“That’s a true story,” said Pinckney, who was cut before the season started. “One hundred percent true. The power of Walter Payton got me laid by the hottest girl I’d ever seen.”
The power of Walter Payton is the power that accompanies athletic superstardom. It’s the power fame has upon people. The power to eat for free whenever one chooses. The power to gain easy access to any club, any bar, any restaurant, any theatre. The power of Walter Payton makes people scream and squeal and leap and cry. It makes them crave access. Any access. A nod. An autograph. A handshake. One second. One hour. One night.
The Bears once traveled to London for an exhibition game. Payton anticipated a week of blissful anonymity. “Then we get out of a cab in London,” said Shaun Gayle, a Chicago defensive back, “and he was mobbed.”
“I once got Walter a Rolex that he wore all the time,” said Ron Atlas, his friend. “Well, he lost it and he was devastated. I told him I’d find out if the watch was insured. I called the place where I bought the watch, and they in turn called Rolex. The thing wasn’t insured, but two days later Rolex FedExed him a free watch. Just because he was Walter Payton.”
When used in pursuit of righteousness, the power of Walter Payton was a beacon of blinding light. Throughout his career, Payton visited dozens of sick children in hospitals, hugged countless strangers, brightened more days than one could count. “He was an ambassador,” said Matt Suhey, his longtime teammate. “Walter wore his celebrity and his notoriety with class and dignity. The NFL’s Man of the Year Award is named after him, and it’s very appropriate.”
And yet, the power of Walter Payton could also be utilized in less altruistic ways. Fame inevitably warps and corrupts, and the celebrities able to resist its charms are few and far between.
Once upon a time, when Payton was a struggling Bears rookie trying to survive in a foreign city, he only had eyes for his future wife, Connie Norwood. They spoke nearly every day, often for hours at a time. Her photograph adorned his locker, and even as he watched veteran teammates treat their spouses like tattered rags, he refused to follow suit. Payton, alongside teammate/ best friend Roland Harper, was a strict adherent to the teachings of the Bible, including the seventh commandment (Thou shall not commit adultery).
As the years passed and the power grew, however, Payton changed. In the spirit of the surface-deep ’80s, his image became everything. Frugal in many areas (with automobiles obvious exceptions), Walter wouldn’t think twice about dropping a couple of thousand dollars on a suit or two. He rarely (if ever) left home without his slacks neatly pressed and his shoes as shiny as new coins, and he could never have enough Rolex watches and gold bracelets (he was especially fond of a bracelet that spelled out P-A-Y-T-O-N in encrusted diamonds). His teeth were sparkling white, his skin unblemished, his mustache meticulously trimmed. “Dad was huge into fashion,” recalled Brittney Payton, his daughter. “There was a men’s store called Realta that was downtown. He would come at night and they’d open up for him. He loved to shop. He would sport his cowboy boots with jeans back in the day, or those big colorful sweaters, and he made it work.”
Most important was the hair. If one looks back at photographs from Payton’s first few years in Chicago, his miniature Afro was routinely messy and awkwardly skewed. It leaned right, it leaned left, it flopped to the front. Oftentimes, Payton merely covered his head with a state trooper’s widebrim model hat. Then, in the early ’80s, he was approached by Willard Harrell, a running back for the St. Louis Cardinals who had a side business peddling a product called Curl Alive with Pro 39. “It was mainly a moisturizer for a black man’s hair,” said Harrell, Payton’s teammate on the collegiate All-Star team in 1975. “It went on wet, it came off dry.” In exchange for the usage of Payton’s name on promotional material, Harrell gave the Bears’ star an unlimited supply of Curl Alive with Pro 39.
Payton’s Jheri curl emerged as one of the Jheri curls of the 1980s—moist yet not dripping; perky yet not over the top. “Dad messed up a couple of couches with his head,” said Jarrett Payton, Walter’s son. “He had that curl working.”
“He did it beautifully,” said Harrell with a laugh. “Walter’s hair was the envy of black men nationwide.”
They weren’t the only ones to notice. The wallflower Walter Payton of years past had become a more confident, more social being. He stepped with an air of importance and no longer shielded himself from the world. Payton became especially comfortable around women who, in turn, became especially comfortable around him. “Walter walked through a lobby or a casino or wherever, and very quickly he’d have five or six or seven hotel room keys put in his pocket,” said Bud Holmes, his agent. “Women sent him their photos. Naked pictures. Pictures in lingerie. He’d laugh about it, but that sort of temptation is not easy to ignore.”
