Sweetness

by Jeff Pearlman

  Ever since Payton’s death, people had been trying their best to define him in their terms. The religious leaders who had only recently met him. The wife who didn’t live with him. The reporters who were usually kept at bay. Within the confines of a crumbling stadium, however, the real Walter Payton could still be found. Even in his death, it took only a closed pair of eyes and the texture of a brisk Lake Michigan wind to visualize Sweetness rolling around tackle, spinning past the outside linebacker, and slamming his elbow into a defensive back’s chin.

  The fans are standing, cheering, chanting “Walter! Walter! Walter!” He pops up off the ground and jogs back toward the huddle, a blinding smile peeking out from beneath his face mask.

  Walter Payton is home.

  CHAPTER 28

  AFTERWORD

  THROUGHOUT THE WORLD OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS, LEGACY IS A TRICKY thing.

  For most of the athletes who wear a uniform of some sort, legacy simply does not exist. You’re a rookie. Then you’re a veteran. Then you retire. Then you vanish. Poof! Gone, as if your career never really existed to begin with.

  Of the hundreds upon hundreds of players Walter Payton called teammates over his thirteen NFL seasons, how many do we remember? How many would we recognize strolling through an airport or sitting at a table inside Burger King? Truth be told, how many would we recognize if they walked up to our front doors, knocked, and said, “Hello, I’m [FILL IN THE NAME]?”

  Walter Payton was different.

  Is different.

  Twenty-four years after his final game and twelve years following his death at age forty-six, Payton has attained an iconic spot atop the sports pantheon. Whose image can be seen in the background whenever one tunes into the NFL Network’s studio show? Whose name is attached to the award for the NFL’s Man of the Year, as well as the most outstanding offensive player in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision? Who is the namesake behind one of Chicago’s top college preparatory high schools? Whose foundation continues to raise funds for abused, neglected, and underprivileged children in the state of Illinois? Whose nickname—Sweetness—is, within the context of sports, as identifiable as Toyota or IBM or KFC?

  Walter Payton.

  Truth be told, Payton probably isn’t the greatest pure running back in NFL history. Jim Brown was more skilled. Emmitt Smith gained more yards (he broke Payton’s record in 2002). Earl Campbell was stronger, Gale Sayers was faster, Barry Sanders was more elusive. Throughout his career, Payton was routinely overshadowed by his peers in the same position. He never matched the splendor of O.J. Simpson or the grace of Eric Dickerson. Marcus Allen boasted a regalness Payton lacked. Billy Sims entered the league with greater hype.

  Payton, however, touched people. They identified with him, related to him, understood him. Coming out of tiny Jackson State, Payton was far from the collegiate golden child, running before seventy thousand fans and national television audiences. Playing for the oft-miserable Bears, he took brutal shots, but refused to stay down for long. He was a workman, lacking only a hard hat and lunch pail. He was never overwhelmingly fast or especially big, but he fought for everything he gained. He was a trooper. A survivor. A dogged workhorse. You loved Walter Payton because you appreciated Walter Payton. Unlike Dickerson, he rarely whined. Unlike Simpson, he never preened. “Do you think they still wear Jim Brown jerseys in Cleveland?” said Mike Ditka. “No. Do they still wear Paul Hornung jerseys in Green Bay? No. Johnny Unitas jerseys in Baltimore? No. You know why, at Bears games, you’ll see hundreds of Walter Payton jerseys? Because people know what he was all about. They know that when Walter put on his uniform and the game started, he was going to give everything he had, no matter what. That’s awfully powerful.”

  In the modern history of sports, Payton’s smile is rivaled only by the one flashed by Magic Johnson. It seemed to emit its own energy, and the radiance only intensified as children approached for an autograph or a high-five.

  Was Walter Payton perfect? Far from it. He was flawed, as all of us are. He was prone to terrible lapses in judgment and often treated women as objects, not people. He ignored his out-of-wedlock son, blew much of his money, struggled with a form of depression that led to suicidal thoughts and threats. The confident swagger with which he walked often served as a front for deep-seated insecurities and a man crying out for help.

  In other words, he was human.

