Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [100]
It was around this time—at his lowest point—that Payton needed a friend to confide in. He found one in Roland Harper. In the 1975 NFL Draft, teams selected a total of 442 players over seventeen rounds. Harper, an obscure fullback out of Louisiana Tech, was picked 420th—and only because Chicago had accidentally noticed him while scouting Charles McDaniel, the Bulldogs’ star halfback. “Walter never felt he had to prove himself to the world,” said Harper, a native of Shreveport, Louisiana. “But I did. I felt in my heart that I would play in the NFL, and that my blocking was good enough to take on any level of player.”
Throughout training camp, Bears players and coaches went about the tasks at hand when—SMACK!—the unmistakable sound of pulverization caught their attention. “That was Roland doing his thing,” said Tom Donchez, a reserve running back. “When he hit people, it stung.” Payton and Harper shared myriad commonalities. Both were Southern blacks who took part in the integration of a high school (Harper’s senior class at Captain Shreve High in Shreveport, Louisiana, was the first to include whites and blacks). Both were driven to succeed and unwilling to accept failure. Both were raised by warm mothers and hard-driven fathers (Harper’s dad, Eural, installed floors for banks and hospitals). Both played in the backfield. Both kept Bibles in their lockers and attended the team’s weekly prayer meetings. Unlike Payton, however, Harper was universally beloved. He was talkative without being annoying and insightful without being arrogant. Teammates referred to him as “Preacher.” The kid possessed an air of wisdom.
Before long the two backs were inseparable. They talked at length about God and about race and about football. Once, in an attempt to prank Fred O’Connor, the running backs coach, they swapped jerseys and showed up at a frigid practice wearing wool ski masks. The jig lasted for ten minutes, until O’Connor turned to Harper and said, “You might be wearing number thirty-four, but you’re not Walter Payton.”
“We became bookends,” said Harper. “I understood what made him tick, what made him angry, what made him determined. He felt pressure to be the star, and if he didn’t rush for one hundred yards he sometimes felt as if he was disappointing people. He was incredibly competitive, and if he didn’t meet standards he wanted to hide.”
With Harper at his side, Payton survived the rest of the horrible season, eventually returning to the starting lineup. But it wasn’t fun. He hated the snow and dreaded the wind. Having spent 95 percent of his life in shorts and a T-shirt, Payton wondered aloud why people subjected themselves to Chicago’s winters. At the time, Payton didn’t know enough to embrace Chicago’s greatness—the bountiful restaurants, the theatre district, the bustling nightlife, and nonstop action. He was a scared kid longing for simplicity.
Payton’s spirits were hardly lifted by the junk that surrounded him. Chicago’s quarterbacks combined to throw twenty-two interceptions in 1975 (with just nine touchdowns), and when asked to assess Payton, Pardee praised his running, his blocking, and—of all things—his ability “to pursue [interceptors] real well.”
“Jack wasn’t even trying to be funny,” said Pierson. “We all cracked up—the Bears were so sad that a running back was being saluted for his skills as a tackler.”
Payton saved his best game for his last, gaining more than three hundred total yards against the hapless New Orleans Saints at the Superdome. With his parents watching from the stands, Payton rushed for 134 yards on twenty-five carries, including a fifty-four-yard touchdown run. He returned two kicks for 104 yards. The Bears won 42–17, their fourth and final victory.
Payton’s 679