When Holmes negotiated a new contract with the Bears in 1981, one of the stipulations was that, on the road, Payton be granted his own suite. The reason was simple: He wanted a place to bring back his conquests. Although Payton continued to avoid regularly socializing with teammates, that didn’t mean he failed to go out. From San Diego to Seattle, Detroit to Denver, Boston to Buffalo, Payton could often be found at the hot dance clubs, working the moves perfected on 24 Karat Black Gold a decade earlier. Before long, Payton’s personal black book featured a bevy of women in every city. Wherever the Chicago Bears traveled, Payton had females waiting for the signal to discreetly knock on his door at the Hyatt or Hilton or Marriott.
As Connie remained in Illinois caring for Jarrett, her husband was on the road, living the life. Those who knew him best say one of Payton’s great gifts/ills was the ability to compartmentalize. When he was home in Arlington Heights, he could be the prototypical family man. When he was elsewhere, he could do whatever he pleased. To Walter, one behavior had nothing to do with the other. If Connie didn’t know he was sleeping around, how could it possibly hurt her? As far as she was concerned, he sat in his hotel room watching TV and reading the Bible. That was her reality, and it was perfectly fine with Walter.
Not that such behavior was exclusive to road trips. Every February beginning in 1977, Walter spent a week working as a spokesman for Buick at the Chicago Auto Show. The gig was an excellent one, in that it afforded Payton a chance to casually interact with his fans. Buick set up a table, loaded it with pens and glossy photographs and had Payton sign away, talking up the virtues of Buick all the while. It was a good time for a superstar, but not necessarily an innocent good time. Payton always looked forward to the show, because he knew McCormick Place, the venue that hosted the event, would be overrun by young, up-and-coming models with dreams of celebrity.
Through the years, Payton’s list of sexual conquests via the show was a long one. Many of the models returned year after year, and though Payton’s reputation as a womanizer preceded him, his status and charm worked wonders. “I always felt bad for Connie, because Walter was as big a flirt as I’d ever seen,” said Donna Vanderventer, who was employed as a secretary in the Bears’ executive offices. “It was no different than Tiger Woods or Kobe Bryant. These guys go out and the girls are swooning, and unless they’re strong, dedicated family men, it was all about feeding the ego. And women feed egos.”
At the 1984 auto show, Payton found himself particularly smitten by a twenty-year-old model named Angelina Smythe. Breathtakingly beautiful, with wavy brown hair, olive-oil skin, and a perky figure, Angelina initially paid Payton no mind when the two met in an elevator. She had never watched a professional football game in her life, and was hardly impressed by his celebrity status.
“Angelina wasn’t looking to meet someone,” said a person familiar with the situation. “But Walter was a charmer. He would say things to draw a woman in. Not like, ‘You’re beautiful,’ but something deeper psychologically.
“He had a big hole inside of him. He did it dishonorably. He used women—and especially younger women—for something he needed. And I’m not saying something merely physical. There was
an emptiness in him. He sought out women to fill that hole. It was devilish.”
At the time, Angelina attended church most Sundays and aspired to one day meet a nice man to marry. “She wasn’t one to chase anybody,” said the person who knew her. “But she was probably a little naïve.”
Payton complimented Angelina and made her feel special. He was a sharp dresser, a fast talker, a suave mover. He had strong hands and powerful arms and wherever he went, people smiled and appeared to be moved. Everyone wanted his company, and he was giving it to her.
In the weeks that followed, Walter and Angelina engaged in a passionate affair. Sure, he was married. But it wasn’t a real marriage, he told her. Just for show. He contacted her when Connie wasn’t around, and Angelina excitedly took his calls. She was young, poor, and struggling. He was a bright light. “It was not a fling,” Angelina said. “Otherwise the first time I met him it would have been done and over. I think Walter tried to be my friend as a way to get me closer to him, but not for the right reasons. I wanted to get to know him, but he was like a teenage boy—very, very immature. He asked if he could call me and I let him. But I knew he was married and I saw him with other women. It wasn’t my best thinking, but I was young and naïve.”
One morning in early May, Angelina telephoned Payton. Her voice was panicked. “I’m pregnant,” she said.
