Finally, in the late spring of 1971, Walter made up his mind, signing a national letter of intent to attend Kansas State.3 A few weeks later, in early June, Payton returned to Manhattan for a summer recruiting party at the breathtaking Turtle Creek Reservoir. With twenty-five of his fellow incoming freshmen on hand, Payton partook in waterskiing and swimming and gorged on hotdogs and hamburgers grilled by the coaching staff. “He was a really handsome, clean-cut, articulate kid,” said Slocum. “When he came to the cookout, we knew he would play for us. It was exciting.”
With that, Kansas State’s coaches made a program-defining error: They relaxed. When Payton returned to Columbia, he took up an offer from Eddie to move into a Jackson State dorm room for the remainder of the summer. Moses came along as well, and Hill encouraged both players to enroll in summer school classes. He also set Payton up with a go-only-if-you’re-verybored job working in a nearby gymnasium. “Coach Hill wanted his hands on Walter,” said Moses. “But Walter was turned off by it all.”
Payton took two classes that summer, and made regular trips from Jackson to Columbia. With each passing day his feelings of dislike toward Hill grew. He failed to understand the coach’s demeanor. Not an hour went by without Hill checking in on Payton, gauging his happiness, urging him to embrace Jackson State’s campus for all its splendor. Finally, enough was enough. The pressure was too much. On one of their trips home together, Payton and Moses took a drive to Pearl River Junior College in Poplarville, Mississippi. The school had gained fame for producing Willie Heidelburg, a running back who had recently become the first black to sign with the University of Southern Mississippi. “We all knew about Willie, and what he’d done,” said Moses. “So we got in Walter’s mother’s car, unbeknownst to his mom, his dad, Eddie, and Coach Hill. And we looked into getting a tryout.”
Payton and Moses tracked down John Russell, Pearl River’s head coach, and requested an on-the-spot audition. According to Moses, Russell asked whether they brought along equipment. “We didn’t,” said Moses. “And he wouldn’t loan us any to try out in.” Flabbergasted, they shuffled off, never to return.
The two teammates begrudgingly headed back to Jackson for the remainder of the summer, and on one of the final days Hill agreed to chauffeur Payton home to Columbia. He was still hoping Walter would become a Tiger. “Walter wanted to drive my car, so I let him,” Hill recalled of his brand new red-and-white Cadillac. “Man, if I hadn’t been recruiting him . . . I mean, he was just a crazy driver. Speeding like an insane person. But I didn’t say anything, I just found myself praying all the way that he didn’t hit a tree or a car or some person crossing the street.
“When we finally got there his mom fixed dinner for us. He wanted to go around and see some girl. So, fine, he left, and he stayed out a long time. And I was just content because his mom had cooked these peas, and oh, man, I loved peas. And chocolate cake. And oh, man, her biscuits. So I’m content—I ain’t worried about what time he’d get back. But his father was upset—how can he keep this man’s car like that? He was mad. It was rude, but he could have kept the car. Anyway, I wasn’t worried about it. I’m saying to myself, ‘I know I’ve got him, because his old man isn’t gonna stand for no mess.’ Even though Kansas State was still trying to get him. So when he got back, Walter said, ‘Coach Hill, you go on back to Jackson, and I promise you I’ll be there in the morning.’ I’m all smiling. I’ve got me a piece of cake, I’ve got myself a running back. Because I didn’t have to worry no more about Kansas State or anyone else.”
But Payton had signed his letter of intent with the Wildcats which, from Gibson’s perspective, was written in blood. The university sent Payton his one-way plane ticket to the Midwest. He was scheduled to leave on a Tuesday afternoon from, of all places, Jackson, and would arrive that evening in Manhattan. His dorm room was ready. His purple-and-white practice jersey hung from a locker. His name and number—PAYTON 22—was printed in black marker atop white athletic tape. No matter what Eddie Payton or Bob Hill were saying, Walter steeled himself to fly off to Kansas. He packed his bags, cleaned out his childhood bedroom, hugged his mother and sister, shook his father’s hand, and departed Columbia for the Jackson Airport.
