Living life to its utmost

Payton was a genuine role model — off the field as well as on it

By Hub Arkush, Publisher/Editor
Saturday, Nov. 6, 1999

In the end, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at all that it is left to Walter himself to explain to us how the man whom John Madden, Franco Harris and Mike Ditka have all called "the greatest football player of all time" could be taken from us by cancer of the bile ducts at the tender age of 45. How is it possible that the man who holds the NFL’s all-time records for total yards gained (21,803) and rushing yards (16,726), along with six other NFL records — all accomplished while missing just one game over a 13-year career — could be so ravaged by this cancer that it would claim him just six months after it was diagnosed, leaving him more than 65 pounds below his playing weight of 205?

"Tomorrow isn’t promised to anybody."

Word of the seriousness of Payton’s condition spread to his inner circle and the extended Chicago Bears family a month or two before his death. But at the Hall of Fame running back’s request, it was a kept a tightly guarded secret from his legion of fans around the world. Payton’s request was simple when he said, "I just don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me." While his was a request that clearly demanded to be honored, it caused the shock waves to resonate that much more profoundly as the sudden news of his passing rocked sports fans around the world.

When Payton faced cameras in early February and announced that he had contracted a serious disease of the liver, primary sclerosing cholangitis, he honestly believed that a lifesaving liver transplant was an option. But a trip to the Mayo Clinic in May for a physical to clear him a spot high up on the transplant list revealed a malignant tumor on his liver, and that the malignancy had spread outside his liver, eliminating any hope for a transplant. It was then that Payton first knew the end was at hand.

"Tomorrow isn’t promised to anybody."

In his final months Payton became an avid and vital spokesman for organ donation and transplantation. In his last public appearance he asked us all on an episode of the TV show "Touched by an Angel," to consider organ donation, revealing that more than half the people waiting for organs in this country alone would die before an organ became available. Doctors in Chicago claim that at least six lives have already been saved when people who were not previously organ donors agreed to donate livers if the organs could go to Walter. When informed that Walter couldn’t get those livers, these folks became donors anyway, saving other lives, thanks to Walter Payton.

The most amazing mark of the man is that while he was perhaps the greatest football player of all time, he was an even better person off the field. Walter had an amazing feel for people. While he was in fact an extremely private man, rarely allowing anyone, including his closest friends, to know what he was truly thinking or feeling, he had a knack for making every person he met feel like a personal friend.

Phil Simms, the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl quarterback of the New York Giants and CBS broadcaster, described that side of Walter on a Payton tribute show on the Bears’ radio station the night Walter died. He said, "After (the Bears) won the Super Bowl, we were in the Pro Bowl together, and I’ll never forget. I was watching my ways, I guess you’d say, because of what he’d accomplished and what the Bears had done that year. I’ll never forget in the locker room during the week of practice those situations you kind of find yourself in, those awkward situations around a group of people you don’t know. He went out of his way and made me feel comfortable, and here he was, a superstar — my gosh, he was a big superstar. I’ll never forget that."

Laughter is a word that comes up often when people talk about Walter Payton. I don’t know if anyone’s really clear on whether the nickname Sweetness was originally coined to describe his play on the field, or his demeanor off it. He had one of the brightest and biggest smiles you’ve ever seen, and Walter was always smiling and laughing, often at his own jokes. He loved physical contact, and you weren’t a member of the team, or officially a member of the media covering the team, until you’d been goosed or pinched, or somehow literally touched by Walter. Firecrackers going off when least expected; rolled-up, wet, smelly socks flying through the air; and towels snapping everywhere were all regular routines in the Payton repertoire.

All-Pro DT Dan Hampton was Walter’s teammate from 1979 through 1987, the year Walter retired, and he tells this story as his all-time favorite Payton practical joke:

"In 1982, we had a guy come in from the NFL security office, and at a team meeting he told us he was sure that several members of the club had been doing drugs. He was really hot and yelling at us that he had us for sure and some heads were going to roll, and you could cut the tension in the room with a knife. We all figured someone on the team had really screwed up, and we were really nervous. Just about the time it seemed the room was going to explode, Walter comes stumbling through the door and into the room. It seems he had snuck upstairs, taken a packet of sugar or Sweet ’n Low, spread it all over his mustache and chin, and he comes falling into the room, saying, "Man, there ain’t no dudes on this team doing no drugs." According to "Hamp," the room exploded all right, with laughter he can still here.

Payton had the ability to lead his team even while having as much fun as possible, all at once. Ditka talked about the leadership mantle Walter assumed on that club. "I think he was the one guy that really worked hard at pulling that club together in the ’80s when it could have easily all have come apart. We had kind of a faction of offense and defense, and he really worked hard at pulling it together. He got each side to respect each other, and we finally became a football team instead of an offense and a defense."

