Walter & Me

by Eddie Payton

  To me, there wasn’t really ever a controversy surrounding Daddy’s death. After a couple of days, things settled down a bit in town, and people stopped spreading the crazy conspiracy stuff. And you know, I can’t really blame them for saying those things to begin with. In a town like Columbia, Daddy knew everybody, and sometimes rumors get started about people who know everybody. Also, having two sons who were playing football in the NFL kept all of us under the microscope, and that probably made it easier for people to about Daddy’s death and to get rumors going. You know, “Hey, did you hear they killed Eddie and Walter Payton’s daddy?” Stuff like that. So, I don’t really blame the people of Columbia, especially since they all squashed it pretty quickly. Now, I can’t say the same for the media.

  Shortly after the autopsy, there were a bunch of media types from Chicago hanging around Columbia. There were all kinds of folks camping out at the Payton house, hoping to get the inside scoop about how “they killed Daddy in jail.” It didn’t help that some of the family were hanging around the house and adding fuel to the fire. Bud drove up to the house at one point, and some of the family pointed toward him and told the media, “Hey, look…there’s Bud Holmes. He’s our lawyer! He’s here to represent us, and we’re going to sue the city over Pete’s death.”

  The media did what the media does, and they came right over to put microphones in Bud’s face. Some of the family and some of the other folks in town had been talking about all this stuff that happened down there at the jail as if it were fact, and the media had overheard a thing or two. They wanted Bud to answer some questions. They said something to him about hearing the cops had beaten Daddy up because he was black and they were white. Some of the media were trying to make it a racial thing. Knowing the facts, though, and being from Mississippi unlike those media people, Bud took offense.

  Bud responded by saying, “Okay, I need your name, because the grand jury is going to be convened, and they’re going to want to call you before the grand jury so you can bring all of this evidence you’re collecting to back up what you’re saying.” They didn’t really like hearing that and didn’t know how to come back at it. After some awkward silence, Bud said, “What? Don’t y’all have some evidence to back up what you’re saying? Hell, the grand jury will want to hear it, and I’ll see to it that they do. I’ll get us an attorney, and we’ll have a federal grand jury convene and come down here, okay?” Talking to all those still trying to kick up dust with their words, Bud continued, “I want y’all to be sure to come before the grand jury since you’re saying all these things. Of course, if they aren’t true, well, there are things called contempt of court and obstruction of justice we’ll have to deal with. Minor details like that. If you know something, we want to hear it. But if you don’t know it, let’s don’t be spreading false rumors, okay?” There was a lot of “I heard this happened,” or “I heard that happened” going around at the time. Bud would tell them to tell him who they heard it from, and they always gave him the same response. “Well, I can’t remember.”

  Bud agrees with me that all these conspiracy theories came about because it was happening in Mississippi. Still, Bud told the Chicago media camping at our house that “We have better justice here than y’all have up in Chicago.” If they had some evidence, Bud wanted to hear it and would’ve been the first to do something about it. Of all the lawyers in the world, Bud would’ve been the last one to let someone get away with doing something to our daddy. But all his inquiries for real evidence prompted nothing. Some of the other family members told him, “Hey, I got this lawyer in Jackson who wants to represent the family and help you sue everybody.” Bud said, “That’s great, have at it. Tell him I’ll be glad to come testify. He ain’t gonna like what I say, but he ain’t got to subpoena me to testify, either, because I damn sure conducted an investigation down here. But if he’s got some evidence that I’m not aware of, maybe I didn’t do a good enough job of investigating.” Nothing ever came of any of it, so I guess the evidence was never there.

  And as for the media, Bud knew they were just going after a story like they always do. The facts weren’t as juicy as the rumors, so it was hard to get the media to move away from all that. Bud would later say, “To Eddie, Walter, and Alyne’s credit, they didn’t foster any of it. They didn’t spread any rumors. It’d have been easy for them to say, ‘They killed my poor daddy because he was black and they were white.’ That’d have been the easy thing to say. And you know, even now, Eddie is the epitome of what I think brings about the great, great relationships that we have in our racial community down here in Mississippi.” Bud really appreciated the way Momma, Walter, and I didn’t jump all over the race thing and try to make a fuss where there wasn’t one. “I’ll put our racial relationship in Mississippi above any other state in the United States,” Bud said. “We get together down here. We share a genuine love and respect for each other.”