  As I wrap up work on this book, that’s what I love most about Payton. Yes, he was a superstar. And yes, his death—as was the case with celebrities ranging from James Dean and Marilyn Monroe to Jimi Hendricks and Shannon Hoon—served to freeze him in time, forever a Chicago Bear, forever young and strong and vibrant.

  What makes a person truly unique, however, is his shortcomings, and how he chooses to deal with them. Through all his highs and all his lows, Walter Payton continued to possess a rare sense of humanity. Having now covered sports for sixteen years, I’ve seen an endless stream of athletes treat their fans as eczema-like irritations. They walk through the world as if encased in a Plexiglas bubble, immune to the fact that a minute’s worth of attention will often never be forgotten.

  Until the day he died, Payton refused to lose sight of this.

  Had I so desired, I could have written a seven-hundred-page book consisting solely of You’re-not-gonna-believe-this stories of Payton’s goodness. The time he met a University of Central Florida defensive back named Todd Burks on an airplane and hooked him up with a tryout with the Bears. The time he pulled aside a Jackson State running back named William Arnold and offered the pep talk of a lifetime. The times he gave away autographed helmets, autographed footballs, autographed pictures to one charity or another.

  Here at the end, however, I want to conclude with my personal favorite.

  In 1984, Brandon Peacy was a twelve-year-old student at Jack Benny Middle School in Waukegan, Illinois. One day his father, Bill, surprised him by saying, “Grab some football cards, we’re going on a trip.” Forty-five minutes later Brandon found himself at the Chicago Bears’ training facility in Lake Forest. “My dad knew someone who worked for the Bears,” Peacy said. “We were given a tour of the facility—the locker room, the weight room. I was blown away.”

  Brandon strolled toward the field, where he stood on the sideline, playing with a football. He heard a high-pitched voice—“Hey, buddy! Hey, buddy! Come here, buddy!” It was Walter Payton.

  The running back was standing in a circle with Jim McMahon, Steve Fuller, and Matt Suhey. He asked Brandon his name and introduced him to the players. “Brandon, you don’t have to be nervous,” he said. “I’m just a guy.” Before Payton headed off for an adjacent field, he removed the wristbands from his arms and tossed them to Brandon. “Great meeting you!” he said. “Have a great time!”

  “Best day of my life,” Brandon said. “I was floating on air.”

  Eleven years later, twenty-three-year-old Brandon Peacy was working as a producer for WKRS, a five-thousand-watt radio station out of Waukegan. A couple of days before the October 22, 1995, Oilers–Bears game at Soldier Field, Peacy returned to Lake Forest to pick up press credentials at Halas Hall. While waiting for assistance, he spotted Walter Payton, now forty-two and eight years retired, walking down a hallway.

  “Hey, how ya doing?” Payton said.

  “Hi, Walter,” Peacy replied. “It’s good to see you.”

  The two chatted for a couple of minutes, when Payton said, “I have this thing for faces—something tells me I met you before.”

  “You did,” Peacy said. “But I was just a kid, so you probably don’t . . .”

  “Try me,” he replied.

  Peacy told Payton the story, how he was a twelve-year-old boy in 1984, and it was during a practice, and McMahon and Suhey and Fuller and . . .

  “Were you with a real tall guy?” Payton asked. “A tall guy wearing a green hat?”

  Bill, Brandon’s father, is six foot seven. He had, indeed, sported a green baseball cap.

 
; “Uh . . . yeah,” Peacy said.

  “So you must have been the little kid,” Payton said. “The one in the purple shirt.”

  Peacy was dumbfounded. His jaw dropped. His eyes widened. All he could say was, “Holy shit.” Walter Payton broke up laughing, then jabbed Brandon in the arm. “I tell everyone I have a great memory,” Payton said, “but nobody believes me.

  “I’m glad you know the truth about me.”

  WHAT BECAME OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS

  Connie Payton, Walter’s wife of twenty-three years, still lives in Chicago, where she heads the Walter and Connie Payton Foundation and speaks glowingly of her late husband. In 2008, she married Michael Strotter, a native Chicagoan and the CEO of Advanced Medical Imaging Centers. She is, according to her children, comfortable and happy in her role as gatekeeper of her late husband’s legacy.