Off the field, Walter was as generous and compassionate a man as has ever lived. Emery Moorehead was another teammate and tight end on those Bears teams of the ’80s, and he often saw the giving side of Payton. "Whether it was showing up at his son’s baseball game or making a visit to a sick kid in a hospital, Walter was always there. Those are the kind of things you love hearing about, a guy that is popular and larger than life, but Walter always took time out of his day to be an individual and a caring person to someone he didn’t have to deal with. The guy’s heart was big on the field as well as it was off the field."

If you’re reading this Web site, then you already have some idea of what Payton was like on the football field. The reason Madden, Harris, Ditka and so many others have called him the greatest player of all time is because he was the most complete player of all time. Forget the rushing record and look at that total yardage record of 21,803 yards. Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice would be next, each still about two miles away. Walter was without a doubt the best blocking running back of all time, a prolific receiver, a capable passer who threw eight career touchdown passes and started a game at quarterback in 1984, and more than just the Bears’ backup punter and placekicker, he was damn good at both.

Still, it is Walter the runner we will remember the most. Of all the tributes I’ve heard since Walter died, I think it is Hall of Famer and CBS broadcaster Dan Dierdorf who described Walter’s style most vividly and most eloquently.

"If I had to pick one word, it would be ‘energy.’ And it was apparent when you would see him on the field and off it, it didn’t make much difference. Walter had more energy than one body could contain. He had a glow about him. He just radiated vitality. I don’t know how many things I’ve seen on a football field that were, in my mind, visually more striking than when Walter Payton would break that last tackle and go into that high leg kick of his. The only thing I can say is it’s the closest I’ve ever seen to like a colt who you know how they prance down a field or a meadow and you know they’re running just for the sheer exuberance of running. That’s what I always thought of when I saw Walter. That energy was bursting out, and he didn’t know what else to do with it. He had to run hard."

It’s almost impossible to describe what Walter meant to the city of Chicago. Growing up there, you never really expected championships, just an occasional great player like an Ernie Banks, Bobby Hull, Dick Butkus or Gale Sayers. When the Bears won Super Bowl XX, it was only the third world title a Chicago franchise had claimed in 38 years, with the Bears winning in 1963 and the Blackhawks grabbing a Stanley Cup in 1961. When Walter set the NFL’s all-time single-game rushing record with 275 yards vs. the Vikings in just his third season, 1977, a lifetime love affair with the city and a legend were born. Walter was a Michael Jordan whom every man thought they could actually sit down and have a beer with as opposed to admire him from afar. Jordan himself said of Payton, "Walter was an icon in Chicago long before I ever got there. I spent a lot of time with him, and we have lost a great, great man."

But Walter was too big, too big a talent, too big a heart, too big a man for just one city to hold. Walter belonged to the world. Speaking at Payton’s funeral, Madden, struggling to hold back the tears, said, "Treasure is something rare, something unique, something we dig deep for that never leaves us. It’s something we search all our lives for, and when we find it, it never leaves us. Walter Payton was a treasure."

I don’t write many stories or cover many events for all of you who read this Web site. That’s mainly because I’m not all that good at it, and our editors and beat reporters are so much better. I’m usually content with my short columns on Page 2 of our print edition, hoping to occasionally say something that someone might appreciate. But I had to do this story about this man who meant so much to me, as well as to so many of you.

I was not, by any means, a member of Walter Payton’s inner circle, a close friend or a confidant. But I was blessed to have spent a fair amount of time with Walter, probably a great deal of time as the media-hack-to-superstar relationship usually is measured. Walter didn’t have to give me anything but an occasional straight answer, and I would have been thrilled. But that wasn’t Walter Payton. He always treated me like a friend, made sure that our time together was a few minutes longer than it was supposed to be, instead of a few minutes shorter. Walter went out of his way to make me feel as though I was every bit as important as he was, even though I could never imagine how that could be. As private as he was, at the same time he shared himself with me and made me feel as if he wanted me to share myself with him.

I can’t count the people I’ve talked to in the last few days who, just like me, are taking the loss of this public man so personally, and I think I know why. I think Walter genuinely loved us. As much as millions of football fans loved Walter Payton, that’s how he felt about each of us.

How could one man have so much energy, be in such perpetual motion, work so hard, display so much talent, succeed so greatly, give and take so much and care so much for so many, and have so much love in his heart? Walter always knew, "Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone," so he got it done today. And we were all blessed to be there to watch. I can’t imagine there’ll ever be another Walter Payton.

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