Walter & Me (8 page)

So, the team had come together, and Coach Boston was on the coaching staff at Columbia High, back with his boys. With the leaves of fall came team practices, and that’s when the team identity really started falling into place. All spots were filled nicely, and they had a very solid unit. The kids were all getting along great with no problems at all. No fights or anything like that. They were gelling and moving quickly toward the opening game. Coach Boston was coaching receivers and punters, but he still knew where the real talent was. He knew how they were going to win games. He knew which guys would take them to victory. He knew the team needed to rely on the stud running backs that came over from Jefferson High. He just hoped the other coaches knew it, too. Then it was déjà vu all over again.

“We get up to the first football game, and we were playing Prentiss,” Coach Boston remembered. “I had heard on the radio that Prentiss would be a pretty tough team for Columbia. There was some smack going around out there about how they’d beat us. Well, they came in, and we beat them, if I remember correctly, something like 13–6. We scored two touchdowns and an extra point. Walter scored the two touchdowns, both over 60 yards.”

If they hadn’t already, the rest of the Columbia High coaches knew after that game who should be getting the ball. It was all running backs all the time, and Walter and Sugarman were the two studs. Columbia High’s second game brought yet another victory, only this time, it was Sugarman who took the spotlight. Seems the coaches were doing that on purpose, because in every other game, one of the stud backs would stand out while the other took the back seat. Because of that, Walter and Sugarman were pretty much even in the race for the conference scoring crown. Think about that for a second…the two scoring leaders of the Little Dixie Conference were on the same team! That was one heck of a backfield. But I know the question you’re asking now: did Walter or Sugarman come out on top as the scoring champ? I’ll let Coach Boston fill you in on the results.

“We were playing Franklin County, and Sugarman was having himself a great football game. He was leading the conference in scoring heading into that game, and then he got it in his head to punch a guy. Well, you can’t do that. Refs don’t like that sort of thing. So, they threw him out of the game. Walter came in and didn’t miss a beat. After Sugarman’s one punch, Walter came in and punched in two touchdowns. With those scores, he took the lead back from Sugarman for the conference scoring crown. That’s when us coaches just decided to push Walter to get the scoring title from that point on. And that’s exactly what he did. We won seven straight ballgames because of our conference scoring champ, and man, Columbia was sure buzzing about that young man!”

Like I said, Columbia was once known for rodeos, but it hadn’t seen nothing before like Walter Payton. And that’s true in more ways than one. Columbia High hadn’t even seen black players until Walter’s senior year, so there you go. But the color really didn’t matter. Black, white, red, orange, whatever—Columbia High had never before seen a player of any color that could do what Walter could out there on the football field. He could pretty much score at will. Columbia was witnessing a man among boys. Guys would try to grab him as he darted by, but all they’d be left holding was their jocks as Walter sprinted down the field.

Eyes from outside of Columbia started taking notice, too. College scouts would come to see Walter play, and what they’d find was about 5'10" and 185 pounds of supreme coolness. I think Walter was starting to figure out just how cool he was, too, because sometimes he’d act just a tad too cocky out there. P.W. Underwood, the head coach from Southern Mississippi, came over once to scout Walter. In that game, Columbia ran a little toss sweep, and Walter got outside. He was gone. The other team had a defense out there, but they were defenseless against what Walter was bringing. They were chasing him down the sideline with absolutely no hope of catching him. At about the 20-yard line or so, Walter turned around and started back-stepping. He ran the ball in backward for the touchdown, watching those kids try to catch him. He was also holding the ball high over his head as if to ask, “Why are y’all even trying?” Today, something like that would bring a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Back then, with the way Walter was running on that team, it just had to be done.

