Walter Payton

Payton was one of three children born to Peter and Alyne Payton in Columbia, Mississippi. Payton's year of birth is disputed; most sources at the time of his death stated he was born in 1954. However, other sources have stated he was born in 1953. His father was a factory worker who had played semi-professional baseball; he died in jail in 1978 just a couple of hours after being wrongfully accused of driving under the influence due to a stroke that presented similar symptoms to alcohol intoxication. Payton was an active member of the Boy Scouts, Little League, and his local church. At John J. Jefferson High School, Payton played drums in the marching band, participated in the track team and sang in the school choir. Outside of school, he played drums in jazz-rock groups. His brother Eddie was on the football team, but Payton did not play—partly to avoid competing with him. After Eddie graduated, the football coach asked Payton to try out for the team, and he agreed on the condition that he be allowed to continue playing in the band. Once he began to play football, as a junior, he achieved instant success as a running back, running 65 yards for a touchdown on his first high-school carry. At 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m), he was not especially large, but his speed and strength made him one of the team's featured players. John J. Jefferson High School was integrated with neighboring Columbia High School that year; Payton and his teammates were upset that their head coach, Charles L. Boston, had become an assistant and Payton boycotted some of the spring practices in protest, but returned during the fall season. He then earned statewide honors as a member of Mississippi's all-state team, leading Columbia to an unexpected 8–2 season. His performance helped ease the local tensions surrounding desegregation. Tommy Davis, Columbia's football coach, claimed that he could always count on Payton when the team needed to score. Payton's statistics proved that was no exaggeration: he scored in every game during his junior and senior years. He was named to the all-conference team two years in a row. Payton also led the Little Dixie Conference in scoring his senior year and made the all-state team. In addition to excelling at football, Payton averaged 18 points a game for Columbia's basketball team, leaped three-quarters of an inch short of 23 feet in the long jump, played baseball, and continued to drum in the school band.

Even though Payton had established himself as one of Mississippi's best running back prospects, he received no invitations from Southeastern Conference colleges. After originally committing to Kansas State University, he decided to pursue his collegiate career at the historically black school and NAIA program, Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, where his older brother Eddie played football. While attending Jackson State, Payton played alongside many future professional football players, including his roommate, Rickey Young, as well as Jerome Barkum, Robert Brazile, and Jackie Slater. As a member of the Jackson State Tigers, Payton rushed for 3,600 yards, averaging 6.1 yards per carry, and set the school record for career rushing touchdowns with 65. In 1973, Payton had a school record 24 rushing touchdowns, and was named Black College Player of the Year. He won this award again in 1974, in addition to being selected for the All-American Team. Payton graduated in 1975 with a bachelor's degree in communications. He acquired the nickname "Sweetness" in college. The nickname's origin is ambiguous: it is variously said to have stemmed from his personality, from his athletic grace, or as an ironic description of his aggressive playing style. Payton was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1996, and was posthumously inducted into the inaugural class of the Black College Football Hall of Fame in 2010. Breakout performance On September 23, 1972, during Payton's sophomore year, he set a then-best SWAC single-game scoring record by rushing for seven touchdowns (on runs of 6, 8, 2, 3, 1, 2, and 31 yards) and two 2-point conversions for 46 points as Jackson State beat Lane College, 72–0. He also set a school record with 279 rushing yards in the game. College statistics background-color:#002147;color:#008ED6;box-shadow: inset 2px 2px 0 #008ED6, inset -2px -2px 0 #008ED6;"}]]}' id="mw_Q">Jackson State Tigers Season Rushing Kicking AttYardsAvgTDXPMFGM 1971 946526.95133 1972 1247816.315210 1973 2051,1395.624132 1974 1751,0295.91960 Totals5983,6006.063535

