymond found the end zone 10 years earlier. But two games later, only moments after returning a punt 55 yards to set up a touchdown in New Orleans, Henry suffered a broken leg and was lost for the remainder of the season. His early momentum ran into Roosevelt Boulevard-like drive time traffic.

Healthy again in 1979 and anxious to pick up where he had left off, Henry led the Eagles in punt returns, kick returns was selected to play in the Pro Bowl.

"I found out when I came into the locker room and Coach Vermeil was naming all the players (that had been chosen) and the last one he named was me," said Henry. "I was pretty shocked. It's kind of hard to think that a free agent can come in and go all the way to being voted to the Pro Bowl. Everybody was very happy considering that my first year I had gotten released three times and was still able to hang on and consequently the third year become an All-Pro."

After opening the following season with 11 wins in 12 games, the Eagles finished with a 12-4 record and the conference title when they beat the division rival Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game.

"We were highly motivated and we started believing in ourselves," Henry said. "And Dallas being the menace that they were to us, we came out and Wilbert (Montgomery), I think it was the second play of the game, had a great run for a touchdown, and we never looked back."

They did, however, look forward to a meeting with Oakland two weeks later in Super Bowl XV. Unfortunately for Henry and his teammates, the Raiders took home the Lombardi Trophy with a 27-10 victory.

"Coming from playing in the Rose Bowl, it was just taking that next step up," Henry said. "The Rose Bowl was like the Super Bowl of college for us, so I kind of had an idea how big the game was. But the Super Bowl, the magnitude of it, when you go in to meet with the press a couple of days before the game, I mean, everything was just so huge."

Henry, as did Philadelphia's league-leading defense, came up huge in 1981 with a team season-record 54 punt returns. He concluded a six-year career with the Eagles in 1982 and left as the franchise's career leader with 148 punt returns, a mark that still stands.

And now after living in Philadelphia for many years, he is back in his hometown of San Diego.

"I'm working with children, special ed kids, at an elementary school," said Henry, the father of four: Angelo, Wallkili, Justin and Vanessa; and grandfather of four. "And I'm also working (as a counselor) with another program called 'New Alternatives.' That's working with delinquent adolescents, kids that are having problems at home. They have drug abuse problems, they're AWOL-ing from group homes and whatnot.

"I'd just like to give something back to the community working with these kids, giving them an opportunity to watch and develop. Just do whatever I can do to help their lives, make it a little easier and more productive."