Some of the pain was lessened on December 19, when Payton was selected to the 1971 Black College All-American Football Team and anointed its Offensive Player of the Year. The sponsoring companies, Chevrolet and the Mutual Black Radio Network, flew Payton to New York City (or, to a kid whose only previous airplane trip was to Manhattan, Kansas, “the other Manhattan”) and put him up at the New York Hilton, just a few blocks from Times Square. Having rarely left the state of Mississippi, Payton was wide-eyed and speechless.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said to Eddie Bishop, a Southern University defensive back, “I’m never going to live in a big city like this. I couldn’t survive more than a day.”
CHAPTER 9
HEISMAN HOPES
THEY ARRIVED AT APPROXIMATELY THE SAME TIME—ONE, A MARVELOUS SIGHT for Walter Payton’s lonely eyes; the other, an alluring bronze mistress he aspired to woo.
One was Connie Norwood.
The other was the Heisman Trophy.
Thanks to Bob Hill’s generous offer of a full scholarship, in the fall of 1974 Norwood officially enrolled as a freshman at the newly minted Jackson State University (the school was no longer merely a college). Walter’s girlfriend would settle easily into campus life—she made a handful of close acquaintances and became a member of the Jaycettes, the school’s halftime female pep squad. “Everyone called her ‘Mrs. Thing,’ ” said Robert Brazile, the Tigers’ standout linebacker. “Because Connie referred to everyone as ‘Mr. Thing.’ ” She was energetic, engaging, and hard not to like. Yet if Connie thought life alongside Jackson State’s BMOC would be without its complications, she was badly mistaken.
To begin with, at a time when students were embracing black pride and racial self-discovery, many of the school’s coeds were less than enamored by the football superstar—with pigmentation as dark as charcoal—dating a light-skinned girl like Connie. “He was the school stud,” said Rogelio Solis, a friend and editor of the student newspaper. “The local high school girls would always come up to his car and slip him their numbers. One time he was giving me a ride, telling me about the situation. I said, ‘How bad can it be?’ Walter opened his glove compartment, and scraps of paper came pouring out.”
While she was, indeed, black, Walter’s choice of Connie stirred something in Jackson State’s females. Black women were embracing their heritage—wearing Afrocentric garb, letting their hair grow naturally, anxious to revel in their beauty and to show men that black—deep, dark, rich blackness—was beautiful and worthy of love.
Yet Payton, like many of his football teammates, wasn’t interested. Whether it was some sort of societal conditioning or based upon his roots in segregated rural Columbia, he possessed a strong physical attraction to white and light-skinned women. It began with Colleen Crawley in high school, and continued throughout his life. “Walter made that very clear,” said Mary “Bullet” Jones, his Soul Train dance partner and a person with extremely dark skin. “After we met he told me, ‘You’re the only dark-skinned girl that I’d ever think of being with, because I much prefer light skin.’ ”
Connie felt the eyes of others bearing down upon her and wondered what she could do to be more accepted. “Most of the time, I thought, ‘You can have him. He’s a moody person,’ ” she once said. But, of course, she didn’t want other women to have him. Yes, Walter was moody. If a game went poorly, he brooded for hours. If he didn’t like the number of carries he was receiving, he whined and complained. And yet, Walter was funny. And charming. And extremely well put together. While other Tigers roamed the world in sweatpants and T-shirts, Walter was straight out of GQ. “His jeans were always pressed, his shirt was always fitted so you could see his muscles,” said Brazile. “His shoes were always freshly shined and sparkling white.”
As a senior, Walter was perfectly at ease. Having spent his summers taking classes in Jackson, he actually completed his undergraduate course work in three years, and began the 1974–75 academic campaign taking masterslevel classes in special education. In other words, his was a relaxed existence.