Silence.
More silence.
A devout Christian, Angelina decided to keep the baby. Walter stopped calling. Stopped caring. The man who couldn’t get enough of her now wanted nothing to do with her. Without saying a word to Connie (his wife didn’t learn of Angelina until years later), he had an accountant work out a financial package that included a fifty-thousand-dollar trust and an agreement to pay child support through the child’s twenty-first birthday. The terms of the deal: Leave Walter out of it, and never let the media catch wind.
When his son Nigel was born, on January 6, 1985, Walter was nowhere to be found. Angelina was all alone in a suburban Illinois hospital, bringing to life a child who would never get to know his biological father. She called Walter to tell him the news, and he didn’t immediately respond. A couple of weeks later, Walter and Angelina met to sign financial documents. “He hopped out of the lawyer’s office and seemed relieved it was over,” Angelina said. “Nigel was a newborn and in the next room, but Walter said he couldn’t see him . . . it would be too hard. I showed him pictures and he had a tear in his eye. Then he left and never looked back.”
Two months later, on March 15, Connie gave birth to Brittney, the couple’s second child. The arrival was all over the news, and images showed Walter gazing lovingly toward his little girl.
Before long, Payton would be named Chicago’s Father of the Year by the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative.
He accepted the award.
How could he behave in such a way? How could a genuinely good guy (and Walter Payton was, in many ways, a genuinely good guy) ignore one child while lavishing affection upon two others?
“I can’t explain it,” said Ginny Quirk, Walter’s longtime assistant and the vice president of Walter Payton, Inc. “I feel like, for many years, I knew Walter as well as anyone. I saw him at his best and at his worst. I saw him incredibly high and incredibly low. But how he could completely ignore his own child . . . I just don’t have an answer.”
There is, of course, an answer. Not a pretty one—but an answer nonetheless. Against logic and most theories of human emotion, Payton took all thoughts of Nigel and simply erased them. He removed the infant from his brain; literally ceased thinking about him. “Our office [in the 1990s] was in Schaumburg, a stone’s throw away from where Nigel lived,” said Kimm Tucker, the executive director of Payton’s charitable foundation. “Walter couldn’t face it. He could not. I told Walter that if he wanted to get right with God and if he wanted God to heal him, he’d have to do the right thing. But in this area, he couldn’t. He just put Nigel out of his mind.” And if someone brought the boy up? Well, nobody brought the boy up because, save for four or five confidants, nobody knew he existed. From Connie to teammates to coaches to close friends, Nigel was a nonentity. One time Linda Conley, a close family friend, took Walter to see a palm reader on a lark. “She took his wrists and she said, ‘I see three children—you have three children,’ ” said Conley. “Walter snatched his wrists back. That really got to him.”
When Angelina contacted Walter’s office to request money or supplies, she was never turned down. But Payton refused to take the call. An assistant handled everything. “Walter would see Angelina every once in a while, and he hated it,” a friend said. “He never showed any interest in Nigel. That’s the type of person he could be.”
Payton loved women. But—and this includes Connie—they were disposable. Athletes often say that excelling at the highest level of sport takes an uncommon level of focus. If one finds a woman willing to accept certain conditions (as was the case with Connie), a relationship can work. It’ll be one-sided and emotionally unfulfilling. But it will, in a strictly mechanical sense, work.
That’s the way people speak of Walter and Connie’s union. Initially, at Jackson State, the pairing was about love and companionship. But by the mid-1980s, the demise had begun. Yes, Walter’s infidelity hardly helped. But the problem went beyond that. When the season was over, Walter rarely stuck around. A handful of pictures showed him changing diapers or holding a bottle, and for brief spells he was interested. But the images were largely staged; moments in time arranged by a photographer or magazine editor. “Was Walter an involved father?” said Bud Holmes. “No. Not really.”
Payton devoted much of his away-from-the-field time to his two passions—fast vehicles and hunting. Both were pastimes Connie had zero interest in.
Through the years, Payton’s garage and driveway served as headquarters to an endless showcase of pricey, high-performance cars, motorcycles, and mopeds. From Porsches (one featured the memorable vanity plate: IOUZIP) and BMWs to Testarossas and Lamborghinis, Payton was mesmerized by the sight of a fresh-off-the-assembly-line piece of metal. In 1976 he arrived at training camp in a new De Tomaso Pantera (with a mighty 351 Cleveland engine), the beginning of the obsession. “He drove a different car to the facility every day of the week,” said Rick Moss, a defensive back in camp in 1980. “You’d wait anxiously to see what kind of fancy wheels Walter would be in.”
