Packers' duo introduces fashion lines Safety Marques Anderson gets help displaying his new 'M dot A' clothing line as well as receiver Javon Walker's 'J Walk' apparel during a news conferennce at Bay Park Square on Saturday (photo by Tina Gohr). By Anna Krejci News-Chronicle When Javon Walker, wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers, was growing up, he wore clothes that bore the name of Chicago Bulls basketball star Michael Jordan. Now Walker and teammate Marques Anderson are getting a taste of what it is like to have their names on their own lines of clothes. Walker's "J Walk" and Anderson "M dot A" clothing lines are being sold in 24 department stores throughout the state. The clothes were unveiled on Saturday at Bay Park Square mall in Ashwaubenon. Jordan was a role model for Walker. "Everybody loves Michael," Walker said. "He knew how to get the best out of the situation by using his name and the class-act person he was. You follow in a guy's footsteps like that, you can't go wrong." "I just love what he did for himself and what he did for the game and how he worked at developing himself," he added. Not surprisingly, Walker said he never could have predicted his nickname would grace a line of clothing. Choosing a nickname as a title was easy, since "Nobody ever really says my first name," Walker said. Among his aliases: "Slick" and "Tank." His college friends called him "Slick" after he kept surfacing in all kinds of groups outside of the two sports for which he is most known, football and baseball. "People started calling me 'Slick' because I was always in places I wasn't supposed to be, but it was always places that nobody would expect me to be," he said. He hung out with the soccer, swimming and golf teams at Florida State University. Walker's mother, Bernita Goldsmith, still calls her son "Tank," as does much of his family. Goldsmith said Walker's grandmother invented the name as he slowly but steadily roamed the floors on hands and knees as a baby, as if he were a slow-rolling Army tank. "I'm not gonna get rid of that," she said. Anderson's line features his initials. His first name sets him apart as an individual while his last name represents his family heritage, the safety said. With the clothes being distributed in stores across the state, Anderson said, "I feel like the Puff Daddy of Wisconsin," a rapper whose names include Sean Combs and P. Diddy. When asked if he could design a clothes line featuring an author - Anderson earned a bachelor of arts degree in literature from the University of California-Los Angeles - he said he would pick a line of clothes for William Shakespeare's "Othello." "We could definitely get into the medieval stuff," he said. Upon presenting a receipt for the purchases of clothes from the new lines, fans could get Walker's and Anderson's autographs. Packers fan Cayden Lasecki, 9, bought an item from Walker's line of clothes so he could have a football jersey autographed. "It's just kind of cool because I'm basically looking the same as a pro football player," said Laseckik, who aspires to be a professional football player. Like many of the Packers, Walker and Anderson make visits to schools to talk to students, encouraging them to succeed. "When I was growing up there were a lot of guys who I know who were great athletes who could be at the level I'm in right now but maybe just never had the opportunity to get a chance to go to college. ... You know, I like to talk to the guys and tell them I went through the same things that you guys went through, I just kept a dream that I had alive," he said. "There's plenty of athletes and great people out there who can go out and make themselves a name in college," Walker said. Anderson said he wants to relate to kids through a book he is writing on how to achieve. The stores carrying the clothes lines and the two football players who were the inspiration for them will be making donations to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. For every touchdown Walker makes this season, he will donate $84 to the foundation; and Anderson will donate $20 for every tackle, sack or interception he executes this season. Walker and Anderson are numbers 84 and 20 on the team, respectively. The stores carrying the new lines of clothing - Boston Store, Younkers and Herberger's - will match their donations.