Armed with a rainbow-hued customized Ford van with a shag rug interior (with help from his parents, he bought the vehicle after his junior year), Payton fancied himself a cartoon character brought to life. He developed unusual behaviors that, were he not the star running back, probably wouldn’t have flown. Explained simply, Payton liked to test people; to see how far he could take a gag until those around him exploded. When unsuspecting friends and teammates were focused elsewhere, he approached from behind and bit them on the shoulder—hard. “I would walk into the office with my back turned, and instead of saying hello, Walter would slip behind me, grab me, and scare me to death,” said Edith Guston, a secretary in the Jackson State football office. “He was playful like that.” Were Walter waiting at a red traffic light, he’d turn toward a nearby pedestrian and scream as loud as possible. “Just to scare the guy,” said Vernon Perry, Jackson State’s safety. “Gave Walter a good laugh.” Several of the Jackson State players were locals, and Payton enjoyed visiting their boyhood homes, sitting on the porch, and firing his rifle at squirrels, dogs, and mailboxes.
For kicks, in the lead-up to Halloween Walter and teammates Perry and Brazile purchased a hideous rubber mask from the nearby five-and-ten store. They proceeded to ride around town in Walter’s van, taking turns scaring people. “It was a blast,” said Perry. “We’d pull up next to a car, and Walter or Robert would put it on and they’d make little kids cry.” On Halloween night Payton donned the mask and tiptoed toward a parked automobile. Inside, a Jackson State player was making out with his girlfriend. Payton, Perry, and Brazile surrounded the car while shaking it and screaming. The teammate, completely naked, jumped out and ran, leaving his girlfriend behind. “That’s how bad that mask was,” Perry said. “Walter was a hoot.”
Though more serious and studious than Walter, Connie embraced the comfort that came with knowing he was by her side, as well as the status befitting a football star’s girlfriend. Before long she was known all over campus—the Jaycette with the athletic hero. Even to those who resented Connie’s presence, she and Walter were Jackson State’s star couple. “Oh, Connie was beautiful,” said Douglas Baker, a Tigers center. “You didn’t get to be a Jaycette unless you were statuesque and gorgeous and could dance. She had all of that.”
Connie, however, was hardly the only object of Walter’s affection. Throughout the later portion of Payton’s junior year, Jackson State’s staff began toying with the idea of mounting a campaign to land Payton the Heisman Trophy. The Tigers were loaded with talented players and, specifically, talented running backs. Along with Payton and Rickey Young, Hill’s backfield included Joe Lowery, aka “The Rubber Ball,” a bruising, undersized tailback who would later attend training camp with the Denver Broncos, and John Ealy, a speedy senior from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“We had a lot of stars to choose from,” said Hill. “But the newspapers barely covered us and we had almost no budget to speak of. So one day I got the team together and said, ‘Look, what we need to do is get more people coming to the games so we can increase our funds. To do that, we need a star.’” Hill cited John Wayne, at the time starring in The Train Robbers, and Telly Savalas, TV’s beloved Kojak. “Here’s Walter,” Hill told his men. “He’s got all the potential. We can take him and promote him and put him up for the Heisman. He has an outside chance because of our budget and who we play, but he has a legitimate chance because he’s that good. But before we do this, I need to know that you guys won’t be angry or resentful. I need to know that our team will stick together, even when we’re putting an individual out front.”
Hill left the room, leaving his sixty-six players alone to discuss the issue. When he returned, Brazile stood up. “Coach,” he said, “if it’s good for the program, it’s good for us.”
The campaign had never gained much traction when Walter was a junior, but now it caught a wave. One day Doug Shanks, the Jackson city commissioner and Tigers lo
yalist, came to one of Payton’s summer workouts accompanied by Alan Nations, a local journalist who had worked on political campaigns. Shanks pulled Payton aside, introduced him to Nations and said, “Walter, Alan here is going to try and get you some publicity for the Heisman.” Payton nodded, and Nations, in the name of small talk, asked, “Walter, are you married?”
“No,” Payton replied. “Do I need to be?”
“He was serious,” said Shanks. “Walter would have found a way to get hitched in the name of winning that trophy.”
