Sweetness

by Jeff Pearlman

  In 1973, the Mavericks were a solid football team coached by the engaging Al Caniglia. They finished the year 7-2-1, and hope abounded. On a February evening in 1974, however, Caniglia returned home after a day of meetings, collapsed from a massive heart attack, and died. He was fifty-two. “Al was a great man,” said Bill Daenhauer, the team’s defensive coordinator. “He took care of you, and always made sure everything was going well for those around him. He wanted you to succeed.” With his death less than two months before the start of spring practices, the school acted quickly to find a replacement. Don Leahy, Nebraska-Omaha’s athletic director, hired C. T. Hewgley, a standout offensive and defensive tackle at the University of Wyoming from 1948 to 1950 who, in 1973, coached his alma mater’s offensive line.

  A tank driver with the 45th Infantry Division in Europe during World War II (as well as an infantry company commander in Korea), Hewgley used his first meeting with the Maverick players to let them know long hair—a staple under the liberal-minded Caniglia—was no longer tolerated. “We had a quarterbacks session once, and he took us to his house to show us a jar of the ‘Gook ears’—his words—that he brought back [from Korea],” said John Bowenkamp, a UNO quarterback. “We were eighteen, nineteen, Vietnam was winding down and most of us were against the war. The ears didn’t go over so well.”

  Neither did Hewgley’s football philosophies. Befitting an ex–drill sergeant, the new coach used the preseason to run his players into the ground, often implementing three-a-day practices with no water. “I was two hundred and thirty-eight pounds the year before he arrived,” said Ted Sledge, a star defensive tackle. “After some of the games my senior year I weighed one-ninety-eight. You can’t play the line like that. Not possible.” Under Caniglia, the Mavericks relied on star halfback Saul Ravenell, a third-team all-American in 1973, by operating the I-formation. “We switched to the wishbone when Hewgley took the job, only we didn’t have fast quarterbacks,” said Ravenell. “The whole thing was a disaster. A bunch of guys quit. Others didn’t play very hard. When you have a coach like C. T. Hewgley, the motivation is hard to come by.”

  The Mavericks arrived in Mississippi on the afternoon of October 4 and spent the night at the Ramada Inn, a short drive from Memorial Stadium. On the evening of the game (scheduled to begin at eight P.M.), the team took a bus to the stadium, only to be greeted by hundreds of Jackson State diehards. “We went there and everyone was black,” said Ravenell. “The fans, the cheerleaders, the players. We were mainly white, and our players had never been in that sort of setting. I’m black, so I wasn’t affected. But they were intimidated. Normally our team would be all pumped up before a game. This time, nothing was said. We were surrounded by tens of thousands of black faces, and we were afraid.”

  “We had no chance,” said Daenhauer. “None.”

  The Mavericks won the opening toss and elected to receive. Their offense took over on the twenty-nine-yard line, and Bowenkamp, a Kansas State transfer starting in place of the injured John Smolsky, jogged onto the field. Hewgley called for a swing pass to Ravenell out of the backfield. Bowenkamp took the snap and rolled right. With Ravenell covered by Tate, the quarterback tucked the ball and turned upfield. POP! He was clocked by Brazile, a six-foot-four, 240-pound linebacker who would later be nicknamed “Dr. Doom” during a fabulous ten-year NFL career. Bowenkamp crumpled to the ground before Brazile’s hand grabbed his shoulder pads and jerked him upward. “White boy,” Brazile growled, “don’t you ever run this way again.”

  The Mavericks punted, and moments later Young scored on a twenty-yard romp through the middle of UNO’s defense, kicking off an offensive explosion unparalleled in the history of Memorial Stadium. The Tigers led 48–0 at halftime, with Hill having decided early on that the day would be devoted to Payton and his Heisman hype. The highlight film—black-and-white and grainy—serves as an ode to a great runner at his absolute greatest.

  “My best safety was a kid named Mike McDermott—a real tough guy from Colorado,” said Daenhauer. “Walter broke through the line one time, and Mike hit him squarely in the chest . . . just unloaded on him. Walter ran right through him like he wasn’t even there. I’d never seen that before.”