With one itsy bitsy stop.
Because he arrived in Jackson more than five hours before his flight was scheduled to depart, Payton paid a final visit to his brother. He showed up just in time for the start of one of the Tigers’ practices. “The campus was as beautiful as I remembered it,” Payton wrote in his autobiography. “When Coach Hill saw me, he called me over to talk.”
The two sat down and watched the players run through their drills.
“Have you decided where you’re going?” Hill—ever persistent—asked.
“I think so,” Payton replied.
“Well,” said Hill, “I just hope it’s a place that puts as much emphasis on education as it does football, like we do here. You know, Jackson State has a lot to offer, and I’m talking about a lot more than football. You have to get your education, because nobody plays football all his life.”
Hill paused before continuing. “I can show you on paper,” he said, “that ninety-eight percent of the guys that play football here get their college degrees.”
Payton was no dummy. He knew Hill was pulling out all the stops. After a summer in Jackson, Payton was close with many of the Tiger players. He knew his way around the campus, felt comfortable in the environs, had his brother to lean on.
Though Hill’s speech hadn’t fully swayed him, it did cause Payton to skip his flight to Manhattan. The Kansas State coaches had arranged for Walter to take a bus from Manhattan Regional Airport to campus. They waited for two hours—no word. “I finally called someone from Mississippi to ask where Walter was,” said Gibson. “They told me he was going to Jackson State. I said, ‘Jackson State? He signed with us.’ ”
Payton had yet to actually make the official decision, but he was close. He went back to Columbia the next day, accompanied by his brother and Hill. With the two looming over him, pressuring him to dump Kansas State and sign with the Tigers, Walter fled the house and took a long drive. Upon returning, he sat down with his mother. “Mama,” he said, “I have no idea what to do.”
Alyne Payton—strong-willed, tough, focused—had never liked the idea of her youngest son going all the way to Kansas. “If you can’t make up your mind where you want to go to school, I’ll make it up for you,” she said. “You’re going to Jackson State.”
That was that. Almost. The administrators at Kansas State were furious. In their minds, Walter Payton had been kidnapped. Everything Hill had done—allowing Walter to attend summer school, lining up a job, driving him home—was part of an elaborate scheme. When it came to the ethics of college football, Hill was no Mother Teresa. He bought recruits meals and clothing, hid them from opposing programs, and made promises he couldn’t keep. According to numerous players, he reveled in paying for various achievements (a punt return for a touchdown netted ten dollars) and in setting bounties upon opposing stars. (“He once offered us fifty dollars to knock [Grambling quarterback] Doug Williams out of a game,” said Vernon Perry, a Tigers safety. “I actually did it, and Bob paid up.”) John Peoples, Jackson State’s president, recalled Hill telling him, “I can get Walter Payton, but you have to let me do what I have to do.”
“I said, ‘That’s fine—just don’t do anything illegal,” said Peoples. “Don’t do anything wrong.”
After Payton finally signed a letter to attend Jackson State, Peoples received a call from James McCain, Kansas State’s president. A rugged former lieutenant commander in the navy, McCain was infuriated. “Dr. Peoples, I’m planning on reporting you to the NCAA.”
“Reporting me?” Peoples asked. “For what?”
“For kidnapping,” McCain replied. “You kidnapped Walter Payton.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Peoples said. “But I do know that Walter Payton has not enrolled with you. So how can someone be kidnapp
ed if he’s not enrolled?”
McCain seethed. Peoples was right—though Payton had signed the letter, he’d never enrolled in Kansas State. At the time, that was enough for an athlete to go wherever he preferred. “I’m going to call the NCAA about this,” McCain said. “You’ll hear back from me soon.”
It was the last time the two ever spoke.
Walter Payton was coming to Jackson State.
