Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [133]
“We were taking handoffs in a drill,” said Dennis Runck, a free agent running back in 1982. “He slaps me on the ass and says, ‘So, I hear you’re gay.’”
“Walter didn’t practice much during training camp, but he was always there during workouts in shoulder pads and shorts, encouraging people,” said Mark Stevenson, who, in 1982, was invited to camp as a free-agent offensive lineman. “So we’re going through offensive drills, and Walter’s circling the huddle, yelling, ‘Pull it! Pull it! Pull it!’ He does this for two weeks, and nobody knows what he’s talking about. Finally Kurt Becker, another lineman, says, ‘Pull what, Walter?’ And Walter screams, ‘Pull my dick, motherfucker! Pull my dick!’ ”
“Were Walter alive today, he’d almost certainly have some sexual harassment suits thrown his way,” said Duke Fergerson, a free agent wide receiver in camp with the team in 1982. “It’s one thing to be playful and juvenile about discovering your sexuality. But Walter would almost be sexually intimidating to these rookies. He’d make passes at guys. He may have been kidding, but coming from someone of that status, it was very intimidating. It got to the point where I didn’t want to dress around him. It was too uncomfortable.”
Payton was steadfastly loyal (when the club cut a running back named Willie McClendon in 1983, Payton didn’t speak to teammates for a week) and steadfastly confounding. He yelled. He whispered. He comforted. He mocked. “He’d meet you a couple of times and then give you a bear hug,” said Covert.
“Then he’d pinch you. Then he’d flick you in the ear. Then he’d pinch your ass. Then he’d pinch your neck. The he’d goose you. Rookies would come in and say, ‘Is he gay?’ No, Walter’s not gay. He’s just strange.”
“Walter was kind of a nice guy, kind of a flaky guy,” said Jon Morris, a backup center with the team in 1978. Morris joined the Bears for the final season of a fifteen-year career. He had been around some of the game’s biggest names, from Jim Plunkett and Sam Cunningham with New England to Lem Barney and Doug English in Detroit. As far as superstars go, Morris said Payton was the daffiest. “He was distant and aloof, yet then he’d do some stupid high school and college frat stuff that made you want to strangle him. You’d take a shower and he’d turn all the lights off. He’d snap you in the rear with a towel. He was a pain in the ass, and yet he was also enjoyable. Few people were harder to figure than Walter.”
Here’s the odd part: As paradoxical as Payton could seem to those who stuck with the Bears, he was unusually gracious and outgoing toward players brought in with little chance of sticking. Some say this had to do more with Payton’s insecurities than his large heart—a lightly regarded free agent from Bucknell or Delaware posed no threat to his job security. Others, however, maintain that he was simply good-guy Walter being good-guy Walter. Whatever the case, from the time Payton arrived in 1975 through his retirement in 1988, countless scrubs and C-listers raved about the star’s treatment. They watched in awe as he gave the Lake Forest groundskeeper a break, hopped atop the mower, and cut the grass. They stood dumbfounded as he brought them cups of water. Whenever he made appearances on behalf of the Special Olympics, Payton would tap a third-string nobody on the shoulder and ask him to tag along.
“I was an undrafted free-agent quarterback from Northern Illinois who was invited to camp only to generate local interest,” adds Pete Kraker, a 1979 free agent. “I wasn’t going to make the team. But Walter introduced me to his wife, gave me his business card, checked in on me every day to see how I was doing. He had an extra quality about him.”
“I was a good football player, but my real gift was being able to sing just like Michael Jackson,” said