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Di's Walter Payton Tribute
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| Payton carried the ball and ran for more yards than any running back in NFL history. |
That 16,726 is the number that quantifies "Sweetness." It's the career record for most yards rushing in the National Football League.
For Walter Payton, 16,726 yards not only signify the 9 1/2 miles he ran for in 13 seasons, they also represent durability from a running back who was not afraid to take a hit, to duck his head and plow into a defender just to get that extra yard.
"If I'm going to get hit," Payton said, "why let the guy who's going to hit me get the easiest and best shot? I explode into the guy who's trying to tackle me."
Despite all this punishment, he missed only one game in his Hall of Fame career with the Chicago Bears. Not bad for a guy who predicted he would last only five years.
He seemed unstoppable, and he knew it. Tacklers had difficulty stopping those hard-pounding legs, those runs in which his knees never looked like they were bending, the changes in direction, the bursts through the lines, the overpowering collisions.
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| Walter Payton . |
Asked what defenses should do to stop him, Payton said, "The night before the game, I guess they'd have to kidnap me."
And to think this man who also ran for an NFL record of 275 yards in one game and led the Bears to a Super Bowl could have become a drummer or even a professional dancer. In college, he was a finalist in the national "Soul Train" dance contest.
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| Walter Payton . |
He was born on July 25, 1954 in Columbia, Mississippi. Even though his family was athletically inclined, Payton did not play football until he was a high school junior. By the time he left Columbia High School, a strong upper body and muscular legs made the 5-foot-10, 200-pound Payton the prototype for a young running back.
After shedding the childhood nickname "Spiderman," Payton picked up "Sweetness" at Jackson State, a school he chose over larger, more glamorous suitors because his brother, Eddie, was already playing there. Whether it was for all the skills he brought to the field or because it packed a certain irony for someone who loved physical contact, the new nickname stuck.
After breaking into the starting lineup as a freshman in 1971, Payton would finish his Jackson State career in 1974 with 464 points, an NCAA Division II scoring record that would not be broken until 1998. Not only was Payton a marvelous running back, he developed into a multiple threat. Receiver. Return man. Punter. Placekicker. Those 464 points were composed of 66 touchdowns, five field goals and 53 extra points.
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| Walter Payton . |
Despite playing for a small school, Payton received some consideration for the Heisman Trophy. Renowned New York columnist Dick Young, writing in The Sporting News, validated the hype two months before Payton's senior season. He predicted Payton would become the first player from a traditionally black college to win the Heisman.
Though Payton, a jewel in the small-college rough, didn't come close to winning the award, he was the first running back selected (No. 4 overall) in the 1975 draft.
As a rookie, Payton ran for 679 yards and established himself as a reliable blocker and return man. An NFC rushing title followed in 1976, when Payton gained 1,390 yards. He might have grabbed the league rushing crown from O.J. Simpson (1,503 yards) had he not been injured before the last game.
He made up for it with his best year ever in 1977. Payton was voted the league's MVP after leading the NFL with 1,852 yards rushing, including his most impressive individual performance.
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| Walter Payton . |
On November 20, two days after being bed-ridden with the flu, he had run for 77 yards against the Minnesota Vikings by the end of the first quarter. At halftime, he was up to 144. After three quarters, he had 192. Boosted by a 58-yard off-tackle run in the fourth quarter, Payton finished with his record 275 yards, two more than Simpson's record.
It was as if he was burning the flu out of his body with every one of his 40 carries, proving his belief that "I get stronger as the game goes on."
Between 1976 and 1980, Payton led the NFC in rushing every season, and his annual salary rose to $475,000, the highest in the league.
All the while, Payton's weight-training regimen in the offseason became legendary. Besides lifting, his daily routine included runs along the obstacles near the Pearl River in Mississippi. He ran through "The Sand" (65 yards worth of beach) or up "The Levee" (a 45-degree slope).
In the early eighties Payton and the Pittsburgh Steelers' Franco Harris were on pace to break Jim Brown's career rushing record of 12,312 yards. Harris eventually fell by the wayside, his durability being no match for Payton's. Arthroscopic surgery on both knees after the 1983 season didn't even stop Payton, who called the operations "my 11,000-yard checkup."
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| Walter Payton breaking Jim Brown's record. |
In a 1984 game against the New Orleans Saints, Payton broke the record with a six-yard sweep at Soldier Field. The game was stopped for three minutes as teammates and photographers surrounded him.
Still, the one thing missing from Payton's career was a Super Bowl ring. That problem would be corrected in the 1985 season.
Those Bears were a team of characters: Flamboyant bad-boy quarterback Jim McMahon, larger-than-than-life lineman-turned-occasional running back William "Refrigerator" Perry, street-fighting Buddy Ryan's "46" defense, and, of course, coach Mike Ditka.
