Former ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ star does more than roundhouse kicks

Chuck Norris estimates he has roundhouse kicked thousands of people in the face.

The 66-year-old Norris is currently working on a bevy of projects, including The Justice Riders – a novel set in the 1870s, based on a band of seven covert operatives during the Civil War conflict.

“They’re such a divisive group of men,” Norris said excitedly about the main characters of his novel. The cast includes a former member of the Queen’s Royal Guard, a pair of identical twins and a half-white, half-Sioux Indian.

Norris also said the book will not only entertain audiences, but educate them with facts they may not have known about the Civil War.

“There’s a lot of actual facts in this book that a lot of people wouldn’t know about,” said Norris, who told the story about a captain overcrowding a steamboat with 1,600 soldiers that ended up sinking in the Mississippi, killing the majority of the soldiers on the boat.

“The reason why people don’t really know about it today is that when the boat went down, it was the same week that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated,” Norris said, who was able to add this historical event into The Justice Riders.

Norris has also established the World Combat League – a new take on fighting events such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The main difference in Norris’ league is the time constraint – fighters only have three minutes to battle it out.

“Anything you do to try to slow down the pace of the fight will give the other fighter a point,” Norris said. “These fighters really have to let it go, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”

However, the World Combat League contributes to a more noble cause – the KickStart program, which teaches troubled and underprivileged children martial arts as a method of discipline.

Norris said the program currently has 5,000 students enrolled and has graduated more than 40,000 students in the past 13 years. He hopes he can use the World Combat League to further expand the KickStart program.

“I was an at-risk kid growing up. I was raised in poverty in Oklahoma – raised by my mom because my dad was an alcoholic and a philanderer and was never home,” Norris said. “I can identify with most of these youngsters.”

Although he is probably most famous for his roll in “Walker, Texas Ranger” and movies such as Sidekicks, Norris had had a lot of Hollywood influence that doesn’t always jump right out at people. He has taught celebrities such as Bob Barker and Steve McQueen martial arts.

“I taught Bob (Barker) for several years – in fact, he still trains,” Norris said. “He still trains every morning in his garage that we converted into a gym.”

Norris helped Barker prepare for his starring role in Happy Gilmore, where Barker kicked Adam Sandler’s ass during the course of a celebrity golf outing.

“The first thing he (Barker) did was call me to see if I had seen the movie,” Norris said.

Norris has also been earning notoriety on the Internet via a series of Chuck Norris jokes, which depict him in an omnipotent manner. According to 4Q.cc, “Chuck Norris doesn’t get wet – water gets Chuck Norris.” The Web site also features a list of similar “facts” about Vin Diesel and Mr. T.

“Some of them are as funny as heck,” he said. “I mean, you know, the Boogeyman wakes up at night to make sure Chuck Norris isn’t in the closet. Truthfully, I’ve kind of enjoyed reading all of these ‘facts.'”

Contact assistant ALL editor Ben Breier at [email protected].