  Now, ain’t that the truth.

  Walter sure did preach truth at Daddy’s funeral. People were crying and squalling and having a real hard time with it all, but Walter was more composed than ever before. I was so proud of him up there. He got up and talked to all those people, and he told them that if Daddy were still there, he’d have wanted them to celebrate his life and be happy living theirs. There weren’t any tears from my baby brother, and not because he wasn’t sad. There weren’t any tears because he knew that’s how Daddy would’ve wanted it. After the funeral, I was talking to Walter about what he said, and we agreed that something else Daddy would’ve wanted was for his two boys to go back to work. The funeral was on Thursday, so on Friday, Bud flew Walter back to Chicago and took me back to Kansas City for our final games of the 1978 season. Daddy would’ve wanted it that way, and we were going to honor his memory by giving him what he wanted. We also gave him a bunch of yards (Walter rushing the ball and me returning it) and another touchdown from my baby brother. And then, we both flew back home to look after Momma. We came home out of our love for her, of course, but that wasn’t the only love bringing us back. You see, Daddy loved our momma more than anyone. It was largely his love for her that called us home. He would have wanted us to be happy and go on living. He would have wanted us to keep playing football, which we did. But, when the season was over, Walter and I went back to Columbia to look after our dear momma because, well, that’s what Daddy would have wanted most of all.

  11. Runnin’ Against Time

  Momma missed Daddy in a big, big way. Without him around, Walter and I were the men in her life. She wanted to see us as much as possible, but to do that, she had to come to most of our games. It was a logistical nightmare at times with us being on different teams and all, but she was a real trouper and was determined to make it happen. Of course, we made it easier on her by paying for the travel. Walter and I had a good system in place for that. If she came to my game, I’d buy her plane ticket. If she went to Walter’s game, he’d buy her ticket. If our teams played each other in the same game, the losing Payton would cover her ticket. Not that we needed it, but that gave us each a little extra incentive to win.

  During my rookie year, when I was with the Lions, we played Walter and his Bears on Thanksgiving Day in Detroit. The Lions flew Momma in for the game. She was in the parade and even got the key to the city, so it was a real fun time for her. For the first half of the game, she sat on the Bears’ side, and for the second half she sat on the Lions’ side. So, I like to think she started out rooting for Walter and the Bears, but in the end she really wanted me and the Lions to win. Really, though, she cheered for us equally. She treated us equally. And what’s crazy is, on that day, she saw her boys run equally. Walter rushed for 137 yards, and I returned kicks for—yep, you guessed it—137 yards. Momma got to see us each run exactly the same distance in that Thanksgiving Day game. We didn’t plan it that way, but maybe someone did.

  Of course, Momma wasn’t always around, so I spent the rest of my time in the
NFL taking full advantage of all the fringe benefits it had to offer. For somebody with a libido like mine, the NFL isn’t a good environment. Or maybe I should say, it’s not a good environment in which to be good. After they retire, players are often asked what they miss most about the NFL, and the guys will say all sorts of things. They often say they miss the camaraderie with their teammates or the exhilaration of running out on the field in front of thousands of people (millions on TV) or the money they made or blah, blah, blah. If they’d tell the truth, though, I bet 95 percent of ’em would say they missed the smorgasbord of beautiful, sexy women crowding around them day and night. They’re in every city you play in, everywhere you go. There’re women who’ll give their right arm just to be seen in the presence of an NFL player, and they’ll give more than that to be in the presence of an NFL star. I ain’t talking about no dogs, either; I’m talking about 9s and 10s. These are the kind of women you’re proud to be seen with. And it was just too easy to get them.