Coach Underwood didn’t see it that way. He couldn’t deny Walter’s undeniable talent, of course, but he told Coach Boston after the game that Walter would never amount to anything as a football player. “He’s just a hot dog,” Coach Underwood said, dismissing the obvious game-changing talent of my baby brother. Guess he didn’t care much for hot dogs unless they came with white buns. And that was too bad for Southern Miss, because they could’ve had the upper hand in recruiting Walter, being only 25 miles from Columbia. In fact, any of the predominantly white Mississippi colleges could’ve landed him. Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Southern Miss were all considered “big time” programs back then, but none of them recruited the “big time” playmaker who was Walter Payton. None of them—other than Southern Miss coming to watch him play that one game—so much as even called. And it wasn’t like they didn’t know about Walter. He wasn’t some undiscovered talent, hidden away in Podunk, Mississippi. Everyone knew who he was as a senior, and if only those schools could’ve looked past the hot-doggin’ (and with some of them, I think they needed to look past his color), they could’ve had themselves a stud.

If Walter was playing today, he’d have offers from all the schools in the South and every single SEC school, no doubt. But he’s not playing now. He played his senior season in 1970, the first year of forced integration, and the fact is that he graduated high school in 1971 with no offers from any SEC schools. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t so much that Walter was black. Maybe those schools just didn’t have “room” for another one. I mean, Southern Miss and Mississippi State had one black player each on their teams at that time. That’s a whole lot, you know? They were probably at their self-imposed limit or quota for black athletes, and Walter would have put them over that.

Mississippi State became the first of the predominantly white schools in the state to accept a black football player when they signed Frank Dowsing in 1969. Like me, Dowsing was a return specialist, and he also played defensive back. He became all-conference, All-American, and graduated with honors. You’d think they would’ve wanted more than just one guy like that, right? I guess one was enough, because they didn’t want Walter.

In 1970, Southern Mississippi signed Willie Heidelburg as their first black player. “Wee” Willie Heidelburg was a wee little guy like me at 5'6" and 145 pounds, probably “soaking wet” like they always described me at my heaviest. In 1970, Heidelburg was a major reason Southern Miss beat fourth-ranked Ole Miss 30–14 in what’s considered one of the biggest upsets in college football history. Heidelburg scored two touchdowns on reverses to lead the way for Southern Miss in that historic game. You’d think they would’ve wanted more than just one guy like that, right? I guess one was enough for them, too, because they didn’t want Walter either.

Walter graduated high school on June 18, 1971. That was the year Ole Miss signed James Reed and Robert “Ben” Williams as its first two black football players. The following year, Ben (a Yazoo City, Mississippi, native) became the first African American football player to take the field for Ole Miss. Williams became a star defensive lineman and went on to a great career in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills. Reed had a huge career for Ole Miss as well and was drafted in the ninth round of the 1976 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns. Now, I know two black guys are twice as many as one, but you’d think they would’ve wanted more than just two guys like that, right? I guess two were enough for them because they, like the others, didn’t want Walter.

So, all of the predominantly white schools could’ve recruited Walter but didn’t. That’s the point I’m making here. It seemed the college world in the South was going to sort of ease into the integration thing, and most of the historically white schools had committed their allowance of black scholarships to the guys mentioned above. Of course, that’s not to say there weren’t plenty of others that were quite willing to go after and sign Walter.

College recruiters outside of the historically white schools knew Walter was good, but no one really knew exactly how good he was until the Mississippi High School All-Star Game. That’s when they found out what he could really do. Walter put on a show in that game and opened a lot of eyes. Made a lot of folks color-blind that day, I think. Playing for the south team, Walter blew up. It was like the recruiters were watching a highlight reel from the entire year. Now, Walter had already informally committed to Jackson State, but that meant nothing to non-racist Division I recruiters and colleges looking for a running back who could be a game changer, which Walter made clear he was in that game. The offers started coming in and, before long, they were catching up with his touchdowns.

Lots of schools from the North, the Midwest, and the West Coast now knew exactly what was waiting for them in Columbia. Anyone who saw Walter as just a football player, rather than a black one, came to try to claim their prize. Some of the schools wanted Walter a little too bad, in fact. One particular school from Kansas had an interesting way of trying to win the Walter Payton sweepstakes. The way they handled it is the reason why to this day there remains some confusion about exactly which Kansas school recruited Walter. Was it the University of Kansas, or was it Kansas State University?

