Sweetness (44 page)

Payton’s 1,460 yards led the NFC.

Although 1980 had been a dispiriting year for Payton, it ended well. On December 26, Connie gave birth to the couple’s first child, a boy named Jarrett Walter (he was named after a character from the television program,
The Big Valley
). “My son brought me tremendous joy and inspiration,” Payton said. “I looked at him like he was going to be my hero someday.”

When it came to nurturing and coddling a baby, Walter—like most male professional athletes of the era—knew little. Diaper changing was something a wife or nanny did. So was feeding. And pushing the stroller. And waking up in the middle of the night for a soothing moment in the rocking chair. Payton was elated to have a son, and when asked, he offered up all the right quotes. (“I want to give my child all the love I can.”) But he wasn’t a hands-on, heavily involved dad in the beginning.

One thing Payton felt compelled to do, though, was make certain Jarrett had a proper baptism. Which meant he first had to have a proper godfather.

Shortly after Jarrett’s birth, Payton called Ron Atlas, his friend who owned the swimming pool store, and told him he was coming over for a visit. “Ron,” Payton said, “I want you to be Jarrett’s godfather. Are you up for that?”

“I’m honored,” Atlas replied. “But you know I’m Jewish, right?”

“I don’t care,” Payton replied. “But just so you know, you have some real responsibilities.”

“Like what?” Atlas asked.

“Like getting him baptized,” Payton replied.

“Baptized,” Atlas said. “I’m a Jew. What the hell am I gonna do about that?”

Payton shrugged. “Not my problem,” he said. “Yours.”

The next day, Atlas telephoned the offices of Rainbow PUSH, Jesse Jackson’s religious and social development organization. He asked for the minister, and was shocked when he picked up the phone. “Reverend Jackson,” Atlas said, “you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but I’m friends with Walter Payton and I have to get his son baptized. I’m Jewish, and I have no idea what I’m—”

Jackson interrupted. “Mr. Atlas,” he said, “leave it all to me.”

Two weeks later, Jarrett Payton was baptized by Jesse Jackson inside a ballroom at the Hilton in Arlington Heights. More than two hundred people attended the ceremony, and even Walter had to admit his friend did a heck of a job. “I was feeling great, because I’d pulled it off,” Atlas said. “At the end of the night a stranger came up to me and said, ‘Do you have the envelope for Reverend Jackson?’ ”

“What envelope?” Atlas asked.

“The one,” he said, “with the money in it?”

“I gave five hundred dollars,” said Atlas. “Well worth the price of admission.”

Entering 1980, Payton genuinely believed the Bears had a chance of contending for the NFC title. Entering 1981, Payton knew the reality at hand: His team was horrible.

Worst of all, there was no escape. With the expiration of the third of the three one-year contracts he had signed in 1978, the NFL’s top running back was, technically, a free agent, available for all twenty-eight teams to bid on. Yet free agency in the National Football League was merely a mirage. Not only did a player’s last team have the right to match any offer, but widespread collusion among owners made said offers nonexistent (all teams were guaranteed $5.8 million annually via the NFL’s television deal, thereby eliminating the need to spend on free agents to actually improve their teams). Here was Payton, twenty-eight years old, in his prime, and wildly popular, and no other teams requested meetings. “I talked to a lot of clubs, just social conversation,” Holmes said. “No one ever acted seriously.”

When Holmes told the
Tribune
Payton would demand one million dollars annually, George Halas, the team owner, laughed. “There’s no way we’re going to pay him that,” he said—and he was correct. The Bears held all the cards.

Having been brought up with little money, the young Payton was generally disinterested in his own finances. He made a few investments, only checked his books every so often, trusted Holmes enough to assume the agent would do him right. Now, however, with the birth of Jarrett, his bank account became an understandably greater priority.

That’s why, when the NFL’s owners colluded against him, Payton turned his attention north, where the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League were plotting an invasion. Under the new ownership of a forty-three-year-old real estate magnate named Nelson Skalbania, the Alouettes were in the midst of an NFL raid that left the American league shuddering. Within a week’s time, Skalbania had signed Vince Ferragamo, the star quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams, and James Scott, the moody-yet-skilled Bears receiver. Payton was the next—and biggest—target on his hit list. “I’ve offered Payton a contract,” Skalbania said. “I shouldn’t be saying this because, when you print it, the Chicago Bears are going to realize the situation and the price will go up. But I need a good running back.”

Though Payton didn’t want to leave the NFL, he couldn’t ignore Montreal’s offer, which was rumored to be around eight hundred thousand dollars annually. (“If Tokyo has a team,” Payton said, “even they’re a possibility.”) Nor, for that matter, could the Bears, a franchise with a single star and a bleak future without him.

Payton and Holmes spoke at length about Montreal. Canada was, they both knew, a last resort. The fans were less rabid, the quality of play was merely OK, the United States’ interest in the CFL was subzero. Eddie Payton, Walter’s brother, had spent a season with Ottawa, and although he was one of the league’s better players, in America it was as if he were invisible.

Most problematic was Skalbania—an unknown quantity with an iffy reputation. Holmes assumed he possessed the money, but he didn’t know for sure. “Walter wanted to be a Bear,” said Holmes. “And he wanted to stay a Bear.”

Finally, on July 25, Payton and Chicago agreed to three one-year contracts worth close to seven hundred thousand dollars annually, plus incentives. Normally, a professional athlete would be giddy over becoming his sport’s highest paid player. But not Payton. He signed because it was his only viable NFL option, and upon reporting to training camp refused to gush over the hiring of Ted Marchibroda as the new offensive coordinator or over Armstrong’s insistence that the passing game was about to bloom. By now the happy-happy blather only irritated Payton. All one had to do was look around the locker room. Same quarterbacks, same receivers (minus Scott), a couple of young, inexperienced offensive linemen, and an attitude conducive to failure.