Though he failed to propose to Connie, Walter did take one peculiar step. When asked by members of the media for his age, Payton said “twenty” instead of “twenty-one.” On those occasions when he needed to supply his birthday, he wrote July 25, 1954—not July 25, 1953. For some peculiar reason, Payton seemed to believe the award’s voters would view him more favorably as a younger man. Back in the 1970s, when collegiate athletics weren’t close to being the billion-dollar business that they are today, such details could be easily overlooked. If Walter Payton said he was twenty, Sam Jefferson believed he was twenty. The deception stuck. For the remainder of his life, Payton would be listed as being one year younger than he actually was.
The real Heisman run began on July 6, 1974, when subscribers of The Sporting News, at the time one of the nation’s leading sports weeklies, turned to Dick Young’s regular column, “Young Ideas,” and read the following: “Long range, long-shot prediction: Walter Payton, Jackson State running back, will be the first man from a black college to win the Heisman Trophy, six months hence.”
Shortly thereafter the Associated Press sent a story across its wires titled, “Payton a ‘Heisman’ Hopeful.”
The Payton-for-the-Heisman drive, possibly a virtue of its unusualness on behalf of a small college player as well as a recognition of Payton’s accomplishments, already has drawn some national note.
Newspapers from New York, Miami, and other cities have already called, and the university is pushing publicity with great vigor.
Payton, whose ego appears to have remained of modest proportions despite the publicity boomlet, shyly explains that his teammates inspired the campaign.
“We had several players at the time that were just as good or better than I am, but the positions they played would have made it harder to publicize them, so they voted to push me.”
As well connected as anyone in the city of Jackson, Hill asked Marvin Hogan, the head of a local nonprofit agency called Friends of Children, to use the office’s printing machines to mass-produce signs and bumper stickers reading WHY NOT PAYTON FOR HEISMAN TROPHY? Sam Jefferson, Jackson State’s sports information director, shipped the material to newspapers, magazines, and television stations across the country, along with a crude twopage synopsis that included the sentence, “He doesn’t smoke, drink, or frequent the so called ‘Hep Parties.’ ” Before long, newspapers like The New York Times and Newsday were referring to Payton and his Heisman ambitions. Ironically, with the exception of Payton himself, no one at Jackson State believed he had a real shot.
“We were fully aware it wouldn’t happen,” said Jefferson. “We harbored no illusions, and while I won’t say it was impossible, it was improbable. You can’t be a small school on a shoestring budget and expect to mount a real campaign against the big guys.”
Payton, however, now had a new motivation. Throughout the first three years of his collegiate career, Payton ran with power and determination. But he never ran with a grudge. To Hill’s dismay, Payton would barrel over defensive players, then extend his hand after the whistle to help them up. He was a gentleman in shoulder pads.
With the Heisman hype, Hill no longer had to worry. Payton heard the talk—via TV, via magazines, via newspapers—that while he was a promising back, he paled in comparison to the nation’s two supposedly elite ball carriers, Archie Griffin of Ohio State and Anthony Davis of Southern Cal. “There’s no comparison,” Payton told a reporter from The Atlanta Constitution in a rare moment of public boastfulness. “I’m better than they are, and I know it.” Payton was particularly galled by the attention afforded Griffin, a junior from Columbus, Ohio, who stayed home to play for the Buckeyes.
“What Walter really needs is exposure,” Frank Bannister, Jr., a commentator for the Mutual Black Network and, at the time, the only black Heisman voter, told Jackson State’s student paper. “Not enough people have seen Walter, but we’re trying to work on that. If the committee is in a mood sympathetic to the small colleges and black colleges then Walter just might slip in. He has the records, the ability, the character, he’s worked with handicapped kids, he’s a good student, and he’s been a team leader. He should win it.”
In Sports Illustrated’s highly anticipated College Football Preview issue, Payton’s name appeared on page 82, a passing reference within a single essay devoted to the nation’s small colleges. Griffin’s visage, meanwhile, was plastered across the cover, a football tucked beneath his right elbow, running the ball toward presumptive glory. “I can’t say I knew a whole lot about Walter,” said Griffin. “I’d heard his name, but Jackson State wasn’t on TV, so I didn’t get a chance to see him. It’s a shame, because he obviously deserved the attention.”
