Walter & Me

Author’s Note

This book is based primarily upon the author’s recollections. Whenever possible, the author’s version of events has been confirmed with sources such as books, magazine articles, and personal interviews. Conversations have been recreated as precisely as possible according to the memories of the individuals involved.

All proceeds earned by Eddie Payton from the sale of this book will go to the Payton Family Foundation. The money raised by the foundation supports the Walter “Sweetness” Payton Memorial Scholarship. Scholarships are awarded each year to economically disadvantaged students from around the country. For more information, visit paytonfamilyfoundation.com.

Foreword by Mike Ditka

I don’t have to read an unauthorized biography of Walter Payton to know what kind of man he was. I coached him. I knew him myself. He was my friend. And when it comes to someone writing a book about my friend, I have to ask, how well did the writer really know him? Did he grow up with him? Was he on the field with him? Did he live with him? Was he a parent? Was he a coach? Was he a brother? In the case of Jeff Pearlman, the answer to those questions is clearly “no.” Pearlman wrote a book about Walter, but it was written only from a distance. It was all secondhand. He put together a few things he’d heard—some of them from people who have very little credibility—to paint a picture that just doesn’t look much like the Walter I knew.

One thing we all know is that Walter Payton was a great football player. That is unquestionable. Even Pearlman can talk about Walter’s skills on the field and be taken seriously, because we have the evidence on film. We measure greatness by what we see a person do, and as a football player, Walter did it all. He was a majestic runner, he was a vicious blocker, he controlled the ball with magic, and he caught the ball with grace. He even passed the ball a little before I got to Chicago. What’s more, though, is that Walter was the consummate teammate, a born and respected leader. Everyone looked up to him, even the players who physically towered over him. He was the key guy on our 1985 Super Bowl team, yet he put the team above himself. He was a true cornerstone in every sense of the word. A lot of NFL players do great things, but few are truly great the way Walter was, and none are greater. If I had to pick one player from any era to start a football team with, it’d be him.

Have there been other guys who ran with the ball better than Walter? Maybe. I’ll let you argue about that. But you can’t argue about the fact that nobody ran
harder
than Walter. Nobody left more on the field. Nobody had a bigger heart or a greater will to win. But that’s not all. Walter was so much more than a football player. I’ve known a lot of superb athletes in my life and have met a lot of the current players in the NFL. Never have I met a guy who was or is as giving, sharing, or understanding as Walter was. He took time to be with regular people. He visited kids who needed a hero. He paid attention to and truly respected the fans who watched him play every Sunday. He was a part of them, and they were a part of him. Walter did the little things that some of the egomaniacs in the game today won’t do…and he did them because he wanted to, because that’s what defined him. He didn’t just spend time with the common man; he was one of them. He just happened to be uncommonly gifted.

Was Walter a perfect person? Are you? Listen, we’re all human beings. We’re all in this thing together, trying to find our way, and, yes, we all mess up every now and then. I think to err is human, and to forgive is divine. I don’t know every single detail about Walter’s personal life, and I can’t say for certain that he never did anything wrong. When it comes to his marriage, I know that he and Connie did separate, but that’s about all I know. But the Walter Payton I knew was good for everything that mattered to me: people, football, and, in particular, the Chicago Bears. He’ll always hold a high place in my book, and you couldn’t pay me enough to ever crack the cover of Pearlman’s book. I know he tried to say you can’t just look at the excerpts, but I saw all I needed to see in those excerpts. It’s pathetic to write something like that about an individual who isn’t here to defend himself. If the person has passed and can’t respond, then just let the speculation rest with him. Period.

Obviously, if you’re going to look for negative things and pick through someone’s life, you’ll probably find something that isn’t all that great. If you look at anyone closely enough, a blemish or two will appear. That’s just part of having skin, which is something we all have. It may seem like some of us have armor instead of skin, but I assure you, those guys are still human. So what if we found a chink in Walter’s armor? We’re talking about a guy who had so many great qualities that, when you add them up, his shortcomings all but disappear. He had characteristics that anyone would want in a son or a friend or a neighbor or a father. A man should be judged on the whole, and the whole of Walter Payton was pretty damn good. So, let’s not listen too much to the guys who didn’t know Walter. They only have fragments to share and cannot possibly give us the whole. Instead, let’s listen to someone who really knew the man.