“I learned to be disillusioned that season,” said Tim Clifford, a rookie quarterback who spent the year on injured reserve. “The intensity level in camp was incredible, and as soon as the season started half the players coasted. Those guys were on cruise control. It was embarrassing.”

“The chemistry on that team was horrible,” said one Bear, on the condition of anonymity. “We had some talented players like Walter and Doug Plank and Gary Fencik, but you knew very early on we were going to fail.” Specifically, the player points to a coach who regularly arrived at practices smelling of alcohol, and an incident from training camp, when a high-profile member of the offense allegedly slept with a teammate’s wife. “The guy who caught him beat the shit out of him,” he said. “The locker room was split.”

Though far from an A student at Jackson State, Payton was no idiot. This, he told anyone who’d listen, was not a good football team.

Chicago opened the 1981 season with a 16–9 loss to the Packers at Soldier Field (BEARS, PACKERS PLAY A YAWNER, read the
Tribune
headline), and followed with a 28–17 setback at San Francisco. In that game Payton—who in past seasons rarely coughed up the ball—fumbled twice, including one at the 49ers’ one-yard line. The team finally won with a 28–17 thumping of lowly Tampa Bay in Week 3, but, after gaining a mere sixty-four yards on the ground, Payton lost it. He could accept losing (as a Bear, he had little choice) and he could accept bad games, but this was too much. The offensive line was borderline dysfunctional, opening dime-sized holes and failing to stay with its blocks. “The linemen were big, slow, and fat,” said Jack Deloplaine, a former Bears fullback. “When I was with Pittsburgh, all the linemen benched well over five hundred pounds. In Chicago, they weren’t even close.” When asked about his inability to gain a hundred yards through the first three games, Payton stepped out of character and pointed a finger at his blockers. “It got to the point where there wasn’t any place to go,” he said. “I attacked the defense. As a result of that, I had guys who were trying to tackle me lying on the ground. I broke my shoulder pads. Look at my [cracked] helmet.” Teammates were shocked. If there was one guy who never blamed others, it was Payton. “Pay me eight hundred thousand dollars,” responded an irritated Noah Jackson. “I’d take some shots. And I sure wouldn’t be talking about my offensive line.”

The following week, after gaining forty-five yards in a Monday night loss to the Rams, Payton was reminded of the time he presented his offensive linemen with gold watches. “This year,” he said, “I’ll give ’em pieces of my body.”

None of Payton’s body parts were absorbing greater abuse than his knees. At the conclusion of most games, he could be found on a training table, one knee covered with three or four ice bags, the other being drained of pus and fluid. The ritual was one Payton dreaded—he was terrified of needles, even when he knew an injection would ease his pain. “No teammate could question Walter’s guts, because they saw him on that table, hurting,” said Fred Caito, the Bears trainer. “I don’t think anybody knows how he played week after week, because the abuse he absorbed would have killed bigger men.”

It wasn’t until the eighth week of the season that Payton cleared 100 yards in a game (107 in a 20–17 overtime victory against San Diego), but by then there was nothing left to salvage. At 2-6, Chicago was far out of the play-off race. With 537 yards, Payton was far out of the rushing race. The fans did not respond well. Jerry Kirshenbaum, the editor of
Sports Illustrated
’s Scorecard section, gave his Sign of the Year award to a Soldier Field spectator whose banner read CHICAGO HAS MORE DOG TEAMS THAN THE YUKON. After paying $58.40 for two tickets to the Bears’ 24–7 loss to Washington on October 11 (Payton ran for five yards), James Tulley, a thirty-one-year-old school-supply salesman from Rockford, Illinois, filed a small-claims complaint against the organization for “misrepresenting itself as a professional football squad.”

“We were the Bad News Bears,” said Brian Cabral, a rookie linebacker. “At Soldier Field they actually put awnings and a tent over the tunnel we came in and out of to protect us from the beer and stuff the fans would throw on us and Neill.”

Don Pierson, the spectacular
Tribune
beat writer, began receiving letters from readers demanding Armstrong replace Payton in the starting lineup with Willie McClendon, the third-year backup out of the University of Georgia. “I wanted to play,” said McClendon. “I mean, I really wanted to play and I was frustrated on the bench. But anyone who thought Walter should sit was crazy. He was all we had.”

Payton liked to tell people he didn’t care what others thought, but the sentiment was false. Like most superstars, he longed to be admired and respected. Yet in the midst of a nightmare, admiration and respect were in limited supply. On his weekly radio show, Finks made a shocking decree. “Maybe Walter’s best years are behind him,” he said. “It would be foolish to think his best years are ahead of him. I don’t think we have to feature him as much.”

Payton was all alone. His line was terrible, his coach inept, his GM dismissive. Harper, his best friend, would start two games, the damage from three knee surgeries more pronounced than ever. Evans, the quarterback, threw the ball with J. R. Richard velocity and Steve Blass accuracy. “We had nothing—absolutely nothing,” said Al Harris, the defensive lineman. “But Walter was about pride, and if you said he couldn’t do it, he would find a way.”

During a practice in mid-November, Payton became livid when Hank Kuhlmann, the Bears’ gruff backfield coach, ripped him for a missed assignment, then told the halfback that he’d lost a step. Payton charged at the coach, throwing a wild punch that grazed his nose. Dumbfounded teammates separated the two. “Did we argue?” asks Kuhlmann. “Hell yeah, we argued. I was a taskmaster and he was a perfectionist. But I loved Walter.”