Possessing one of the richest walk-on traditions in all of college football, the University of Georgia has inspired more than its fair share of extraordinary walk-on-turned-success stories in the sport during the last half-century. A walk-on wide receiver who’d ultimately become a starter with the Bulldogs, Lon Buckler, a letterman from 1980-1981, is one of those stories.
Yet, after recently crossing paths with a Georgia teammate of Buckler’s, who mentioned some of his off-the-field experiences and encounters (namely, the man of many nicknames dating who would become President Donald Trump’s second wife while she attended UGA; winning millions of dollars in the Georgia Lottery; and appearing in Playboy (?) magazine—three times), in addition to being extraordinary, we hoped to stumble upon perhaps the most entertaining Georgia walk-on story.
For Buckler’s story, UGASports reached out to him at his home in the Atlanta area.
Inspired by Coach Russell and brother Bobby
Buckler, who recently turned 65, has worked as a self-employed salesman, selling sand products to golf courses and ballfields for nearly 40 years. On the side, he works as a model and actor.
While playing football for Georgia, Buckler was twice the recipient of the program’s once-esteemed Olin Huff Award (“the only two-time winner,” he proudly asserts, in the history of the now-defunct award) as the team’s most outstanding walk-on player. What’s more, it’s been said that perhaps nobody wears Georgia’s 1980 national championship ring with more pride than Buckler.
The tireless Buckler still maintains the laid-back and confident demeanor that earned him the nickname “Queen” (the last name of a gas station attendant in Jesup, Ga., who was exceedingly laid-back and easygoing) from his Bulldog teammates. It’s one of several mostly complimentary nicknames he acquired while at Georgia—one in which even legendary head coach Vince Dooley called him by, and one in which he is referred to even today.
Before arriving at UGA in 1978, Buckler’s calm off-the-field demeanor translated into a gritty, hardworking on-field attitude as a primarily blocking wide receiver for old Avondale High School located in the Atlanta area. Erk Russell noticed the 5-foot-9, 145-pound flanker during Avondale’s undefeated and state championship campaign of 1976 when Georgia’s renowned defensive coordinator was scouting the Blue Devils’ 6-foot-3 all-state quarterback, Davy Sawyer, who wound up playing both football and baseball for the Bulldogs.
“I eventually received a letter from Coach Russell—a letter I’ve kept and cherished ever since—asking me to walk on at Georgia after he had seen me blocking downfield, really getting after it,” Buckler recalled for UGASports. “I had offers from a few small colleges, but I wanted to attend school and play football at Georgia. My brother, Bobby, had graduated from UGA. So had my mother, and my father, who lettered in track and played on the freshman football team. I also had a lot of friends going there. … Coach Russell had asked me to try out for the team, and Georgia is where I had always wanted to go, so I was definitely excited to walk on the Bulldogs’ football team.”
Although he did dress out for Georgia’s 1979 season opener against Wake Forest, Buckler spent two at-times frustrating seasons on the scout team, seeing playing time in merely junior varsity games. Like in the case of a typical walk-on, he mostly hovered around the bottom of the varsity depth chart and never within striking distance of a starting role—not even close. Just to see the field often seemed far-fetched. Nonetheless, due to ongoing support from the coach who had asked him to walk on in the first place, Buckler always felt that he could compete at the major-college level if only given the opportunity.
“For those two years, I was the scout team’s starting flanker, and Coach Russell called our plays in practice against his No. 1 defense. He made me into a better player,” Buckler said of the acclaimed coach who passed away in 2006. “Coach Russell was so supportive of me and would often go and tell my position coach, Charley Whittemore, if I made a big catch or a big block against the No. 1 defense. … I love Erk Russell. He was like a second father to me. Of course, a lot of people will tell you the same thing.”
Although Buckler stood out on the practice field, he had yet to see varsity action through two years, all while still without a scholarship. He recalls being slotted by coaches on the depth chart as low as the seventh-string flanker. Consequently, Buckler nearly quit the team “a couple of times,” he admits, “but then I would think about my brother, mostly, and I’d just keep on competing. “
Buckler attributes his no-quit attitude primarily to his oldest brother, Bobby. Although “the most athletic member of my entire family,” according to Buckler (whose late middle brother, Steve, graduated Georgia Southern ranked among the school’s all-time basketball scoring leaders), Bobby was stricken with polio just before the Salk vaccine was made available, causing one of his legs to be shorter than the other. Having to use crutches, he was unable to compete in athletics beyond middle school. Therefore, when it came to on-field play, Bobby turned his attention to his little brother.
“Man, Bobby rode me hard, like a hard-nosed coach, when he’d play football, basketball, baseball, whatever, with me out in our front yard—just grinding with me, and pretty much with the use of only one leg,” Buckler said. “Besides God, Bobby has probably had the most profound influence on my life than anything or anyone else. By watching him get around and see the things he was able to do and accomplish without the use of both legs, it really drove my determination to where giving up was never an option, and, instead, I wanted to work even harder.”