I only knew Eddie Payton through Walter, but I saw firsthand what he could do on that football field. I wish I’d had Eddie returning kicks for me, I can tell you that. He was the brother of the greatest player of all time, but he was a pretty damn good player himself. He taught Walter well when they were at Jackson State, and, like Walter, Eddie was a quality person off the field. I know Walter was very proud of Eddie and thought a lot of his big brother. I know this because I coached Walter and saw him every day. It was obvious that his brother was a big part of his life. They had a bond that just couldn’t be broken. It was a bond that only siblings can share. Having grown up with Walter, Eddie knew him better than most. He’s certainly more than a writer just trying to fit some fragments together. So, let’s stop listening to those who didn’t wholly know my friend. Instead, let’s hear from someone who was there from the beginning and all the way through to the end. Let’s hear from Eddie Payton.

—Mike Ditka

Preface by Paul Brown

My first exposure to a Payton came on a sweltering summer’s night in 1971. The occasion was the Mississippi High School All-Star Game played in Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson, Mississippi. My father and I had annually attended this event, during which we’d scour the program between periods of watching the play on the field. We were always looking for the next Archie Manning, who we’d seen play in the same affair four years prior, when both rosters were filled with only white players. It didn’t take long for a running back from the South squad to stand out, and it wasn’t because he was one of only a handful of black kids on the field. White, black, or purple, this kid was special. I remember asking Dad where he had signed to play college ball, and to our great surprise, he was listed in the program as “unsigned.”

“I hope Mississippi State is recruiting him,” I remarked to my dad. “We need a lot of help.”

“I might write Coach Shira a letter and tell him about this kid,” Dad said (he was a notorious letter-writer to the MSU athletic department back in the day).

“What’s his name, Dad?”

“Walter Payton,” Dad said, glancing at the program. “Says here he’s 5'10", 185 pounds…but he looks bigger than that.”

Well, he sure ran bigger. Walter Payton ripped through, over, and around the North team. Walter was the clear star of the game. I followed the college recruiting process for the rest of the summer, wondering if (or hoping that) the college at which I was a junior (Mississippi State) would get lucky (or smart) and sign this Walter Payton phenomenon.

As it’d turn out, not a single Southeastern Conference school, including Mississippi State, would recruit Walter. Just before the start of the school year, Walter signed with Jackson State College (which became Jackson State University in 1974). I remember wondering if Jackson State even knew what it was getting. Little did I know, its staff was way ahead of the game. You see, they already had a guy named Payton on the team. His first name was Eddie. He was ripsnortin’ up and down the field. I’ll leave it to you to turn the pages to learn how special these two Paytons would become together at Jackson State and on their own at the next level.

Becoming a fan of the Payton brothers was easy. They were both from Mississippi, and they were both great football players. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see them play together during their one year at Jackson State. I was a poor college student at the time and could barely afford my free student pass to the MSU campus games. My loss.

As both Paytons starred in the NFL, though, I cheered proudly. I’ll never forget when Eddie scored two touchdowns in one game in 1977, then returned a kick 99 yards in 1981 while with the Minnesota Vikings. As for Walter, well, I hosted a Super Bowl party in January of 1986 and arrogantly wore a No. 34 Bears jersey, rooting for Walter and his Chicago team in Super Bowl XX. I
had
discovered him in that all-star game, remember?

My first opportunity to meet one of the Paytons came years later with a chance seating assignment on a flight out of Miami in the late 1980s. I immediately recognized Eddie Payton seated in the window seat next to my aisle seat on a Delta flight returning to Jackson. Eddie was known throughout the area and was an SEC baseball umpire at the time who frequently called Mississippi State games. He was one of the best balls-and-strikes guys I’ve ever seen. Eddie had been playing in a celebrity pro-am golf tournament in the Miami area, and I’d been on a photo shoot in the Everglades. We talked mostly about hunting and fishing, which I quickly learned was a passion of both Payton men.

We promised to stay in touch…and indeed we did. I even wrote a feature magazine piece about the hunting proficiency of the Paytons. Eddie and I became good friends and huntin’ buddies. Eddie likes hunting wild hogs, and I have a glut of that evasive species tearing up my property and competing with the native wildlife. So, Eddie comes over and “helps me out” from time to time. And the guy’s not a bad fisherman either. As for golf, well, let’s just say there ain’t no way I’ll play with him. Walter wouldn’t either. At least that’s something I had in common with Walter—neither of us could compete with Eddie on the golf course. One of several things Eddie and I share is an enthusiasm for the outdoors. Eddie Payton is colorful, energetic, and obsessed with his loves—golf, football, hunting, fishing, and family. We’ve shared many unforgettable moments on the water and in the field. And Eddie has shared so much more…

During the hours upon hours of interviews we conducted for this book, Eddie narrated tale after tale with cool candor, exposing his emotions and those of his late brother. Walter speaks clearly through the pages of this book by way of Eddie’s empathic understanding of his little brother. Walter and Eddie were connected kindred spirits—two of a kind. In the coming pages, you’ll find out exactly what I mean.

