Authors: Jeff Pearlman
His family acquiesced, and by his senior year Bob was one of the best fullbacks around, a punishing ball carrier who lowered his sizeable head, squared his broad shoulders, and demolished opposing defenders. He was the type of kid Mississippi’s black schools—Jackson State, Alcorn College, and Mississippi Vocational College (later to be known as Mississippi Valley State)—craved, yet he was a football ghost. “Nobody came to see me,” he said. “Ever.” Thankfully, a Tallahatchie Agricultural High teacher named Sally Williams had attended Jackson State, and knew the college’s head coach and athletic director, T. B. Ellis. She called and raved about Hill’s size and aggressiveness. “No promises,” Ellis told her, “but I’ll give the boy a look.”
The year was 1952, and as soon as Hill learned of the opportunity, he packed a duffle bag and told his grandmothers not to expect him for dinner. Any dinner. Ever again. “I was through with the cotton fields,” he said. “I left home and decided that I’d either make the team at Jackson State or join the army.” He caught the three-hour bus ride south to Jackson, knowing nothing about Jackson State or T. B. Ellis or the college game. Ellis took one look at the boy, with his muscular forearms and powerful legs, and thought of Jack Spinks, the six-foot, 235-pound Alcorn fullback who had recently become the first black ballplayer from Mississippi to be drafted into the NFL. Then he watched him run. Hill was raw, but bursting with promise. After a week of tryouts, Ellis tacked a piece of paper with the final roster onto a board in the athletic dormitory. Hill could barely look. This was his life–“it was either football, the army, or cotton,” he said. “And I didn’t want the army or cotton.” When he finally worked up the nerve and spotted his name, in small black lettering seven or eight down from the top, he let out a euphoric roar.
Hill’s four years as a student-athlete at Jackson State go down as the best of his life. He was inserted into the starting lineup midway through his freshman season by Ellis, who ran the T-formation and sought size for his power running attack. When John Merritt took over as head coach the following year, he leaned on Hill even more, turning him into a primary ball carrier. A studious player who could absorb large quantities of information, Hill studied his coaches’ mannerisms and styles. Both Ellis and Merritt were oft-angry leaders who mentally and physically intimidated their legions, and Hill fed off of it. The worse the punishment, the madder he became. The madder he became, the better he played.
Upon graduating from Jackson State in 1956, Hill was drafted in the twentieth round by the Baltimore Colts. He was with the organization for one year, never appearing in a game but paying close attention to Weeb Ewbank, the third-year head coach who would go on to a Hall of Fame career. Hill spent the following season with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League before suffering a career-ending right leg injury. “I didn’t want to stop playing at twenty-four years old, but I had no choice,” he said. “Physically, it was over for me. I couldn’t run like I used to.”
Hill heard the cotton fields of Tippo whispering his name; chanting for him to come back home and take his rightful place among the relatives and friends who were fulfilling their natural destinies. This call would serve as a driving force for years. “We all have motivations,” he said. “Mine was not going back.”
Hill worked for one year as an assistant to LeRoy Smith at Mississippi Vocational College, then moved to Magee, Mississippi, to serve as the head coach at the all-black Magee High School. He took over a team that had existed for only one season, with a roster of roughly twenty kids, almost all of whom picked cotton in the wee morning hours, worked at the local poultry farm catching chickens in the evening, and practiced from seven to nine at night. The coaches of larger schools giddily added Magee to their schedules, eager to pick up the certain victory.
Combining the fierce discipline of Ellis and Merritt with the on-field ingenuity of Ewbank, Hill led his team to an 8-2 mark, earning a reputation as a local football savant. Nearly all of the opposing teams ran the T-offense Hill knew from high school and college; Magee operated the wide-open pro set utilized by Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. Nearly all of the opposing teams ran a traditional 4-3 defense; Magee went with a 5-3 setup, blitzing on nearly every down. “Oh, man, it was a lot of fun,” Hill said. “I’d have receivers spread out all over the field, and our quarterback, Earnest James, could throw with anyone. There were no scouting reports back then, and we’d surprise everyone.”
After two years Hill moved on to Rowan High in Hattiesburg. Over two seasons his teams went 22-0, winning back-to-back state championships. Hill’s greatest tool was fear, along with a willingness to skirt a rule or two in the name of victory. One of his stars, a flanker named Eugene Bournes, had played for him at Magee, a forty-seven-mile drive from Rowan. “I brought him with me to Rowan,” Hill said, “and, wink-wink, adopted him as my son. He lived with me. Man, could he play.”
