by Eddie Payton
A lot of people actually never realized just how shy Walter was when he was coming up, from back when he was a kid all the way to when he was a star running back. It sometimes seemed like he had social anxiety disorder and couldn’t really deal too well with the type of attention women threw at him. He had no trouble in front of faceless crowds, of course, but he wasn’t so good with actual faces. He’d get in front of a big crowd and light up the room. His warm personality would just come out and make its way to everyone in a general sort of way, but one-on-one, he was a mess.
As far as being a womanizer, well, let me tell you that he couldn’t have been one. I know some people say he was, and they get a lot of attention for themselves or sell a lot of books and magazines that way, but I’m telling you, as his brother, that Walter was not a womanizer. He just wasn’t. You know, a lot of people ask me about Jeff Pearlman’s book and all the accusations in there about Walter’s womanizing ways, and I tell them that the guy made a mistake. He had Walter and me mixed up. I mean, listen, if somebody said “Payton” was out with three women or whatever, they weren’t talking about Walter. They were talking about me. I was flying under the radar, of course, because I wasn’t leading the league in rushing like my little brother, but when it came to rushing up to women, I had him beat big time. Whenever I was with Walter out at a party of whatever, probably 100 women would throw themselves at him. But at the end of the night, he’d just go home to Connie. Now, I know that’s not headline news because people like to focus on the “dead fish,” as I said before, but truth is truth. Walter resisted women far better than any other man I know could’ve done in his situation. And that, my friends, is the truth.
Of course, when Walter went home to Connie, I often picked up the pieces with the disappointed ladies he left behind. You see, I wasn’t monogamous at that time. I didn’t have to be because I was single, but still, I was basically a dog. I’ll admit it, okay? Walter and I would be at some NFL function together or party of some sort, and women would just throw themselves at him looking for their 15 minutes of Sweetness (if not fame), but I’d be the one who ended up with ’em. To those women rejected by my little brother, I suppose I was the next-best thing. That was just fine by me. Walter would always figure out how to blow ’em off, and I’d always try to figure out how to get a…well, you can figure it out. Let me just say, there were definitely some benefits to standing in the shadow of Sweetness.
Of course, it got to where it didn’t matter if I was in Walter’s shadow or not. When I went to Kansas City, where I played one year, it was kind of like one continuous orgy. I won’t say I’m proud of that, but I will say that’s how it was. In Kansas City, just being on the team meant women would just flock to you. It was the damndest thing I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life. And they’d follow us everywhere. It didn’t matter if we were playing at home or away, they’d be there trying to get with us. And let me tell you, they didn’t need to try hard. If we were on the road, we’d get in the morning before the game and we’d go out on the field and warm up. Then we’d have our meetings and stuff like that. When we went back to the hotel, those women would already be there in the lobby just hanging around. As a player, you didn’t pick them—they picked you. They’d already know our stats, our pictures, our shoe sizes, and some things that even we didn’t know about ourselves. They’d all done their homework and knew exactly who they wanted.
There was this one girl I got with who was either Korean or Vietnamese. She had picked out one of our defensive linemen as her target, and she was pursuing him hot and heavy. He kept resisting her advances, though, and kept telling me, “Man, I wish she’d leave me alone. I wish she’d just go away. I don’t want nothing to do with her. I’ve got a girlfriend.” I was thinking, Well…um…do you mind if I uh…? He and I had become good friends that whole season, until he came over to the house one day to get a game tape and that Korean/Vietnamese girl answered the door. He never spoke to me again. I guess if he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want anybody to.
It’s hard to be monogamous and in the NFL at the same time. I mean, my brother and that defensive lineman are two of the exceptions. But even though Walter shied away from the ladies, one thing he never shied away from was good, clean fun. You already know how much he liked prankin’ people, and that carried over to the NFL. How could Walter have so much social anxiety and at the same time be such a prankster? I’m not sure, but I know he never stopped punking people. He’d even go back to Jackson State as a pro and start looking for his next victim. One time that victim was his college coach. I guess once you leave college and become a big star in the NFL and lead the league in rushing and all of that, you’ve earned the right to mess with Coach Hill.