—Paul Brown

1. Dyin’ Ain’t Easy

It was late November in 1998, and Sweetness was on his way home. Momma, my friend Bubba Barham, and I were all at the Jackson, Mississippi, airport, waiting on Walter to walk off the plane. It had touched down just moments before. Daddy would have been there, too, had he not already passed on. The airport was busting at the seams with busyness, and with Christmas only a few weeks away, the atmosphere was full of good cheer. There were big ol’ smiles all over the place and lots of laughter and chipper chatter as folks met up with loved ones, associates, and friends. It all paled in comparison to how I felt, though. I was more keyed up than anyone, that’s for sure. It’d been about five months since I’d seen my brother, so I was really looking forward to jumping in a car with him for the ride over to Butler, Alabama. We were headed to our annual deer hunt at Pushmataha Plantation.

It seemed like forever until people started walking off that plane, so it was quite a welcome sight to see Walter among the first passengers coming through. There he was, a larger-than-life sports icon who doubled as my little bro. He had a bag on his arm and, once he saw me, a big smile on his face. But it didn’t take long to see something was wrong with that normally electrified grin of his. It didn’t match the merriness of the other smiles floating all around us. Actually, Walter’s smile wasn’t floating at all. It looked as heavy as that bag he was carrying. Maybe he’d had a bad flight. Did the other passengers hound him for autographs? Did the plane hit a rough patch and toss him around a bit? Did all that turbulence make him toss his peanuts?

I looked over at my momma, Alyne, and her face was like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds that had followed Walter off that plane. Her toothy smile was as wide-open as the great American South, and her eyes sparked up as bright as the stars out there in that clear Southern sky. She approached Walter with her arms open even wider than her smile and gave him the biggest Momma hug I’d ever seen. You know, the extra-long, uncut, extended version of what would have already been a pretty long hug. Walter didn’t fight it at all; he just let it linger. About an hour later it was my turn. I looked deep into Walter’s eyes before hugging him with all my might. The world knew him as Sweetness, but I knew him as something more. He was my brother, and I was his. We slapped each other on the back with that great-to-see-you-bro-but-this-is-gonna-hurt-a-little enthusiasm that only brothers can give each other.

As we pulled away, I looked at Walter’s eyes again, only this time not so deep. I focused on the surface and noticed the color. Just like that, all the heaviness that had gone away came right on back. “Dawg, you feelin’ okay?” I asked in a way that was more like a statement than a question. That color…it was definitely off. “You look a little yellow. Your eyes…”

Sweetness had grown accustomed to shaking defensive backs on the field, but when he heard my question, all he could shake was his head. “Nah, I’m good, dawg. I’m good. I just been drinkin’ a lot of juice, takin’ a lot of vitamins and stuff. You know, cleansin’ my system and all that.”

Despite his MVP-worthy effort, he sure wasn’t shaking my concern with all his vitamin talk. I could just see something wasn’t right about him, and Momma was starting to take notice, too. Her eyes stopped sparking like stars and started moving up and down with that patented Payton quickness that was passed down to Walter and me. She was scanning her baby boy as if examining him. “You losing weight, Walter?”

“Yeah, sure,” Walter conceded. “This stuff I’m taking and drinking…I don’t know, maybe I’ve lost a few pounds, but I’m fine. Really, I am.”

I jumped back in. “Well, when you get back to Chicago, you need to get yourself checked out.”

“I will, man, I will. Don’t worry, I’m good.” He put his hand on my shoulder to change subjects. “Let’s go huntin’!”

I’d gotten so wrapped up in hunting for answers from Walter that I’d forgotten about all the real hunting we were fixin’ to do. Walter’s “let’s go huntin’” snapped me back to it, though, and I decided to look past what was bothering me. Yellow eyes or not, I was ready to go hunting with Sweetness.