Beginning with the Sports Illustrated slight, Payton became obsessed with Griffin. Ohio State’s star was five foot nine, 185 pounds—roughly the same height as Payton, but fifteen pounds lighter. He ran a 4.6 forty, a tenth of a second slower than Payton’s 4.5 time (Jefferson often cited Payton’s 4.4 speed—which was as legitimate as his supposed six-foot-one stature). Griffin seemed to have great vision and strong hands, but whenever Ohio State was on national television (a common occurrence), Payton watched, his veins bulging with each word of praise from an announcer. “Look at this garbage!” Payton would yell. “The holes they’re opening for him are enormous. I’d run circles around this guy.” 4
“It was a controlled rage,” said Rodney Phillips, Payton’s roommate and teammate. “Archie was getting all that publicity, and Walter couldn’t. But he knew he was the better football player. We all did.”
Payton’s goal was to show it to the world and have the finest season in college football history. Though the resentment certainly fueled him, it was naïve. In actuality, the so-called doubters didn’t exist, because few people who mattered took Walter Payton’s efforts seriously enough to even be termed doubters. (Noted Jefferson at the time: “Lots of newspapers around the nation don’t even print our scores, much less give details of the games.”) Payton was a true Heisman candidate, in the same way Lyndon LaRouche runs for president every four years. He could accumulate ten thousand yards and five hundred touchdowns in 1974, and the feats would still be largely dismissed as low level. To most Heisman voters, SWAC statistics were meaningless.
“Walter felt he needed to go above and beyond in order to get the due he was deserved,” Hill said. “He probably needed to be perfect. As did our team.”
The Tigers fielded a preposterously talented club in 1974, with thirty-eight returning lettermen and a fully intact offensive line. Rickey Young would emerge as an elite fullback, and quarterback Jimmy Lewis was often mentioned (incorrectly, it turned out) as a professional prospect. With Brazile and Tate at linebacker, the defense was fierce. Twelve members of the team eventually played in the NFL—more than both supposedly superior in-state schools, Mississippi State and Ole Miss.
The spotlight, however, was on Walter Payton. In practices, defensive players could unload on quarterbacks, on receivers, on linemen. “But if you touched Walter, Coach Hill would hit you with a wood board,” said Perry. Or worse. A Bishop wide receiver named Joe Pierce recalled watching a Jackson State morning practice the day before the game. “A linebacker hit Walter and made him fall down,” said Pierce. “There was a collective gasp, and the coach walked over to a tree, ripped off a branch, ordered the linebacker to bend over, and then hit him across the butt several times.”
Jackson State won two of its first three ga
mes, with Hill giving the ball to his star halfback in every possible scenario. After opening the season with a heartbreaking 10–6 loss to Morgan State in a benefit game at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia (Payton returned a kickoff eighty-one yards, but fumbled near the goal line on the potentially game-winning drive), the Tigers kicked off their home schedule by destroying Prairie View at Memorial Stadium, 67–7. Payton ran for two short touchdowns and threw a thirty-six-yard spiral to Jeremiah Tillman for a third. They followed with a 25–6 homecoming triumph against Mississippi Valley, with Payton contributing two touchdowns, a field goal, two extra points, and a two-point conversion.
Payton’s numbers were terrific, but Hill wanted more. The coach believed that in order for Jackson State to become a nationally known program, Payton needed to appear Jim Brown–like in his splendor. A bunch of hundred-yard rushing games wouldn’t cut it. Neither would a handful of touchdowns and field goals. He couldn’t merely be a good running back at a SWAC school of limited note. “We wanted to open eyes to Walter,” he said. “To let everyone in the country see that this was no ordinary football player.”
Enter Nebraska-Omaha.
One year earlier, Hill’s team had opened its season by flying to the Midwest and crushing the Division II Mavericks, 17–0. Now, as part of a homeand-home agreement, UNO would be coming to Jackson for an October 5 meeting—the rare predominantly white college willing to trek to Memorial Stadium and face the Tigers. This was, for Payton and Jackson State, the perfect storm. “The way we saw it, those teams had an opportunity to play a so-called nigger school,” said Charles Brady, a Jackson State defensive tackle. “And we wanted to punish them.”
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