PART TWO
JACKSON
W.C. Gorden, Assistant Football Coach, Jackson State
We had running backs at Jackson State who were bigger than Walter, who were stronger than Walter. But as I learned, fifty percent of talent is height, is weight, is strength, and is speed. The other fifty percent—the most important fifty percent—is that the youngster has to want to be a superb football player. And Walter had that compelling desire to lift weights, to condition himself, to run a riverbank up and down, to run the stadium steps. After practice he’d go eat dinner, then come back to the gym. He didn’t play the game for the crowd appeal or the attention. He played for the love.
CHAPTER 6
JACKSON STATE
THROUGHOUT HIS BLISSFULLY PLACID BOYHOOD, WALTER PAYTON WAS NEVER one to make trouble or start a fight. Oh, maybe he and his pals would steal a couple of melons from a field, or perhaps he’d drive thirty miles above the speed limit in his daddy’s truck. But when it came to conflict, and especially conflict over civil rights and desegregation, Walter was nowhere to be found. When, in April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, the blacks of Columbia held a march from Jefferson High School to City Hall. Not only did Walter refuse to participate, he didn’t even attend as an observer.
At Jackson State, however, Walter encountered an entirely new perspective on race. Although he had spent much of his summer living on the Jackson campus, with the arrival of the 4,800-member student body for the start of the fall semester came an eye-opening education on what it was to be black, proud, and vocal. In his hometown, Walter had watched and learned from his elders, who survived by shuffling past whites with eyes lowered and mouths shut. If one addressed a white person, it was always with a deferential “sir” or “ma’am.” The ideas of black pride and black power weren’t ideas at all.
Now, however, at a school where 98 percent of the student body was black, all Walter Payton had to do was pick up a copy of the Blue and White Flash, Jackson State’s monthly student newspaper, to understand how his world—and the world—was changing. “Before it’s too late, you had better start thinking for yourself,” wrote Jonathan Grant in a November 1971 editorial titled “Awaken Black Youths.” “Our fore-fathers [sic] were treated cruel, treated like animals, sold like cattle, drug up and down the streets, hung by the neck from an oak tree, tarred and feathered, and burned at the stake. Will you awaken, or will you let this kind of thing perpetuate continuously? Are you an animal or a human being? Are you a first class citizen, or a second class citizen?”
Grant’s piece ran alongside another column, “A Black Man’s Hope,” that began with the sentence, “I am a man of a darker color. My oppressor will not let me go any further.”
“We were all about making a statement,” said Coolidge Anderson, an editor at the Flash. “I wanted to be a revolutionary in the movement. We didn’t hate whites, but we hated what segregation had done.”
Less than a year and a half before Walter’s official enrollment, the Jackson State campus was home to great tragedy. On May 14, 1970, Phillip Gibbs, a twenty-year-old Jackson State student, and James Green, a seventeen-year-old senior at nearby Jim Hill High School, were shot and killed by state police during an on-campus protest over race relations. The altercation began when police mistook the sound of a dropped glass bottle for the unloading of a round. “They opened fire on the girls’ dormitory,” said Milton Webb, a Jackson State freshman at the time. “Students were in front of the dorm, innocently standing there, and the police started shooting away.”
“When you’re shot at by the police and state troopers for thirty seconds with automatic rifles, you don’t think about much except surviving,” said Eddie Payton, who witnessed the event. “I was out there bullshitting with some other football players, and when we saw the state troopers come we just turned to get back to our dorm. By the time we reached the dorm the whole sky was lit up from gunfire.”
Despite repeated assertions from law enforcement that race had nothing to do with the killings, most of Jackson State’s students and faculty found the explanation implausible. Even fifteen months later, as Walter and his fellow freshmen arrived, the pain from that day had yet to subside. “You don’t get over something of that magnitude,” said John Peoples, the college president. “Not in a month, not in a year, maybe not ever.”
Were Walter Payton compelled, he could have walked over to the Alexander Residence Center to run his finger over a bullet hole. He could have followed the lead of the small band of students who changed their last names to X. He could have grown out his Afro, penned angry editorials for the Blue and White Flash, marched across campus in one of the ongoing protests over the mistreatment of blacks throughout the state of Mississippi.