Coach Hill and Walter kept in touch and would often talk about Jackson State’s current players, how they were doing and all of that. One time, Coach unintentionally gave Walter some ammunition for a prank. He told Walter about this one player who had a crazy girlfriend that he needed to get out of his life. Well, Walter was back in Jackson between seasons one year, and he and Brazile got bored (which was always a dangerous thing), so they decided to call up Coach Hill and have a little fun. They waited until about midnight so Coach would be asleep (or at least very tired), and they dialed his number. Coach picked up and Walter told him in a bit of concerned panic, “Coach, look here, this kid got in a fight with his girlfriend that he’s been living with. You know, that girl you’ve been telling me he needs to get rid of? Well, they got into it big time, and they got them down there in the jail.”
“Oh Lord,” Coach said, seriously calling out to God for help. “Let me get up and go down there.”
“Nah, nah, it’s all right coach,” Walter said, not pushing the prank too far. “We had a little money with us, so it’s cool. We got our money together and put up bond, so we got him out.”
“Oh man, I appreciate that,” Coach said, ready to go back to sleep and to deal with the situation in the morning. “I appreciate y’all doing that for him.” Then they hung up the phone and Walter and Brazile laughed and laughed about what was going to happen.
Well, Coach didn’t sleep very well after that call and decided to deal with the situation at about 6:00 am. Coach had this little guy appropriately named Shortman who worked for him, so Coach sent Shortman over to go get this player to come meet him at his house so they could talk about what happened. Well, the kid didn’t know anything about anything, of course, because nothing had happened. He was just laid up there in the bed, sound asleep. Shortman knocked on the door until the kid got up and opened it. Shortman went in the room and said, “Look, Coach wants to see you.”
“For what?” the kid said, his eyes still squinting out the sleep.
“I don’t know. Coach just told me to come get you, so you better get up and go.” The kid was still under Coach’s control, unlike Walter, and he must have already learned that you don’t mess with Coach Hill, because he got right up and went with Shortman.
When they got to Coach Hill’s house, Coach started right in on him. Coach asked him to explain what happened, and the kid had no clue what to say. “Now, don’t you lie to me,” Coach said like a daddy about to give a whoopin’. “I already know what happened last night. Just tell me what’s going on.” This went on for a while, with Coach asking the kid to explain and the kid saying the whole time he had no idea what Coach was talking about. Finally, Coach believed him and realized that Walter had set the whole thing up. He thought about how he should’ve seen it coming given Walter’s history, and he dreamed about seeing him running laps as punishment. But he knew he couldn’t do anything about it. Coach just had to deal with it. Walter got ’em both—killed two birds with one prank. He tricked Coach the worst, but he also got the kid. Coach still won’t admit it to this day, but he was punked. And if Walter would punk Coach Hill, well, then no one was immune. Not even his agent.
Bud was out on a pheasant hunting tr
ip one day in North Dakota during Walter’s rookie year, right after Bud had gotten him the highest signing bonus for any player ever from Mississippi. Someone from Bud’s office drove out to find him in what was basically the middle of nowhere. When they finally got out to where he was and tracked him down, they said to Bud, “We have an emergency—Walter Payton’s got to talk to you.”
Bud was enjoying his trip and didn’t want to deal with anything, but he knew he had to. With a hint of annoyance, he said, “Oh, what is it?”
They said, “Don’t know, he wouldn’t say. He just said he’s got to talk to you and that it’s an emergency.” Well, there were no cell phones back then, so Bud had to leave what he was doing and drive all the way back to where he could find a phone. When he finally did, he called Walter, thinking, Yeah, this better be an emergency. Bud said, “Walter, what’s up?”
“Well, I quit,” Walter stated, almost in a pouty sort of way.
“What?” Bud couldn’t believe what he was hearing and had no idea how to respond.