1975–1982 The Chicago Bears drafted Payton in the first round of the 1975 NFL draft as the fourth overall pick. Payton was assigned #21 by the team but switched to #34 before the season started. The Bears had endured several losing seasons after the retirement of the iconic Gale Sayers in 1972. Payton's first game was not particularly successful; he was held to zero net rushing yards on eight attempts. His best performance of the season was the final game against the New Orleans Saints, where he rushed for 134 yards on 20 carries. Payton finished the season with only 679 yards and seven touchdowns. However, Payton led the league in yards per kickoff return. Payton was eager to improve his performance. During the 1976 season, Payton rushed for 1,390 yards and scored 13 touchdowns. After the season, he was selected to play in the 1977 Pro Bowl, where he was declared the Pro Bowl MVP. The next year, he rushed for 1,852 yards and scored 16 touchdowns, becoming the league's leading non-kicking scorer for the season. He earned numerous awards that season, including the Associated Press and Pro Football Writers of America's Most Valuable Player awards. A memorable game of the 1977 season was against the Minnesota Vikings on November 20. He rushed for a then-record 275 yards, breaking the previous record of 273 yards held by O. J. Simpson. In that record-setting game against the Vikings, Payton was suffering with a 101-degree fever and intense flu. His longest run was for 58 yards, and he caught one pass for 6 yards. His record stood for 23 years until Corey Dillon of the Cincinnati Bengals ran for 278 yards on October 22, 2000 (Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings set the current record of 296 rushing yards in 2007). By the end of the decade, Payton had received additional accolades for his exploits as a blocker, receiver, emergency punter, and quarterback. 1983–1986 Payton (34) pictured breaking the NFL's career rushing record on October 7, 1984 The Bears struggled to assemble consecutive winning seasons, landing only two playoff berths since his arrival. The lack of success prompted the Bears' management to replace Neill Armstrong with Mike Ditka for the season that began in the Fall of 1982. Ditka, a tight end during the 1960s and 1970s who would also join the Pro Football Hall of Fame, led the Bears to a 3–6 (strike-shortened) record in 1982. He led the Bears to an 8–8 finish in 1983 and to a 10–6 finish in 1984. Payton continued his success by rushing for more than 1,400 yards in both seasons. On September 19, 1984, Payton passed Franco Harris as the active leader in career rushing yards. Three weeks later, on October 7, 1984, against the New Orleans Saints, Payton broke Jim Brown's career rushing record of 12,312 yards. In 1985, Payton rushed for more than 1,500 yards, helping the Bears establish the league's second-best offense with the emergence of quarterback Jim McMahon. The Bears' 46 defense of that season would go on to become one of the

Payton's motto was "Never Die Easy", which is also the title of his posthumously published autobiography. Payton attributed this motto to Bob (Robert) Hill, his coach at Jackson State. In practice, this meant that Payton refused to deliberately run out-of-bounds and always delivered some punishment to his tacklers before being forced off the field or forced down. One of Payton's signature maneuvers was the "stutter-step", a high-stepping, irregularly paced run. He developed this as a way to distract his pursuers during long runs, saying that it startled them into thinking and gave him some advantage over players who were actually faster runners. In his autobiography, he likened the stutter step to a kind of "option play": when he was stutter-stepping, defenders would have to commit to a pursuit angle based upon whether they thought he would accelerate after the stutter-step, or cut—he would read this angle and do the opposite of what the defender had committed to. He re-invented the practice of stiff-arming his tacklers, which had gone out of favor among running backs in the 1970s. At times, he used his high-school experience as a long jumper to leap over his opponents, landing on his head in the end zone to gain a touchdown in a game against the Buffalo Bills. His running gait was somewhat unusual, as his knees were minimally bent, and the motion was largely powered from the hip. This may have given his knees, a football player's most vulnerable joints, some protection, although he underwent arthroscopic surgery on both knees in 1983. He referred to this procedure as an 11,000-yard checkup. After scoring touchdowns, Payton declined to celebrate; instead, he would often hand the ball to his teammates or the official. He disapproved of the growing practice of touchdown celebrations; he preferred post-game antics such as rushing into the locker room and locking his teammates out in the cold while taking a long shower. Although Payton would have won the respect of his peers and coaches by his running alone, he retired as the career leader in receptions for a running back, with 492 for over 4,500 yards, and still holds the career record for a running back, with 8 touchdown passes.

In 1990, Payton, along with many other investors, sought to bring an NFL expansion team to St. Louis, Missouri, and Payton expressed his interest in becoming the first minority owner in NFL history. Although the NFL strongly favored a franchise in St. Louis, their efforts were thwarted because of internal dissension among the investment group members. leading the NFL to award franchises to investment groups in Jacksonville, Florida (Jacksonville Jaguars), and Charlotte, North Carolina (Carolina Panthers). St. Louis eventually received a team when the Los Angeles Rams moved to the city in 1995. Payton pursued various business ventures in retirement, including becoming co-owner of Dale Coyne Racing in the CART IndyCar World Series. He also drove in several Trans-Am Series events, including a 1993 race at Road America in which his car overturned and caught fire. He suffered burns but escaped serious injury. In 1993, Payton along with Mike Lanigan of Mi-Jack Products, co-founded Walter Payton Power Equipment, a midwest crane and heavy equipment distributor. In 1995, he and several partners purchased a roundhouse in Aurora, Illinois that had previously belonged to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The property became known as "Walter Payton's Roundhouse", hosting a restaurant, brewery, banquet and meeting facility, and museum. In 1999, the property received an award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The beers brewed at the Roundhouse received awards in the 2000s.