Any such acts, however, would have been out of character. Because Walter Payton, eighteen years old and as nice and agreeable a kid as one could find, was attending college in Jackson for three simple reasons: to play football, meet girls, and receive a quality education.
In that order.
Had Walter Payton been a member of the Kansas State student body, he would have found himself on one of the nation’s more beatific campuses, surrounded by grass and trees and dignified brick buildings with a Harvard-esque feel.
Jackson State was no Kansas State. Located on the western side of Mississippi’s capital, a mere five-minute drive from downtown, the 125-acre campus was your prototypical city school, an uninspired gray and pewter in color, with patches of green tossed in amongst concrete bleakness. A road, J. R. Lynch Street, divided the campus in half, providing students with the steady hum of cars and trucks passing through. Though far from the ugliest college in America, Jackson State’s physical beauty (as well as the funding it received from the state) paled in comparison to Mississippi’s prominent white schools: Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Southern Miss.
The football facilities were no better. The team’s locker room was located inside a decrepit converted army barracks that had been built during World War II. The floor was rotting wood, the walls decaying drywall.
Not that Walter particularly cared. Jackson State quickly felt like home, especially when he was assigned to share quarters with his brother, Eddie, and his best friend from Columbia, Edward “Sugar Man” Moses, also a freshman running back. The three were placed in a second-floor room in Sampson Hall, the school’s football dormitory. There was one regular bed and a bunk, two small bedrooms with a common area, and a bathroom located down the hall. As a star senior with the Tigers, Eddie possessed enough sway to have his own room or, at most, one upper-class roommate. “But I wanted to show Walter the ropes and take care of him,” Eddie said. “He was my little brother, and this was going to be a new experience for him.”
Despite lingering sibling resentment, Eddie made Walter’s early collegiate adjustment significantly easier. He talked to him about which classes to take, where to hang out, who to trust, and who not to trust. Their mother, Alyne, made regular drives up to see her boys, and when the season started she would arrive Saturday mornings with fresh-baked treats. (In Eddie and Walter’s years at the school, Alyne never missed a home game.) “I was feeling right at home,” Walter once wrote. “Eddie was a great kid with just the right personality for a football player—maybe better than mine. He was the type who believed he could do anything if he really tried.” Though far from a wallflower, Walter couldn’t compete with his brother’s social ease. He watched in amazement as Eddie lingered in front of Sampson Hall, heckling people as they passed. “If he saw a carload of girls to flirt with,” Walter w
rote, “he’d walk right out there and hold up traffic for half a block to talk with them.” Eddie also introduced Walter to the large oak tree positioned approximately three feet from the window in their room. When Hill imposed curfews, often stationing himself at the Sampson Hall front entrance (Hill was fond of a cologne appropriately named “Trouble,” and players could smell him as they snuck back in), Eddie, Walter, and Sugar Man would grab ahold of the tree, use its branches to scale down the trunk, and indulge in a night on the town at Nita’s or the Doll’s House or one of the other clubs on Lynch Street. “We’d go out to dinner, go out to the park, get some girls, and do some making out. Then we could come back in and go up,” Eddie said. “Security would never stop us because of who we were, but then one day Coach Hill found out what we were up to.”
“And,” Eddie said, “he immediately had all the branches removed from the tree.”
In Columbia, a young black man always had to watch what he said, and who he said it to. But here, on the all-black campus, Walter felt at ease. The vast majority of his teammates hailed from identical small-town backgrounds—poor and black, forced to gaze downward when whites passed, praised by whites only for their athletic gifts. They knew what it was to be called “nigger” and “coon,” and they could relax in the knowledge that, in college, nobody uttered such things.
Walter’s social adjustment to college was smooth, and the first few days were filled with the euphoric giddiness of a new adventure. Yet the freedoms that came with life away from home were mere mirages.
Sweetness Page 9