By the close of fall camp entering the 1980 season, Buckler had worked his way up to the No. 2 flanker position. However, not only did he remain without a scholarship, but he also wasn’t even included on Georgia’s travel roster (of just five wide receivers) for the season opener at Tennessee.
After considering quitting, Buckler decided to stick it out—and fortunately for him. He eventually cracked the Bulldogs’ receiving rotation, playing in a few games while making his first varsity reception from second-string quarterback Jeff Paulk against Texas A&M, as Georgia went through its season unscathed en route to the program’s first undisputed national championship.
“To be a part of that great group of guys, a national title-winning team—and that includes everybody: scholarship players, walk-ons, managers, trainers, coaches—is still so special to me,” Buckler said. “And, as I have often thought over the years, because of multiple reasons, I nearly wasn’t a part of that team.”
Good times on—and off—the field
During the spring following Georgia’s championship campaign, Buckner received a most unexpected phone call in his room at McWhorter Hall, the school’s athletic dormitory, from David Chan of Playboy magazine. At the time, the premier men’s entertainment periodical had a circulation of over five million copies in the United States alone.
The distinguished photographer informed an astonished Buckler that the magazine was in Athens, shooting photographs of UGA female students for a special pictorial to be released the following fall, and had the idea of including players from Georgia’s national title team in a photograph. Chan and his assistant had been looking through a program from the ’80 season and noticed Buckler’s photo, along with those of departing senior defensive backs Mike Fisher and Bob Kelly (ironically, both former walk-ons), and hoped the trio of players could meet up with the magazine.
“Let me first say, no one got naked for the photo—not the girls and certainly not the players. In fact, it might be the only fully clothed photo in the entire magazine.” Buckler said with a laugh. “When I got off the phone with the photographer, I grabbed Fisher and Bob, we each grabbed a jersey—I could only find a tearaway jersey—and we met up with Playboy on top of the roof of the old Holiday Inn on Broad Street. The photo was taken, we left, and didn’t think too much about it—at least not until the magazine came out several months later.”
Battling for a starting receiver spot as his senior season approached, Buckler had another brush with beauty, you could say, when he started dating a stunning freshman from Dalton, Ga. Introduced to Buckler by his McWhorter Hall roommate, Marla Maples became part of Buckler’s walk-on story, as the pair dated during that football season. It was approximately a dozen years before the model and actress became Marla Trump, the second wife of President Donald Trump.
“When rumors about Marla and Donald Trump first started about them dating, my mother just happened to be reading an article in the National Enquirer, where it mentioned Marla’s past ‘romantic interests.’ And I was mentioned,” Buckler said. “My mother let out such a loud scream when seeing my name in that gossip magazine, my dad, who was in a different room, thought someone had broken into the house.”
“Marla and I still stay in touch,” Buckler added. “We text every now and then. She’s a very special woman.”
Just a couple of days prior to the start of the 1981 season, Playboy released its October issue containing a nine-page “Girls of the Southeastern Conference” pictorial. Pictured at the top of page 150 of the magazine is Buckler, surrounded by teammates Fisher and Kelley, and two female students. As one of the first issues of its kind, the magazine was featured in newspapers throughout the Southeast, and seemed to appear everywhere that fall in Athens and on the UGA campus. Buckler was soon nicknamed “Coast to Coast” by a team trainer because of his appearance in a magazine, “…that was everywhere, coast to coast.”
“That magazine seemed to be everywhere,” Buckler recalled. “I remember even seeing copies lying around the locker room. People would ask me in bars to sign copies of it. Hell, I’ve even had people ask me in recent years if I know where they can get a copy.”
Playboy would continue its “Girls of the Southeastern Conference (and other conferences)” series well into the 2000s, featuring hundreds of different photos. The image of Buckler is believed to be the only one in the entire series displaying a then-current player wearing his jersey.
After beginning his senior season as a reserve and still without a scholarship—the only non-scholarship player of Georgia’s mere 12 seniors—Buckler made his initial start in game four against South Carolina. After a nine-turnover effort in a 13-3 loss to Clemson the previous week, it became clear to Georgia’s offensive coaches that the Bulldogs needed better blocking from their wideouts. Starting at split end, Buckler provided a tremendous blocking threat on the outside for one of the nation’s top rushing offenses.