We visited with Momma for a little while longer there in the airport before Walter, Bubba, and I left for Alabama. When Momma finally said her good-byes, she walked away without saying another word about Walter’s weight or how he looked. I thought I should probably do the same for the rest of the trip, so it was mostly small talk on the drive to Pushmataha. You know, just catchin’ up and whatnot. He’d already assured us he would get checked out when he got back, so that was that.

When we got to the lodge that evening, we were sitting around, just chillin’ in anticipation of our morning hunt the next day. I looked closely at Walter’s eyes again. Contrasted against his dark complexion, they were as yellow as a Post-it note colored in full with a neon yellow marker and placed under a neon yellow light. Okay, maybe they weren’t that yellow, but you get the idea. I was still disturbed by those yellow eyes, but I told myself I wasn’t going to bring it up again on that trip, so I kept my mouth shut. Then I noticed his skin. Even with skin as dark as Walter’s, I could see the yellowish undertones. Not as drastic as his eyes, but it was there. And that’s when my mouth just had to open.

“Hey, dawg,” I said as we sat there. He looked at me with raised eyebrows that said “what’s up?” I responded to his eyebrows with a two-word accusation. “You’re jaundiced.”

Walter’s eyebrows lowered quickly to form a scowl. “I told you not to worry. It’s just the juice, man.”

It wasn’t adding up to me, but what did I know? I’m not a doctor, and I’d heard of that sort of thing happening before with vitamins and juice. Maybe he was all right, but I wanted to hear it from a professional. “Okay, okay, just get it checked out to be sure.”

“I told you I will, man. I promise, okay?” It was a short conversation, but I could tell he’d had enough of it anyway. It was time to head to bed and start dreaming about all those deer we’d be hunting the next day. All that worrying and questioning about yellow eyes and skin must have worn me out, too, ’cause I was sleeping like a rock as soon as I hit the mattress.

We all woke up bright and early the next day ready to hunt, so we got right on out there. It was a good hunt, but Walter didn’t seem like his usual energetic self; he seemed fatigued and lethargic, even for a normal person, but much more so for a world-class athlete. I tried to let it go and just have a good time, but when we got back to the lodge to clean up and rest a little, I noticed Walter as he got out of the shower. I was shocked at what I saw. It looked to me like he’d lost about 25 to 30 pounds since the last time we’d gotten together. Now, again, I’m no doctor, but dropping that much weight over five months for a guy like Walter didn’t make sense. The drastic weight loss plus the yellow eyes plus the yellow skin was all adding up quickly in my mind to one thing: Walter was a sick man. I had to express my concern once again and insist he really go see a doctor.

“Walter, man, what’s up? You look pretty thin. I don’t think those juices and vitamins are making you lose that much weight. And I don’t think it’s turning you yellow neither. I don’t give a shit what you think is causin’ it, you need to have it checked out. I’m serious.”

Walter had a look of defeat on his face. It was very unusual for him. “Look, I’ll go to the doctor if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Well, it damn sure will,” I said, “and it’ll make you feel better, too.”

“Just promise me one thing, okay?” Walter said. “I promise I’ll go get checked out right when I get back if you promise not to bring it up again for the rest of this trip.” I agreed, and so we hunted hard for the next three days without a word about how Walter looked or any of that. When I took Walter back to the airport for his return flight to Chicago, though, I couldn’t help myself. I walked with him to the gate and bit my tongue only until the boarding call. That’s when I made him promise me one more time that he’d see a doctor when he got back to Chicago.

“I promise,” he said with a wink and a grin, and just like that, he turned and was off again.

I tried to talk myself into thinking maybe it actually was just vitamins and all that, like Walter said. Maybe he was okay. After all, he was Superman, and I hadn’t heard anything about any kryptonite where we’re from. This was a man who had only missed one game in his entire NFL career. I had absolutely no need to worry. That’s what I wanted to think, and that’s what I tried to tell myself. But in the days following our hunt, I just couldn’t get Walter off my mind. I kept thinking back to that week hunting with him in Alabama, and the same troubling details kept rising to the top of my head. Not only was he yellow-eyed, yellow-skinned, frail, and tired, but he also didn’t eat much during the trip. He said he wasn’t hungry, but that just wasn’t Walter. He was always hungry, so something just had to be wrong. I felt a little better each time I remembered he was going to see a doctor. What I didn’t know at the time was that a few weeks prior, he already had.