“Yeah, that’s right. I quit. They got me out there at that practice, and they’re trying to tell me to do things and stuff. They want me to do this and that and whatever. I just can’t put up with it. I don’t need this shit. So…I quit. I’m done with it. I’ve already gone home.”
“Walter, come on, man,” Bud said, trying to reason with him.
“Nah, I quit.”
“I tell you what, Walter…” Bud said, not sure what he’d say next. It didn’t matter anyway because Walter cut him off.
“Nah, I quit. That’s it. I’ll just do something else. I’m just not going to put up with it.”
“Come on, Walter. Look, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll change clothes, and I’ll catch a flight out of here.” Bud was up around Bismarck, pretty far away from the problem at hand. “So, I’ll get a flight, and I can meet you over there. Just meet me in Chicago, okay? I’ll just meet you over there.”
“No, I ain’t going to do it,” Walter said emphatically.
Bud was shocked and confused. “Why not?”
“Because, I just ain’t going to do it.”
“You’re telling me you’re not going to do what I tell you?”
“Uh-huh.”
Bud was getting frustrated. “You ain’t going to mind me? Your agent? Haven’t you learned your lesson on that? When the hell did you get so damn big that now you don’t do what I say?”
Walter continued on, “Nah, I ain’t going to go to Chicago.”
Bud begged and pleaded, trying everything to get Walter to meet him in Chicago. “Come on, Walter,” he tried one last time. “What the hell is wrong? How come you won’t just meet me in Chicago so we can handle this?”
Walter then decided to let Bud off the hook. “Because I’m already here. I ain’t going to meet you here ’cause I’m already here.”
Bud was confused. “Huh?”
Walter laughed as he followed it up and said, in his signature playful way, “Yeah, I knew I could get you. I knew I’d get you out of the woods. They told me I couldn’t get you out of the woods, but I told ’em I bet I could. Well, I won my bet.” It didn’t even matter who “they” were; Bud had been had. And Walter just laughed his pants off about it.
Bud was a good sport about it, and that wasn’t the only time Walter pranked Bud. I wouldn’t say Walter was a drinking man, but he sure did love him some Bud. When he wasn’t pulling tricks on him, Walter would even go down to Bud’s farm to train for training camp. Bud’s farm really became Walter’s home away from home, and Bud became his second father. Of course, Bud knew that if they ever got into it as “father” and “son,” Walter would be the one whoopin’ ass. He was as strong as an ox and a workout fiend in those days. His body was just unbelievable, like a sculpted piece of art—chiseled muscles everywhere. I’d go with Walter to Bud’s farm sometimes to work out, too, but Walter would stay longer and train harder than I did. The man was more obsessed with hard work and being in better shape than anyone in the league; I couldn’t keep up with that. I was just Sweet P, so how could I? Walter always said to me, “I want to be in the best shape of anybody on the team. If I’m the key person, then I got to set the pace and be the example.” He was the key person for the Bears, that’s for sure, and he definitely set the pace in terms of physical conditioning. No doubt about that, even if there was some doubt as to his sanity. I mean, his workouts were just plain insane.
He’d sometimes wait until the hottest part of the day, probably about 11:30 am or so, and he’d go over to Southern Mississippi’s stadium in Hattiesburg—about 20 minutes from Bud’s farm. There was never any media out watching him, and very few people knew he was there. If they did, they probably would’ve all come out and seen the craziest workout of their lives. For three hours, from about 11:30 until about 2:30, he’d just run that stadium like it really meant something. He’d never slow down. Not a bit for the whole three hours. He’d just run, run, run…and run some more. When he finished, he’d go take a shower and get in the whirlpool and go back to Bud’s farm to take a nap. Then after just a bit of shut-eye, another crazy (he’d call it “fun”) workout would begin. Walter would dress up in camo pants and army boots and he’d take Bud’s gun from Vietnam out into the woods with him. For the rest of the day, Sweetness would play Rambo. That crazy brother of mine would go all over the farm by himself, running up and down old ditches, and jump across the creek with that gun. He’d get down and hide for a few seconds, then belly crawl out like he was trying to elude the enemy. I was happy to know that some of what I taught my kid brother back in our plum-poaching days stuck with him all that time. Anyway, if you saw him out there, you’d think he was trying to take Hamburger Hill. To Walter, it was great fun. To me, it was a crazy-ass workout. To you, it might sound just plain crazy. But in all seriousness, there wasn’t a six-year-old boy who enjoyed that shit more than he did. It was a dream come true for Walter to be in the NFL, but I think his favorite moments during his football career were those Rambo workouts on Bud’s farm.