  After graduating from the University of Miami in 2004, Jarrett Payton went on to play, briefly, with the Tennessee Titans, the Amsterdam Admirals (of NFL Europe), and the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts. He now hosts a weekly Internet radio show in his native hometown and is working toward becoming a hip-hop artist and comedian. Of the fourteen tattoos that adorn his body, five are depictions of his father. When, in 2009, he married Trisha George, the wedding took place on March 4—3/4, in honor of his dad. The reception was held at Soldier Field. Should he one day be blessed with a son, Jarrett already has a name picked out. “Tres Quatro,” he says. “I love that.”

  When people speak with Jarrett, they often feel as if they are in the presence of his father. The smile is the same, the gregariousness toward others eerily familiar. Just as his hero loved reaching out toward strangers, so does Jarrett. Shortly after Walter died, Jarrett said he was faced with a choice—he could either run away from the comparisons, or embrace them. It was, he says, an easy decision. “I want to hear about my dad every chance I can get,” he said. “I know this sounds crazy, but I believe he’s watching down on me, guiding me. Whenever I look at the clock, it’s 1:34, 2:34, 3:34. The number’s everywhere which, to me, means he’s everywhere.”

  Though softer and less engaging than her older brother, Brittney Payton is also a local media personality. A graduate of DePaul University, she now works for WGN as one of the hosts of a TV show, Chicago’s Best. Like both of her brothers, Brittney looks very much like her father, from the almondshaped brown eyes to the high cheekbones. “There are a lot of days I’m sad my dad isn’t here,” she says. “Just because of all the things he’s missing. When my brother got married it was such a happy day, but it also hurt, because there was a real void.”

  Eddie Payton has been the golf coach at Jackson State University since 1986. In his time with the program, he has emerged as one of the nation’s top collegiate coaches, leading the Tigers to 22 men’s and 14 women’s SWAC titles. “There’s not a day when I don’t think about Walter,” he says. “But I’m not sad, because I know he’s in a better place.”

  Sadly, Eddie is largely estranged from Connie, Jarrett, and Brittney. Though they talk every few years, mistrust reigns. Eddie and Connie operate their own Walter Payton–themed charities, and the animosity is palpable. Says Brittney: “I think my uncle and that side of the family all felt as if they were owed something from my dad. Even during his career, I think they felt like they were owed something from him and they didn’t get it while he was alive and so they really expected they would get something from him in the end. I think they had a lot of issues with that. I don’t think he had the best relationship with them, and I think that filtered over to me and my brother because he never made it a point for us to reach out to them.”

  Lita Gonzalez, Walter’s longtime girlfriend, still lives on the East Coast, and she continues to work as a flight attendant. She has never married, and has worked hard to put the drama with Walter Payton out of her mind. “It’s painful,” she says. “Everything that happened, the way his life ended—I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’ve moved on.”

  Bud Holmes, Walter’s agent for the entirety of his career, still lives in Pedal, Mississippi. He is retired, but stays involved in local high school and college sports. Like Eddie, he is no longer on regular speaking terms with Connie. “I like Connie,” says Holmes. “But she’s gone out of her way to cut off the people who know the truth about Walter. She’s probably smart to do that. There’s an image to keep up.”

  Ginny Quirk, Walter’s coworker for fourteen years, lives in Illinois. She is married to Mark Alberts, Walter’s former business partner. The couple has two children. The Payton family has accused Quirk of forging Walter’s signature and then selling “autographed” Payton items for large amounts of money. “Completely untrue,” she says. “I don’t even want to dignify that with any sort of response. It’s character assassination.”

  Walter’s mother, Alyne Payton, lives in a quaint suburban home in Jackson, Mississippi. Now eighty-five years old, she spends her days gardening and hosting random visitors. “I’m happy,” she says. “It’s been a wonderful life.”

  In the summer of 2008, a handsome twenty-three-year-old biracial man took his first-ever flight from Chicago to Jackson, Mississippi.

  Though he knew some about the faraway city in the faraway state, any details had always been in the abstract. “Your father is from down South,” he’d been told. “That’s where your roots are.”

