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“He felt like it would have been the crowning jewel on his career,” said Covert. “But Walter didn’t need a crowning jewel.” Others were perplexed by Ditka slighting their beloved superstar. Maury Buford, the team’s first-year punter, thought back to the preseason, when the coach embarrassed him during a Monday afternoon film session. “Ditka never could pronounce my name,” said Buford. “In front of everyone he said, ‘Murry, Morty, Marty . . . whatever the fuck your name is. You better get your shit together and stop shanking punts, or I’ll have enough punters in here tomorrow to make your head spin.’ I was crushed. Well, from behind me I feel a huge hand on my shoulder. It was Walter, and he whispers, ‘Don’t worry about that, Maury. Ditka pulls this shit all the fucking time.’ That’s who Walter was—someone who’d die for a teammate. He deserved a touchdown.”

McMahon, the owner of two scores, kicked himself for not taking action into his own hands. “When they called the play for Perry,” he said, “I should have just ignored it and given the ball to Walter.” Jay Hilgenberg wondered how such an oversight could have happened. “We scored forty-six points—why couldn’t Walter have scored at least once?” the center said. “In hindsight, there’s no excuse.”

Nobody felt worse than Ditka, who through the years came to love Payton as he had few other players. In the heat of the game, he simply failed to consider what a touchdown would have meant. “I would never do anything to hurt Walter,” Ditka said. “As I’ve said repeatedly, I wouldn’t want anyone else carrying the ball in any situation than him. Not Jim Brown, not Gale Sayers, no one. I scored a touchdown in a Super Bowl, and I wish I could take that and give it to him. Because the last thing I wanted to hear was, at his greatest career moment, Walter Payton feeling down.

“He was,” said Ditka, “the best player I ever coached. And, in hindsight, he deserved better.”

CHAPTER 21

AFTERMATH

WHEN A FRANCHISE PLAYER WINS A SUPER BOWL, THE WORLD BECOMES HIS oyster.

No, things didn’t go as planned for Walter Payton in New Orleans. And no, he would not soon forget Mike Ditka failing to allow him to score a touchdown against the Patriots.

But if Bud Holmes had concerns that his client’s petulance would leave a lasting—and damaging—impression on sports fans and corporate America, those fears were quickly put to rest. In the days and weeks following the big game, a smiling, giddy, reenergized Payton could be found everywhere. He was asked to attend a state dinner at the White House by President Ronald Reagan, America’s foremost football fan (Brian Mulroney, Canada’s prime minister, used the occasion to invite Payton to his home for some fishing). As always, he appeared at the annual Chicago Auto Show, signing autographs on behalf of Buick. Both the Cubs and White Sox requested he throw out the first ball at their home openers (he went with the Cubbies). He made the first public political statement of his life, using an NFL luncheon to expound on the strife in Libya (Payton: “It shows the uncertainty of what this world is heading for”). He participated in Hands Across America, a four-thousandmile chain of hand-holders from New York to California, and was saluted by Jackson, Mississippi, with “Walter Payton Day” and a parade in his honor.

In one of the proudest moments of his career, Wheaties told Payton it wanted to place his image on the front of its cereal boxes—an honor bestowed on only four previous athletes (Bob Richards, Bruce Jenner, Mary Lou Retton, and Pete Rose). “To be on the box is sort of like a fairy tale that eventually came true,” he said. “Because in the world we live in, it’s a fantasy.”

Payton’s strangest post–Super Bowl endeavor came in the form of a rap single/video called “Rappin’ Together,” which he recorded with—of all people—William Perry as a follow-up to “The Super Bowl Shuffle.” For some inexplicable reason, the idea sounded like a good one at the time: Take two football stars, hand them a sheet of lyrics written by four Evanston, Illinois, high school