My brother worked so hard for his dream that a lot of people would say it was a nightmare. Those people just don’t understand the level of dedication and commitment it takes to make it in pro football. The thing I try to tell young people now (well, the ones who will listen, anyway) is that if you have a dream and believe in yourself, just don’t ever give up on your dream and don’t ever stop believing. Most importantly, don’t ever stop working crazy hard. Do whatever it takes. Because what you may view as a mountain to climb or an impossible fence to get over is just preparing you for what you’re going to have to do when your dream presents itself as reality. Believe the impossible and work impossibly hard. That’s what it takes.
I know most people probably think I couldn’t hold a candle to my brother, and that’s okay. As for me, I never once doubted that I was as good a running back as No. 34. You have to think about yourself like that or you won’t make it. I just had to wait for somebody to give me a chance, and when that chance came, I proved that my running can give cavities, too. Sweetness wasn’t the only Payton sending people to the dentist. Sweet P was also out there bringing the sugary funk. It’s just that I was too small to be remembered.
Walter was listed as 5'11", and the 5'10"/5'11" players got a lot more attention than us little guys. Shoot, there weren’t even a lot of 5'7" guys like me in the league at all at that time. We were few and far between. And those of us who were in the league didn’t get a fair shot at running back because of our size. We were all fully capable runners—people like Noland Smith, “White Shoes” Johnson, Mike Garrett, guys like that—but we were labeled as specialists. Howard Stevens played for the Saints at the time, and he was like 5'5", so there was no chance he was going to carry the ball. All of us little guys returned kicks. I guess 5'8" and under kind of became the ideal size for kick returners, at least in the minds of the coach
es. That’s what they asked us to do, and that’s what we did. They were the ones signing our paychecks, and we were determined to get paid. Even today, though, I think most kick returners are either frustrated running backs or frustrated receivers. They’re not getting their shot at their natural or desired positions for whatever reason (maybe even reasons they have no control over, like size), but they are good enough athletes to help a team.
I helped the Detroit Lions for two great seasons. I was so good returning kicks that they didn’t just pay me…they paid me more. Things were looking good for Sweet P. Then they went and changed coaches. They brought in Monte Clark as the head coach, and the next thing I knew, I was on a plane for Kansas City. The new guy up and traded me to the Chiefs for the 1978 season. It was good for the Chiefs and for all those women waiting for me in Kansas City, but I wasn’t sure about the place at first. Still, I gave it my all, both in the bed and on the field. I finished fourth in the AFC in punt returns and fourth in the AFC in kickoff returns. I was on my third team, yes, but I couldn’t complain. I was still in the NFL, playing with my brother. Things were going well for us Payton boys. Then, the week before our last game of the season, I got a phone call that turned our family’s world upside down.
10. Thinkin’ What-Ifs
On Monday, December 11, 1978, I was just sitting in my place in Kansas City, trying to relax after a hard practice with the Chiefs. We had just gotten our butts kicked by the Denver Broncos the day before, and the coaches made us pay for it on Monday. Though the Chiefs and the Bears found themselves in the same position (with one game left in the season, neither team would be going to postseason play), Walter probably had an easier Monday than I did because the Bears had played at home against Green Bay and won that game 14–0. They had no trouble running all over the Packers. Walter had 97 yards on the ground, another 13 through