  You’d be out with one woman, and another would be sending you notes from the other side of the table. Or if you were out on a date and got into an argument or something, the girl you’re with would always have girlfriends hanging out in the room. Though they weren’t dogs, like I said, they did run in packs. Well, one of those girlfriends would come over to see what was going on, and if y’all were still fighting, that girlfriend would offer herself to you as a replacement. Things sure did get complicated for me a time or two thanks to the nonstop flow of irresistible women.

  Now, I say “irresistible” as a figure of speech, not because no one could resist them. Walter could resist them much better than most. People talk about Walter as a womanizer, but the truth is he was kind of sanctified compared to other NFL players, including yours truly. We were equals in the eyes of our momma, like I said, but we certainly weren’t equals when it came to womanizing. He knew how to say no. Me? Well, I’d open my mouth with the intent of saying no, and it just wouldn’t come out. I often meant to say no, but I guess I just felt like I’d be letting somebody down if I didn’t say yes. You know, like I was supposed to be living the life that every other guy out there dreamed of living. Walter just didn’t think the way I did when it came to all of that. Walter’s nightlife as an NFL player was boring compared to mine. He wanted to be a good football player, but he mostly wanted to be a good husband and a good father. And if I ever envied him for anything, it was for that. I never really felt like I wanted to be like Walter in the game of football, but it sure wouldn’t have hurt to have been a little more like him in the game of life. People like Walter are unique in the NFL. Guys like him are out there trying to find that one person who will make them whole, while the rest of us are out there trying to find that one-night stand. Walter was a family man from the get-go, but it took me until I got out of the league to settle down, have kids, and watch them grow up.

  I went into the league married, but got divorced after the first year. Then I ran wild, more off the field than on, for about eight years. I guess I was just young and enjoying the spoils of who I was…or who I thought I was. And you know, though I don’t really regret the things I did (I mean, nobody got hurt), I do regret the fact that I missed watching my first two kids growing up. I was just never there; I was always away playing football, golf, baseball, or fishing. Later in life, I found someone who’d put up with my shit, so I got married again and have enjoyed watching our kids grow up. (I actually get to coach my daughter now as she’s on the Jackson State girl’s golf team.) But for a while there, it was all about the NFL life for me.

  I was only able to enjoy all those women in Kansas City for one year. That’s when the team cut me. Then I was out of the NFL for a year during the 1979 season, but I sure kept playing football. Right after my release from the Chiefs, Forrest Gregg, who was my head coach at Cleveland, called me up. He was out of the NFL, too, coaching the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL, and he needed a return specialist. So I was like, “Yeah, where do I sign?” I packed up all my things just like that and headed to Toronto. I got a big bonus for signing, too, so it was a good deal all the way around. I wasn’t in the NFL enjoying all the women that come along with it, but those Canadian women were awfully sweet, and I was still getting paid to play football.

  While I was playing in Canada, Walter was in “the States” (it took a while to get used to everyone up in Canada calling it that) having one of his best years to date, running up and down NFL fields week after week. He won the rushing crown that season by carrying the ball 369 times for 1,610 yards. That sort of yardage total is mind-boggling even for today’s juiced-up league, but that wasn’t even Walter’s best year. He had 1,852 yards in 1977 and 1,684 yards in 1984. His highest touchdown total was 14, which he reached twice. One of those 14-touchdown seasons came while I was in Canada. Oh, and he added 31catches for 313 yards that season to boot.

  I was in Toronto for a year, and then I came home, because I got sick with a terrible case of the flu. Or maybe it was “Eh” fever. Who really knows? Regardless, I was happy to be back in “the States” and even happier when the Vikings became the fourth NFL team interested in my services. I was on the move yet again, and though I was headed north this time, at least I was going to be south of the CFL.

  Minnesota was a great place to play. As a bonus, I was reunited with Rickey Young (a teammate at Jackson State, if you’ll recall), who’d been with the Vikings since 1978 when he was traded from San Diego to Minnesota. So when we played the Bears, it felt like me and Rickey against Walter in a Jackson State scrimmage. And me and Rickey had the better team at that time.