Although flanker Lindsay Scott, an eventual first-round draft pick, was overwhelmingly Georgia’s primary receiving target in 1981, Buckler also routinely stood out on the receiving end while displaying his blocking prowess. His three catches in a win at Vanderbilt were second on the team, earning him the nickname “The Vandy Killer”—another moniker he’s sometimes referred to as even today. Trailing Florida by a touchdown in the third quarter, his crushing downfield block split two defenders, freeing tailback Herschel Walker for a catch-and-run touchdown. In the final quarter against the Gators, Buckler made a critical reception from quarterback Buck Belue on second and long near the opposing goal line. On the next play, Walker scored a touchdown, breaking a tie in Georgia’s eventual 26-21 comeback victory.
The sure-handed Buckler, whose seven catches in the 1981 regular season were the second-most among Bulldog wide receivers (behind Scott), added another reception for a first down against Pittsburgh in the fourth quarter of the Sugar Bowl.
“If you say he caught seven passes as a senior, I’m willing to say Lon was only thrown seven passes as a senior,” Coach Dooley told UGASports in a 2020 interview. “If Lon got open and the ball was there, he was going to catch the football—no doubt.”
Just days after his nickname-worthy performance at Vanderbilt, Buckler finally received from Dooley what had always eluded the walk-on.
“At a meeting before a practice, Coach Dooley got up in front of the team and said that I’d finally be getting a scholarship, beginning a few months later with the start of Winter quarter,” Buckler began. “And then Coach said to the team, ‘And he has until then to screw it up!’ It was really funny and got all the guys laughing. It was a side of Coach Dooley we didn’t often see.”
Buckler wouldn’t screw it up, finally getting on scholarship the next quarter, where he remained until graduating in 1983 with a degree in Business Education. But his story certainly doesn’t end there.
New triumphs, new challenges
On April Fool’s Day of 1995, Buckler became, according to the Atlanta Journal, the city of “Norcross’ first [Georgia] Lotto winner…a $5 million prize” after purchasing the winning ticket at a local Nalley’s One Stop. Thirty years later, regarding his millionaire status, Buckler, who has been divorced twice, adds humorously (but in all seriousness), “Yeah, I won all that money—but that was two wives ago…”
Buckler’s acting and modeling work includes having appeared in commercials and print ads for decades. His print-ad appearances include an advertisement with Coca-Cola, which ironically ended up running in Playboy magazine in 1990. An ad he did in the early 2000s for Wrangler Jeans also wound up running in the magazine.
“So, I’ve told people—and most of them get confused when I tell them this—I’ve been in Playboy three times, in three different decades, but always with my clothes on…” he said with a laugh.
In 2020, Buckler suddenly encountered a seemingly insurmountable obstacle along what had been an extraordinary journey when he was diagnosed with stage 3 hard palate cancer. Fighting the cancer over the next couple of years, he underwent a series of lengthy surgeries, followed by skin graft procedures all over his body.
During the medical procedures, it was discovered Buckler’s jawbone was beginning to slowly deteriorate due to all of the radiation and chemotherapy treatments he had undergone. Local doctors suggested a grueling surgery to replace deteriorating bone in his jaw with healthy bone from the fibula in one of his legs.
Fighting oral cancer while dealing with a deteriorating jaw, which appeared like it would lead to another long and painful recovery for Buckler, was the lowest of lows for the former Georgia football walk-on. To live was to often be in constant pain. Nevertheless, demonstrating the same no-quit attitude he exhibited when he walked on at Georgia more than four decades before, he faced his medical challenges head-on.
“My faith in God and knowing how to face challenges got me through all my medical issues. It was a tough battle though—a lot of pain,” Buckler said. “But I compare it a lot to what I went through walking on at Georgia. Every day, I often prayed, and I always thought of my brother. I’d then do what I had done before: battle, grind, and fight at every moment. Despite the pain, I just held on, every day, and never, ever quit. … Walking on at Georgia definitely helped prepare me for the other challenges I had coming in life, like my cancer and deteriorating jaw.”
Instead of undergoing the jawbone surgery suggested by local physicians, Buckler discovered an alternative procedure 700 miles away after, of all things, a Google search. Ultimately, a surgeon in Ohio carved blood vessels out of the inside of Buckler’s ear and implanted them into the deteriorating portion of his jawbone.
Today, there is no sign of deterioration in Buckler’s jawbone. In addition, this September will mark an all-important milestone of him being considered “cancer-free” for five years. Although dozens of surgeries and medical procedures have permanently scarred portions of his body, extracted all of his lymph nodes, and removed the majority of his taste buds (and he has been left with somewhat of a nasally sounding voice he’s not too fond of), Buckler says he’s “blessed to still be on this earth to continue my journey.”
In closing, Buckler notes that he still has a long way to go on that journey—a journey we found to be not only entertaining, but also a story of inspiration.
“I hear Playboy magazine recently got back in print. Maybe I can appear in it for a fourth time, in four different decades,” Buckler suggested as our interview was ending. “I am still modeling, and I still have plenty of time. I just recently signed up for Medicare…”