“I took a lot of pride in my cars, and I had a lot of them,” Payton said. “I had the Lamborghini . . . I had a Rolls-Royce, I had my Porsche, and then at any given time we had eight or nine vehicles in my family. I know it sounds crazy, but coming from where I grew up, I just always found cars, fast cars, a kind of ‘I made it’ statement.”
The cars were not merely show-and-tell items. Payton made use of every ounce of performance in his vehicles. His CB handle was Mississippi Maniac, and it fit like a sock. When Payton, Doug Plank, and Len Walterscheid once made an appearance at a Kawasaki-sponsored event, they were gifted with motorcycles. Payton’s teammates chose the (relatively) tame 750 LTD. Payton, velocity addict, went with the KZ 1100—“a genuine crotch rocket,” said Walterscheid.
The stories of Payton’s wild road antics are endless. “My second year in the league [1979] Walter and I had to go to a picture signing set up by the PR guys,” said John Skibinski, a backup fullback. “We were in Lake Forest and we got out of practice at four fifty. It was snowing flakes the size of pancakes and we had to get to a dealership fifty miles away in a half-hour.” Payton insisted the two take his new Porsche Carrera. Having never driven with Payton, Skibinski complied. “Before we get going Walter picks up a hamburger, some fries, and a milkshake,” Skibinski said. “He’s driving a stick in the snow, a hamburger in one hand, the shake in the other, picking up fries, going about a hundred miles per hour. I was shitting in my pants, thinking, ‘If we die, my name will forever be immortalized in the headline SKIBINSKI AND PAYTON KILLED IN CAR WRECK. Well, we got there with two minutes to spare.”
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nbsp; Hunting, meanwhile, relaxed Payton. In the basement of the home he had built in 1984, there was a state-of-the-art shooting range encased in soundproof glass. “He’d go down there and blast his rifles and semiautomatics,” said Jeff Fisher, the Bears safety. “That was a weird peace for Walter.” One year, as a present for his offensive linemen, Payton presented Remington 11-87 shotguns with the inscription THANKS FOR LEADING THE WAY engraved on the side. He spoke dreamingly to teammates of faraway trips to distant lands, where plump animals roamed free and hunting season commenced on New Year’s Day and ended December 31. “He wanted to go to Alaska and chase down some grizzly bear,” said Tim Clifford, a Bears quarterback and Payton’s occasional hunting partner. “But he didn’t want to use a gun, just a bow and arrow. I said, ‘You know, Walter, I’m not going anywhere with only a bow against something that can outrun and outclimb me.’ ”
Payton, Harper, and other teammates used to take long treks into the woods, chasing down turkeys and squirrels and wild boars. Though their motto, “If it flies, it dies,” might have been a tad crass, the sentiment was genuine. “It was like therapy for us,” said Harper. “No worries, no other people—just the woods, the open air, and a lot of game.”
Following the 1981 season, Payton, Harper, and Skibinski planned a five-day boar-hunting excursion to Crossville, Tennessee. Skibinski had spent considerable time with Payton in duck blinds and on lakes, and he relished the experiences. “The best moments I ever had with Walter were outdoors,” he said. “We’d sit in a boat and not say crap for an hour. Then he’d say, ‘That’s enough. Let’s get something to eat.’
“So we go on this trip to the backwoods of Tennessee, and we rented a Ford Bronco truck at the airport, but all they had was a Lincoln. Well, we get in the Lincoln and it’s me, Walt, Roland, and one other guy—two whites, two blacks. Walter’s driving through rural Tennessee down this gravel road, with a bunch of guns sticking out of the Lincoln, trying to find a place to hunt. We stop to have breakfast at this country dive, and there are some good ol’ boys sitting there, listening to Hank Williams on the jukebox. Walt goes on over, deposits a quarter, and puts on Marvin Gaye. Every cap in that place turned to Walter, guns on hips. Then someone recognized him—‘That’s Walter Payton!’ Once they figured that out it was like old home week, everyone asking for autographs and shaking his hand. And we had one helluva trip.”
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