  Before 1982, when the Bears finally got a good quarterback (more on that in a bit), it was basically just Walter left, Walter right, Walter day, and Walter night. There was nothing but Sweetness every which way pretty much from 1976 to 1981. He gained over 1,000 yards and made the Pro Bowl each of those seasons but one. He was taking a beating, though, and he couldn’t win games by himself. My first year with Minnesota, we played the Bears at Soldier Field in 1980, and we kicked their butts 34–14. Our defense held Walter to 39 yards on 16 carries (less than 2.5 yards per carry). And big brother actually had more total yards in the game than he did. Walter had 53 yards, including receiving yards, while I returned five punts and one kickoff for a total of 61 yards. But it wasn’t Walter’s fault. He was running behind a patchwork, inexperienced offensive line, and he was frustrated.

  After that game, I was hanging out with my brother, and he complained all night about the bad mistakes the Bears were making. It was all truth, too. As talented as Walter was, he couldn’t run through holes that just weren’t there, and he couldn’t keep the offense from sputtering when he didn’t get the ball. “We’re going to get rid of some of these guys who’re making all these mistakes,” he finally said, “and we’re going to come up with a passing game.” Most guys would think a player as good as Walter would actually want to be the whole offense, but that just wasn’t the way he saw it. Just like at Jackson State, he wanted to win above all else, so he knew the Bears needed an attention-grabbing passing game.

  I just smiled and gave my baby brother a little jab. “As long as y’all keep playing like that,” I said, “we’re gonna keep beating you.” And sure enough, we beat them again later that year, though I do have to admit it was closer. We got them 13–7 in a defensive struggle, but Walter wasn’t held in check this time. He got 102 yards of the Bears’ 161 yards rushing. I didn’t do as well in that one, gaining just 38 yards on one kick return and four punt returns. Oh well. I guess that’s why they say “Scoreboard!”

  Fortunately for me and the Vikings, we ended up with the high number on the scoreboard in two out of the remaining three head-to-head games we had against the Bears in my time there. Our defense keyed in on Walter every time, and we were able to hold him under 100 yards in three of the five games we played against each other. The very last time Walter and I stood on opposite sidelines was in 1982
, and I’ll never forget it. It was one of the best victories I was a part of in the NFL. The Bears and Vikings only played once that year because of a 57-day players’ strike, and the Bears were simply dismal in that game. We crushed them 35–7. It felt good for me and my teammates, but things were about to change in Chicago. Walter wouldn’t be frustrated for much longer. He was about to get his wish…even if he thought it was a curse at first.

  When the Bears drafted Jim McMahon in the 1982 draft, I’m not sure any of them knew what they were getting. They found out, though, when McMahon showed up to his first press conference in a big ol’ white limousine. He got out of that thing wearing a white fur coat and tokin’ on a long cigarette holder. He looked like the front man for some glam rock band, not the quarterback of the Chicago Bears. I remember everybody in the league thinking, Is this guy for real? Walter was no exception.

  Walter called me up shortly after that press conference, and he was raising himself a little hell. He couldn’t believe this was the guy they brought in to turn the passing game around. “Man, we wasted a draft choice!” he shouted through the phone. “We’ve needed a quarterback for so long, and they draft this idiot?!” Walter wasn’t happy. I just let him vent until he calmed down and said good-bye. Then one night I was sleeping when the phone woke me up. It was Walter calling again after the Bears played in San Diego, only this time he was singing a different tune. It turned out to be sort of like a glam rock anthem. “Man, I’ve never seen anything like this boy in my life. Man, I ain’t shittin’ you.”

  I was still trying to wake up and hear what he was saying. “What? What’s that?” I asked.

  “Man, he got in that game and he went absolutely stone crazy. He was throwing that ball around, screaming and hollering. Them boys scored three or four touchdowns in no time. Man, that boy is crazy! He’s gonna be a tremendous quarterback!”