  “There was one play when Walter Payton was running, and he was going to my right down the sidelines,” said Jim Sledge, a defensive tackle (and Ted Sledge’s sibling). “My brother was going full steam at him, and he stiff-armed him right in the chest, knocked him back, and scooted another fifty yards.”

  The Tigers won 75–0, the most lopsided game in college football that season. Payton carried the ball eighteen times for 183 yards and six touchdowns. Afterward, UNO’s players expected to receive a stern browbeating from their coach. “There’s nothing I can really tell you after a game like that,” Hewgley said, his voice near a whisper. “We got our butts handed to us by a superhero.”

  Four days later, the Associated Press named its National College Back of the Week. According to an AP article, among those considered for the award were Andrew Johnson of the Citadel, Joe Washington of Oklahoma, Walt Snickenberger of Princeton, and Billy Waddy of Colorado.

  The winner was chosen by unanimous consent: Archie Griffin.

  “Walter,” said Hill, “never got his due. Never.”

  Indeed, overlooked in the aftermath of the 75–0 rout was a monumental achievement: With the six touchdowns against Omaha, Payton scored his 410th career point, breaking the NCAA record. So lightly regarded was Jackson State and the SWAC by the national media that John Husar of the Chicago Tribune dismissively wrote toward the end of his weekly column that Payton “apparently has broken the record—his school claims.” The old mark, set by Dale Mills of Northeast Missouri, had stood for fifteen years. “The record meant a lot to me,” said Mills. “Because it showed what you can accomplish with drive and hard work. But I wasn’t disappointed when Payton broke it, because he seemed to be that type of player.”

  Mills and Payton actually shared some uncanny commonalities. Payton was from Columbia, Mississippi, Mills from Columbia, Missouri. Payton was a five-foot-ten halfback, Mills was a five-foot-ten halfback. Payton followed his older brother Eddie to Jackson State, Mills followed his older brother Bill to Northeast Missouri. Payton started playing as a freshman. Mills started playing as a freshman.

  “It’s all very odd,” said Mills, now seventy and a retired high school science teacher. “I actually met Walter once in the Kansas City International Airport. It was 1988 or ’89, and my son saw Walter and brought me over to introduce us. I said, ‘Walter, you broke my scoring record.’ I don’t think it meant too much to him, but he was very gracious about it.”

  Through late October Payton continued to believe he had a shot at the Heisman. Inside the Jackson State locker room, coaches and teammates insisted the honor was within reach—a dangling carrot that consumed the running back’s attention. “If they are going to go by ability and stats,” he told the Blue and White Flash, “they will have no other choice.”

  Was he deliberately fooling himself? Sort of. Payton certainly knew that while he was wallowing in SWAC obscurity, Griffin was in the midst of a phenomenal streak of exceeding one hundred rushing yards in thirty-one straight games. Yet, in his mind, stranger things had happened. What if Griffin and Anthony Davis got hurt? Or slumped? What if Jackson State won the rest of their games, and Payton ran for more than two hundred yards in all of them? Then, surely, he’d receive his due. Or, at the very least, be strongly considered.

  The Tigers followed the Omaha bloodbath by walloping Bishop in Dallas, 36–10 (Payton ran for 144 yards and three touchdowns), then traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for a Homecoming Day face-off with Southern University, a SWAC rival. Like most of the league’s teams, Southern could not match Jackson State’s talent in a position-by-position comparison. They were thin in most of the skill areas, and ran a wishbone offense that was as simple as it was ineffective.

  The Jaguars entered the game 4-1, and Charlie Bates, the team’s cag
ey coach, based his entire defensive game plan around stopping Payton. “Let them throw, let other guys run the ball, let them kick field goals,” he told his players. “But if you let Walter Payton get space, he’ll run all over us. Choke him at the line, we win.”