Walter was a big, big star, but he was a very private person. He kept mostly to himself, and if something was wrong, he’d often try to keep it even from his family. He didn’t want anyone fussin’ over him or worrying about anything. Looking back, my opinion is that Walter came to that deer hunt fully suspecting he was seriously ill. I think that’s why he visited a doctor before the trip, and I think that’s why he let Momma’s hug linger for as long as possible. I think that heaviness around him at the airport wasn’t something I imagined. I think that shadow coming off the plane behind him was something he knew was there. I think he also knew that what was ahead of him was the most difficult challenge of his life.

When I checked in on him just days after he got back, he told me he had visited a doctor already and that he had been diagnosed with “vitamin toxicity.” Now, I have no reason to think he was lying to me. I think he did visit that doctor, and I think that doctor really did tell him it was vitamins. Of course, that’s what Walter had blamed it all on during our hunting trip, but I felt a little better about it when he told me a doctor actually said it. I’m not sure why I didn’t think to ask him why he didn’t tell me before that he’d already seen a doctor. Maybe I was just too excited to hear that it was just because of the vitamins. Looking back, though, I think Walter may’ve talked the doctor into that diagnosis. He couldn’t do it with me, but Walter had a way of talking others into saying what he wanted to hear.

As soon as Walter returned to Chicago from his trip, he picked up his regular schedule as best he could. And his regular schedule was anything but regular. It could usually be boiled down to three words and then three more:
hustle
,
hustle
,
hustle
and
push
,
push
,
push
. Before his illness, all that activity would have been because that’s just how Walter Payton lived his life. After his illness, I think it was all a distraction so he could avoid dealing with reality. He was trying to act normal, but it certainly wasn’t normal for Walter to go to the doctor. He couldn’t keep the charade up for long due to one very inconvenient truth: Walter kept getting worse.

When he called me up to tell me things weren’t going so well, despite what the doctor had said about vitamins, that’s when I knew things were bad. That’s when I really started to worry. And that’s when we started to connect like we did back in the day, before we got pulled away from each other by life. For the first time in a long time, we started talking a lot. Every three days, in fact. And our days of talking weren’t the only things coming in threes. He started describing three recurring symptoms: severe stomach aches, diarrhea, and exhaustion. Those things were hitting him harder than any linebacker ever did. Sweetness was hurting, and I could tell he was reaching out to me, his older brother, to push him to do something about it. He couldn’t force himself to take the next step, so he was asking me to. And that’s exactly what I did. I told him to forget all this vitamin stuff he heard from that doctor and finally get some real help. He stopped telling me nothing was wrong and agreed to do what I said.

In early December, Walter called Jim Sheridan, a business partner and one of his closest friends. I didn’t know much about the guy, but I knew he had a lot to do with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. That’s to say, I knew he was legit and would be able to help my little bro. He was a very busy guy, but he got Walter worked in within a few weeks, which was fantastic. Still, I was worried. The fact that Walter listened to me and was going in there to get checked out had me thinking something very bad could be going down. I didn’t feel optimistic about it at all. I feared the worst. I expected our world to come crashing down. Even so, I was stunned by the results. Superman had stumbled upon some kryptonite.

Walter was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a rare and chronic disease that attacks the bile ducts of the liver. In plain English, he was gravely ill, and the diagnosis hit me like a speeding bullet. I was dazed, trying to make sense of it all, and at the same time I was trying to keep up with my duties as golf coach at Jackson State. It was a tough, tough time and almost impossible to stay focused on my job. Primary sclerosing cholangitis didn’t sound good, and not just because I couldn’t pronounce it. Walter was dying. He wasn’t just injured, he wasn’t just hit a little too hard in the head, and he wasn’t just “doubtful” for his next NFL game. My little brother was actually dying. He was doubtful to live.

Then I got a little bit of hope from Walter. He explained that the doctors said a liver transplant could save his life. I pumped my fist and instantly thought Walter was gonna make it. He’d be certain to get a transplant. I mean, he was a big football hero, so surely they’d put him high on the list, right? Well, in all my hope, I guess I forgot for a second that Walter is Walter. He told the doctors that just because he carried a football better than most people in the world didn’t mean he deserved to get ahead of anyone else on the list. The Mickey Mantle liver transplant fiasco was still fresh on Walter’s mind, I think. Some thought Mantle had jumped ahead of others since he got his donor liver in just one day, and Walter didn’t want to be remembered as pushing folks aside to get his. He didn’t think he was better than anyone else, and he didn’t want to be treated that way. That was hard for his family to hear.