Hill’s successes didn’t go unnoticed in the black college ranks. In 1963 Merritt left Jackson State to coach at Tennessee State, and the school wanted to bring in a handful of young assistants to help the new head coach, Edward “Ox” Clemons. Four coaches in their twenties and thirties were added, including the twenty-eight-year-old Hill as the offensive coordinator. When Clemons fell ill after one season, he was replaced by Rod Paige, Hill’s college roommate and a man who, thirty-seven years later, would be appointed the nation’s secretary of education by President George W. Bush. “Bob was my assistant, and he was unlike any coach I’ve ever seen,” said Paige. “He understood the power of fear. As a player, you didn’t want to disappoint him, because the wrath of God would come down upon your head.”
Hill served under Paige for four years, and the two worked well together. Perhaps Hill’s greatest coup came in the fall of 1967, when he drove to Columbia, Mississippi, one Friday night on a tip about a fullback named Ray Holmes. Hill wasn’t impressed by the kid, but couldn’t take his eyes off a little halfback with blinding quickness. Hill especially liked the bowlegged way the boy stood—Ellis had long ago taught him that bowlegged athletes possessed better balance. Once he returned to campus, Hill told Paige about Eddie Payton. “This Eddie Payton is the man,” he said. “This is who we want.”
When Paige heard he was five foot eight, 170 pounds, he laughed. “No,” he said dismissively. “Too small.”
Hill was undeterred. Having also been employed as Jackson State’s (relatively disinterested) baseball coach, he was gifted with a handful of “baseball” scholarships he could use however he saw fit. Though Eddie was by no means a scholarship-worthy baseball player, he hit the ball hard enough where the case could be made (he participated in two practices with the baseball team, never appearing in a game). He signed with Jackson State, and a euphoric Hill bounced into Paige’s office to deliver the news. “Paige was really mad,” Hill said. “But by the second day of practice he was sold on Eddie.”
When Paige departed Jackson State after the 1968 season and the school named another assistant, Ulysses “U. S.” McPherson, as his replacement, Hill seethed. He was smarter than McPherson, a harder worker than McPherson, and a better all-around coach than McPherson—and most everyone knew it. Hill spent two unhappy years as an assistant on the staff, then quit to solely coach baseball.
McPherson was fired after the disastrous 3-7 1970 season, but a frustrated Hill held little hope of being hired. He wearily approached John Peoples, the school’s president, and expressed his interest. “Doc,” Hill said, “I can bring you a winning football program. I know I can.” Peoples conferred with Ellis, the athletic director, who supported Hill. Yet at the same time the president and AD were hemming and hawing, Hill accepted a job as an assistant football coach at North Carolina Central. When word got out that Hill was leaving, Peoples pounced. “Stay here,” he told Hill, “and you’ve got your dream gig.”
He agreed to the job in December 1970, with a whopping five-thousand-dollar annual salary and an office the size of a dwarf’s coffin. Hill and his wife, Yvonne, were ecstatic.
The returning players, however, realized that hell had no fury like Robert Hill. As an assistant coach, Hill’s power had been limited. He could scream and berate and intimidate, but come day’s end it was up to the comparatively mellow McPherson to enforce discipline. Such was no longer the case.
Walter Payton knew of Hill’s hotheaded reputation, and because of it had mixed feelings about coming to Jackson State. During recruiting, however, Hill had offered Walter one glowing compliment after another. “Bob Hill was an absolute con artist,” said Doug Shanks, Jackson’s former city commissioner and a diehard Tigers booster. “Those kids didn’t go to school. They practiced eight, ten hours every day. But Hill knew how to deal with them, and somehow make them feel special.”
In the weeks leading up to his debut as a college head coach, Hill was, by all accounts, a lunatic. “As soon as he hit the football field for practice, it was clear he was crazy—stone crazy,” said Matthew Norman, a sophomore defensive back. “He was very do or die. He would foam at the mouth, drool from the mouth, growl. Off the field, Bob was a normal man. But the football field was his sacred ground. He was all about blood.” The players bestowed upon Hill the nickname “Thirst”—for bloodthirsty.