  For teams like Omaha and Bishop, the strategy would have been pointless. Payton was faster, stronger, and tougher than the opposition, and his line opened gaping holes on nearly every play. If a defensive end or linebacker didn’t get to him, he was gone. Southern, however, featured a defense with three lighting-quick linebackers and a bruising front four. “You had to have three or four people watching him at all times,” said Harry Gunner, the Jaguar defensive coordinator. “Back in those days, if you did an extensive job scouting Jackson State, you knew they gave away certain formations and plays. Our guys were great at following directions. So we told them, ‘Here’s the play that’s probably coming—don’t let Payton get loose.’ ”

  In one of the most exciting—and controversial—games in SWAC history, Payton took a rare beating. His uniform was caked in dirt, his chest stung from a cornucopia of crushing blows. The fans at Mumford Stadium relentlessly taunted him, cursing his name and mocking his Heisman efforts. Two years earlier the Tigers had ruined Southern’s homecoming with a last-second win, and the memory in Baton Rouge was raw. Entering the fourth quarter, the Tigers trailed 21–13, but marched down the field and had the ball at Southern’s four-yard line. On first and goal, Payton took the handoff and barreled over Armond Brown, the team’s star linebacker, and into the end zone. “It was crushing, because we were determined not to lose,” said Brown. “Not in front of our own fans.”

  With the score now 21–19, Hill kept his offense on the field, electing to tie the game with a two-point conversion. Lining up at the three-yard line, quarterback Jimmy Lewis pitched the ball to Payton, who was drifting left. Payton lowered his head, charged forward, and ran into a pair of Southern defenders at the goal line. He lunged forward, the upper half of his body clearly falling into the end zone. Several Jackson State players raised their hands, celebrating yet another Payton achievement. The crowd booed. Whistles were blown. Bates, the Southern coach, began thinking about the upcoming kickoff return.

  Not so fast.

  The five officials gathered in a small huddle, talked for another minute or two. Finally, a decree was issued. The ball had never crossed the goal line. No score. “The ref told me Walter’s knees had hit the ground first,” said Hill. “I couldn’t believe it. There was no way he didn’t score. No possible way.”

  Payton grabbed the football and slammed it toward the turf in disgust. He ripped his helmet off his head and threw it aside. “No way!” he screamed. “No way in hell!”

  The Jaguars held on for the 21–19 triumph, a crushing blow for Jackson State and for Payton. Though he ran for 113 yards and a touchdown against one of the nation’s best defenses, all was lost. In his mind, the defeat killed the Heisman hopes.

  Upon returning to Jackson, Hill inspected all available photographs from the game. One in particular showed Payton stretched far across the goal line. He sent the picture to various media outposts, hoping to keep the Payton flame alight. The only news outlet to run the photograph was Jackson State’s own Blue and White Flash, which blew it up and placed it beneath a headline reading YOU BE THE REFEREE.

  The game marked the last time Hill ever had Payton charge through the defense on a goal line play. Blessed with powerful legs and Bob Beamon–esque leaping ability, Payton would be better served going over—not through—packed-in opponents. “From that point on, we began a drill in practice,” said Hill. “I’d have all the linebackers hold hands, and Walter would have to fly over them without being pulled down.

  “That’s how he learned to soar.”

  With the loss to Southern, Walter Payton’s senior season was pretty much shot. The Tigers fell again, to Grambling, the following week, and then Payton shocked the coaching staff by sitting out a game against Bethune-Cookman with a mild knee injury (he was used solely as a kicker). The Tigers won their season finale with an emotional 19–13 win at Alcorn State, and Payton’s collegiate career was complete. After his final game, Payton, along with Connie and a couple of Tiger players, purchased two six-packs of Colt 45 Malt Liquor.

  “I’m telling you, I chugalugged the first tall, cold can before Rickey (Young) had the car started again,” Payton wrote. “I guzzled the second, third, and fourth on the way, and I finished the fifth as we got out of the car. It hadn’t quite hit me as we walked in the door, but as I popped the top on number six and began sipping, I became so drunk I could hardly see.”

  Connie, who never drank, was infuriated. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Walter Payton,” she lectured. “You’re just getting what you deserve.”

  She was right. Payton spent the remainder of the night hunched over a toilet.

