Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [102]
When he managed to participate, Payton was exceptional. Having spent the off-season high-stepping through the sands along the Pearl River while completing work on his master’s degree in special education at Jackson State, he reported to camp faster and stronger than the previous year. His rookie season had been an education in what to expect from NFL defenders, and Payton committed himself to running with an extra viciousness. “He was in the best condition I’ve ever seen anybody in,” said Bo Rather, the wide receiver. “There was nothing extra on him. All lean muscle.”
To Pardee, Payton was immature and unprepared; gifted, yet unwilling to put in the time to improve. As a man whose fifteen-year NFL career resulted in disjointed fingers and creaking bones, Pardee expected his minions to devote 100 percent of their on-field time to improving. They weren’t here to joke or rest or goof off. They were here to follow orders and play football. Payton, however, was twenty-three years old and impossible to make sense of. Before games, as other players taped up or reviewed strategy, Payton habitually lay prone beneath a table, eyes closed, deep in some sort of zenlike trance. When he wasn’t complaining of headaches or charging through defenses, Payton could be found in his rainbow-hued van, featuring an eighttrack player and shag carpet. He went about his business quietly, which Pardee liked, but then, seemingly without warning, would pull these juvenile pranks that reminded everyone of his youth. Payton enjoyed sliding behind the Bears’ switchboard and, in the highest of high-pitched voices, answering the phone as Louise, the female receptionist. He took to filling the socks of unsuspecting teammates with Swiss Miss hot cocoa powder and lathering their jockstraps with Ben-Gay (then giddily watching them scream in agony).
As one practice at Soldier Field came to an end, Payton was granted permission to leave a few minutes early in order to nurse a sore hamstring. “You could see these dark clouds over the horizon, and it started storming,” said Ken Downing, a cornerback who spent four months on the taxi squad. “The entire team rushes for the locker room and Walter’s locked all the doors. It’s raining and lightning, and he’s sitting in the hot tub, singing. They had to get a security guard to open the door.” The players weren’t laughing. “We were tired and cold,” Downing said. “And a little confused as to why anyone would find that funny.” (Years later Payton pulled a similarly obnoxious prank, blindly tossing a lit M-80 into a locker room filled with teammates. Amazingly, no one was hurt.)
The Bears opened the six-game exhibition season with a 15–14 win at Denver’s Mile High Stadium, yet Payton missed most of the action after bruising his knee during warm-ups. He asked out of the next contest, too, a 27–16 triumph at Seattle, watching in street clothes from the sidelines. Fed up, Pardee announced after the game that Johnny Musso, the backup halfback who gained 176 yards against the Seahawks, might be the new starter. “You couldn’t get a better game out of a back than that one,” Pardee said. “If he keeps performing that way, I’m certainly not going to consider him a second stringer.”
With that, Walter Payton miraculously rediscovered his health. The headaches and nausea disappeared. The knee no longer throbbed. When Finks slyly told the Tribune that “Durability is the test of greatness,” Payton’s ears burned. He ran for 122 yards and two touchdowns on thirty-one carries against the Colts, and added eighty-two