Most of us thought it was the University of Kansas because Gale Sayers’ name kept coming up from the recruiter. Sayers, known as the “Kansas Comet,” played for the University of Kansas Jayhawks and would eventually star for the Chicago Bears, but Coach Boston remembers the guy who was talking about Gale Sayers to be “a young black recruiter named Frank Falks.” Well, though Sayers played for the Jayhawks, Falks didn’t recruit for the University of Kansas. He worked for the Kansas State University Wildcats. So, did Falks inappropriately use Gale Sayers’ name to try and recruit Walter for Kansas State University? I say maybe. Momma says yes. She remembers being told by Falks that Walter was going to be the next Gale Sayers if he’d come to (the state of) Kansas. Today it’d be hard to pull off a trick like that, but back then, I can see it happening. Neither the University of Kansas nor Kansas State had any TV exposure in Columbia. Nowadays, if Sayers was playing for Kansas, kids in Columbia could tell you his stats, jersey color, number, shoe size, and probably what he had for breakfast. In 1970, we only knew he was good and played somewhere in Kansas. We were literally in the dark on more than just race back then.

I can’t say for sure that Falks intended to make us think Sayers had played at Kansas State and that Walter would be following in his footsteps by going there, but I can tell you exactly how Walter’s recruitment by Kansas State went down otherwise. Again, Walter had made it clear that he wanted to go to Jackson State, where I was a junior at the time. When we were in high school, he didn’t want to compete against his older brother, but with both of us now a bit more “mature” as college kids, he wanted to play alongside me. And I wanted him to go there, too. In fact, he had all but committed to Jackson State during his senior season, before those other schools coming to get him even knew where Columbia, Mississippi, was. But by the time the cat was out of the bag on his talent, he was being pulled in every direction, and he just wasn’t sure anymore. Or they all tried to make him think he wasn’t sure.

The historically black schools were telling Walter, “You can play here, be a part of the tradition, and be close to home.” The historically white schools were telling him, “You can bring change, you’re going to be on national TV, this is a stepping stone to the next level, and we’re going to give you the type of publicity and exposure you deserve.” The white schools also pitched their education as being the best, telling Momma that her boy would get schooling that is second to none.

Now, listen, before Walter became a big star that could do no wrong in the eyes of the public, he was just a kid trying to figure out which way to go. Walter was confused by all the schools telling him this, that, and the other. All of a sudden, he was this hot commodity, and he wasn’t sure what was what. Most of the recruiting would happen at Walter’s games, and unfortunately I couldn’t be there for him, because his games normally took place when I was practicing at Jackson State. Today it’d be easy to just text him, but without cell phones or much of a way to communicate back then, I wasn’t able to help him through the recruiting process as much as I would’ve liked. I’d go home on weekends and whatnot, and he’d tell me about the schools that were coming at him and show me all the letters coaches were sending. I was starting to get confused, too, and just wanted to know one thing. I dismissed all those letters and all that attention and asked, “You coming to Jackson State, ain’t ya?” He just sort of nervously laughed and said, “We’ll see, we’ll see.”

Turned out that “we’ll see” meant he wouldn’t be in Mississippi anymore. He was going to be in Kansas. Of all the schools going after Walter, Kansas State did the best job tricking—uh, sorry, I mean convincing—Momma, Daddy, and Walter that they were gonna take care of him while away from home and that they’d give him a quality education. Of course, they weren’t ready to just rely on their Northern charm to woo the Paytons. To sweeten the deal, somehow money got transferred here or there or somewhere. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I know I came home one day, and there was central air and heating in the house. Felt good and all, but I was wondering where that came from. What hadn’t changed was where Walter came from. He was a Mississippi boy through and through, and he really just wanted to go to Jackson State the whole time, because he’d never been that far away from home. The idea of going to Kansas State really wasn’t appealing to him at all, but Falks was as good a pitchman as the late Billy Mays. Mays could make you buy OxiClean whether you wanted it or not, and Falks had ways of convincing Walter to come to his school just the same.