  With Jackson State’s season over, the NFL’s personnel gurus continued to flock to campus to conduct workouts. Their praise was universal. As Tom Siler noted in his weekly Sporting News column: “Pro scouts, judging from my research, would prefer Payton to Griffin. He’s twenty pounds heavier [this was a tremendous exaggeration on the part of Jackson State’s coaches, who listed Payton as a six-foot-one, 215-pound bruiser with 4.3 speed]. Payton, the scouts say, is a great runner.” The Dallas Cowboys, owners of the second pick in the upcoming draft, were so wowed by Payton that they actually sent Hill a buffet of weight equipment to fill a sparse exercise room in Sampson Hall and make a good impression. The Atlanta Falcons came multiple times. So did the Colts. And the Dolphins. And the Bears. And the Raiders. Scouts loved the way Payton ran and caught and blocked, and they especially appreciated how, after scoring a touchdown, he took the ball and casually handed it to an official. “He always acted like he’d done it before, and he’d do it again,” said Bernard Fernandez, who covered Jackson State for the Clarion-Ledger. “He was no ordinary kid.” Ken Herock, an Oakland scout, had heard stories of Jackson State’s freak of nature, but wanted to see for himself. “He was an NFL back, that much was obvious,” said Herock. “I scouted Archie Griffin at Ohio State, and I wasn’t sold. He was too small, and not that quick. But Walter had all the tools you looked for. And the most impressive part was his makeup. He’d sit down and watch the tapes with you and break them down. There was nothing not to like.”

  For Heisman voters, it mattered not. Though Payton rushed for 1,029 yards, and tallied nineteen touchdowns, one field goal, and six extra points for the 7-3 Tigers, he was a nonfactor. As predicted, on December 3, 1973, New York’s Downtown Athletic Club announced that Griffin, the Ohio State junior, had won the Heisman Trophy in decisive fashion. Having rushed for 1,695 yards and twelve touchdowns, he was an overwhelming—and easy—choice.

  Walter Payton placed fourteenth.

  PART THREE

  CHICAGO

  Larry Ely, Chicago Bears linebacker, 1975

  I came to the Bears from my first NFL team, the Cincinnati Bengals. One of the coaches there in the spring of 1974 was Bill Walsh. I ran into him somewhere after I’d signed with the Bears, and I told him about going to Chicago and trying to win a spot. He said, “You’ve got a real treat coming.” I said, “What?” He said, “You guys have a rookie running back named Walter Payton, and he’ll end up being the best who ever played the game.”

  That was before Walter ever took a single NFL handoff.

  CHAPTER 10

  GOING PRO

  WALTER PAYTON WAS WEARING A PURSE.

  Back in the fall of 1974, such an accessory was, inexplicably, en vogue for young Southern men of color. So that’s what the greatest football player in the history of Jackson State University had slung over his shoulder: A black leather handbag, dangling from a thin strap.

  As did Robert Brazile and Rickey Young, his two Tiger teammates. The three men, all either twenty-one or twenty-two, all nervously twitching, stood alongside a wall in the nondescript Hattiesburg law office, saying nothing
, staring toward the ground. Decked out in fancy new suits and shiny dress shoes, the players felt awkward and out of place. As star collegiate athletes, Payton, Brazile, and Young were used to the casualness of university life, as well as the dirt and grass of a hundred-yard field.

  But not to this.

  They were brought here on this late-November day by Bob Hill, who, when he wasn’t terrifying his players, took it upon himself to safeguard their futures. Back in his days as a high school coach, Hill had been introduced to Paul H. Holmes, a local white attorney known to everyone as, simply, Bud. The two struck up a friendship, fostered primarily upon Holmes’ unorthodox approach to race relations. Instead of tiptoeing around issues of black-white, Holmes attacked race with the tactfulness of a jackhammer. “Y’all are a helluva lot better off than we are,” he told blacks on more than one occasion. “Your ancestors knew somebody wanted you and paid good money. My ancestor was probably sent here out from some prison. My people came out of prison, yours were selected. We all came here under difficult conditions. So why be mad?”

  Hill liked Holmes. Liked his honesty, liked his vulgarity, liked his passion for football. Mostly, he liked that he was one of the few white attorneys in Mississippi willing to extend a helping hand toward young blacks. In 1969, when Hill was still the backfield coach at Jackson State, one of his former high school players, a kid named Verlin Bourne, had gotten in some legal trouble. He called Bud. “I don’t know if you’d take a black client,” said Hill. “But I know this kid, and . . .”