The first two weeks of September were brutally hot, with temperatures reaching the mid-nineties with oppressive humidity. Hill denied his players water throughout the ceaseless twice-a-day workouts. Replenishment, he believed, was for the soft, and Jackson State would be as hard as steel. “Players were falling down, dying from the heat,” recalled Joe Bingham, an offensive guard, “and he’d kick them while screaming, ‘Die! Die! Die!’ He’d say, ‘If you die, I’ll roll you over with the sled.’ ”
It took Hill mere days to establish himself as a cruel, unforgiving taskmaster. “If someone did something wrong, Bob would tell him he was going to break his plate,” recalled Norman. “Which meant he was going to take your meal card from you, and you could no longer eat on campus.” It also took Hill mere days to develop a further appreciation for his freshman back. Eddie Payton was the team’s top returning rusher, having totaled 339 yards in 1970. He was fast, quick, tough, resilient. Walter, though, was better.
“Eddie was real good, but we’re talking about different types,” said Curtis Jones, a defensive back. “Eddie was good between the tackles, but Walter was good between the tackles and outside the tackles. Eddie could catch but Walter could catch better.” Eddie had earned the nickname of “Monk” for his monkey-like dexterity, and before long teammates were calling Walter “L’il Monk.” On one of the first days of full-roster workouts, a sophomore fullback named Tom Holloway was casually standing a few yards off of the goal line, fielding kickoffs in shorts and a T-shirt. As a ball approached, Holloway extended his arms, reached out his hands, then—
whoosh!
Out of nowhere, a blur bumped into Holloway, grabbed the ball, and ran. “I said, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ ” said Holloway. Payton jogged back toward Holloway, guffawing loudly. “I just wanted to see if I could catch it,” he said. “My name’s Walter—Walter Payton.” Holloway wasn’t amused. “OK, Walter Payton,” he replied. “But freshmen don’t do that.”
“From day one he stood out,” said Rodney Phillips, a Tiger quarterback. “He was in the best shape of anyone on the team. In practice, Walter was just running all over the place. The determination and desire was remarkable. And man, the things he could do! He could run the ball, obviously. But he could also pass the ball, kick the ball, catch the ball.”
When he recruited Payton, Hill knew the youngster possessed skills as a runner and receiver. But here he was in practice, blowing everyone away. “The goal of the linemen was to bench press three hundred pounds,” said Bingham. “Walter was the one little guy who could lift with us. It was amazing.” Walter could be found throwing fifty-yard spirals and booting straighttoe thirty-five-yard field goals. If nothing else, Hill had a potential solution to his program’s longstanding place-kicking problems. Lee Triplett remained the starting kicker, but his leash was a short one. “Walter had a leg as strong as any I’d seen,” Hill said. “It’s easier naming things Walter can’t do than things he can.”
One thing Walter couldn’t do was keep his number. Payton had grown attached to No. 22, the digits he had worn throughout his three high school seasons. There was just one problem: In high school, Walter was given No. 22 by Charles Boston because the number had previously been worn by Eddie. Now, at Jackson State, Eddie was the featured back, and by no means interested in being numerically charitable.
Walter’s second-favorite number was thirty-four, one he had never worn, but one that somehow caught his fancy. At the time, the number was owned by Holloway, the redshirt sophomore fullback from Chicago. “I had no real attachment to thirty-four, so when Walter asked for it I handed it over and took number forty-one,” Holloway said. “I have a picture on my mantle of me wearing number thirty-four. Everyone who comes in says, ‘You have Walter Payton’s number?’ And I say, ‘No, Walter Payton has mine.’ ”
On Jackson State’s football team, tradition dictated that freshmen did much watching and little playing. They were primarily present to absorb Hill’s ritual beatings, and if they did so without crying or quitting, they might—
might
—contribute as sophomores. Walter Payton, however, was different. Though only eighteen years old and naïve to weight training, Payton’s physique was unlike any other Tiger player. “Big calves, nice frame, small waist, legs like fire hydrants,” said Willie Barnes, the team’s trainer. “A total rock.” He had the longest arms anyone had ever seen—ones that dangled from shoulders to below the knees. “They went on forever, and they looked like Popeye’s arms,” said Al Harris, a future NFL teammate. “He stuck his arms out into my chest, and I could barely grab his shoulder pads.” There was also an air of maturity to the kid; a confidence that most nervous freshmen lacked. Hill and W. C. Gorden, the defensive coordinator, nearly came to blows arguing whether the freshman should begin his career as a running back or defensive back. “He had the skills for both,” said Gorden. “He would have been a phenomenal safety.” When Hill announced the roster of those who would dress, two Paytons were listed. Hill warned Walter not to become cocky or comfortable. “The bus works,” Hill told him, “whether you’re on it or not.”