  Until now, Nigel Smythe, Walter’s second son, had never looked especially hard into this part of his life. He understood that his biological father was one of the most famous sports figures in the United States. But he also knew the same man—one adored by millions of people—had made no effort to be a dad. From the day Nigel was born in 1985 until Walter’s death in 1999, the two never lived more than thirty miles apart from one another. Despite that, Walter Payton—the onetime Illinois Fatherhood Initiative Chicago Father of the Year—wanted nothing to do with the boy.

  Now, however, his father was nine years deceased, and Nigel sought answers. With his grandmother and girlfriend by his side, he flew to Jackson to meet the family he never knew. He was, as they say down South, nervous as all heck.

  The trepidation vanished, however, as soon as Nigel touched down in the Magnolia State. Alyne Payton, his long-lost grandmother, squeezed him tight and fed him Southern delicacies. His aunt Pamela told stories about her brother that made Nigel laugh. He looked at pictures and asked questions about a father he both loved and resented. Cousins stopped by—Brandi, Pam’s daughter; Erica, Eddie’s girl. He even met Holmes. “He was a real nice kid, and I think he really appreciated coming to Mississippi and understanding where he comes from,” said Holmes. “He looks a whole lot like Walter. Has that same glow.”

  Wary of the attention that could come should people learn of her son’s heritage, Angelina and her husband raised Nigel cautiously. He was homeschooled for much of his youth, then attended a high school for the intellectually gifted. Now twenty-six and living in Illinois, Nigel is completing his college education. He tells precious few people of his lineage and chose not to speak for this book. “He’s an incredible person,” said Angelina. “Despite it all, he’s a man I’m very, very proud of. It wasn’t always easy, but it’s worked out well.”

  Though the Mississippi branch of the Payton family has come to embrace Nigel, the same cannot be said for the Illinois faction. Connie has never mentioned his existence in public. When Jarrett and Brittney are asked about their family, they never broach the subject of their half-brother. They know he resides nearby, yet seem to treat him as they would a cardboard cutout—present, but mostly ignored. Perhaps they have good reason; perhaps the embarrassment that would accompany the revelation of a philandering father outweighs the potential positives.

  Whatever the case, it is heartbreaking.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I AM WRITING THESE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FROM THE BOYHOOD BEDROOM OF Elliot Lieberman, my wife’s twenty-eight-year-old cousin and a kid who, judging by the CD ra
ck situated alongside my laptop, once had an inexplicable thing for the pop band B*Witched.

  Elliot’s room is an ode to the eternalness of youth. There are Little League trophies and academic plaques, a poster of the 1994–95 Luveabulls, a small wooden bat, baseball cards, a pair of weathered KangaROOS sneakers. Over the course of the past two and a half years, I have spent a great amount of time here. Thanks to Elliot’s wonderful mother, Cathy Lieberman, I come and go as I please, often flying into Chicago on a second’s notice and taking up residence—rent, meals, towels, Internet, Molly the dog, and engrossing conversation included free of charge. As a result, I know the intricacies of this room by heart. The large green pillow at the foot of the bed. The photo montage of various family vacations. The dusty books lining the shelves.

  Of the myriad objects, my favorite is a simple one. In the corner of the room, at the base of a hat rack, sits what appears to be a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap. It is red and a bit bulky, and on the back the words CHAMPION COACH MARK are stitched in white capital letters.

  Whenever I enter Elliot’s room, I inevitably pick up the hat and smooth over the embroidery with my fingers. I think about Mark raising two wonderful kids, Elliot and his sister, Lisa, and how proud he’d be today had he not passed seven years ago. Mark was a passionate Chicago sports fan, and as I lie in bed at night I often imagine him sitting on the edge of the mattress, asking aloud whether I’ve yet spoken to Mike Ditka; if Jimmy Mac has returned my phone calls; if I’m happy with how things are going thus far.

  Like Walter Payton, Mark Lieberman passed from cancer. And while his death was a tragedy the family will never fully recover from, it has allowed me to personalize parental loss; to understand the harrowing void that comes with no longer having a father to turn to. The pain can never be fully healed. The reminders of a lost hero serve to both soothe and bruise the psyche. One wants to move on. One can never fully move on.