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Amid all that flash, Payton was clearly the team's most productive player, gaining 1,551 yards on the ground and another 483 on 49 pass receptions to lead the Bears to an 18-1 record, including a 46-10 rout of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX.
Payton's last big year was 1986, when he reached 1,000 yards rushing for the 10th time in his career. He also became the first player to eclipse a career total of 20,000 all-purpose yards.
Age and injuries finally took their toll in 1987, when Payton announced he was competing in his last season. Before the Bears' final regular-season home game, Payton's No. 34 uniform was retired.
His career totals include 125 touchdowns (110 rushing and 15 receiving), 21,803 all-purpose yards, 77 games with at least 100 yards on the ground, an NFL record 3,838 carries, nine Pro Bowl selections and, yes, those 16,726 yards rushing. The numbers put him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame's class of 1993 and on the NFL's 75th Anniversary team in 1994. Payton was also enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 1996.
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| Payton memoriablia. |
He lives with his family in South Barrington, Ill., served on the Bears board of directors and was a partner in business ventures ranging from race cars to restaurants. He still likes to play the drums, dance and, proving he remains versatile, walk around on his hands, now he does this in Heaven.
Although his rushing record of 16,726 yards is an easy number to forget, Payton indicated an easier way to keep him in mind.
"I want to be remembered," he said, "like Pete Rose -- 'Charlie Hustle.' I want people to say, 'Wherever he was, he was always giving it his all.' "
Teammates who had stayed as close as Payton allowed them still expressed surprise. Payton died at noon at his suburban home with his wife Connie, son Jarrett and daughter Brittney with him.
Mike Singletary, a teammate and fellow Hall of Fame player, said he prayed and read Scripture with Payton over the weekend. "Outside of anything I've ever seen--the greatest runs, the greatest moves--what I experienced this weekend was by far the best by Walter Payton," Singletary said.
Jarrett Payton, a freshman football player at the University of Miami, was called home Thursday. He addressed the media at Bears headquarters in Lake Forest only hours after his father's death, thanking medical people, the Bears, Payton's teammates and Chicago fans. "The last 12 months have been extremely tough on me and my family," Jarrett said. "We learned a lot about love and life. Our greatest thanks goes out to the people of Chicago. You adopted my dad and made him yours. He loved you all."
Former Bears coach and Hall of Fame player Mike Ditka called Payton "the greatest Bear of all," and Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey paid special tribute to the only Bears player other than founder George Halas to graduate from the playing field to the team's board of directors.
"After Brian Piccolo died (in 1969), my husband Ed and I promised ourselves we wouldn't be so personally involved with any of the players," Mrs. McCaskey said, fighting back tears. "We were able to follow that resolve until Walter Payton came into our lives."
In 13 seasons with the Bears from 1975-87, Payton set NFL records for yardage (16,726) and rushing attempts (3,838) that still stand. His 10 seasons with 1,000 or more yards, his 275 yards in one game, and his 77 games with more than 100 yards rushing also are records that have not been broken.
From the time he arrived as a 20-year-old No. 1 draft choice from Jackson State in 1975, Payton's relentless running style and charismatic personality earned him the admiration of Chicagoans starved for sports heroes. For years, Payton patiently carried a team with less talent until his effort was rewarded with a Super Bowl season in 1985.
When Payton retired, the man who drafted him, General Manager Jim Finks, said: "He's rare in his whole approach to this business. He has answered the call every Sunday for 13 years at a very demanding position. He's rare in that he never compromised his privacy or his family for extra dollars. He has handled notoriety as professionally as anybody I've ever known, by being himself. He let his work speak for itself."
Payton was diagnosed with PSC in the fall of 1998 and revealed it at a press conference on Feb. 2 after he felt compelled to explain a dramatic weight loss. PSC is a rare disease in which the bile ducts inside and outside the liver narrow because of inflammation and scarring. This causes bile to accumulate in the liver and results in damage to liver cells. It is a progressive disease that leads to cirrhosis and liver failure. The exact cause of PSC is unknown.
In February, after preliminary tests at the Mayo Clinic, Payton said: "They did a biopsy of the ducts and came up with no cancers or anything else." Payton went on to say he was treating the disease the same way he treated football injuries during a career in which he missed only one game.
"I'm looking at it as a sprained ankle or a twisted knee," he said. "I have to stay positive. Nobody else can make me stay positive. I have to do that. Then whatever happens, happens. If in two years something happens and I get a transplant and my body accepts it and I go on, that's fine. And if in two years I don't, then that's the way life was meant to be for me."
Payton spokesperson Ginny Quirk, a vice president of Walter Payton, Inc., said services are pending. There will be private services for the family and a public memorial service.
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