Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [218]
“Four full days. Four full days, and Lita and Connie were like two ships passing in the night. If Connie was scheduled to come late, I’d make sure Lita was there early. If Connie was coming early, Lita would be there late. I can’t describe the horror of that trip. It was the worst thing ever.”
Payton naïvely assumed Lita would be content sharing a room with him in the McKinley Grand Hotel, where the inductees stayed. Quirk had booked the reservation for Walter and Lita, and she also reserved a suite for Connie and the children. “I was told to make sure the rooms were as far apart as possible,” said Quirk. “So that’s what I did.” Yet Lita was hardly placated. As far as she was concerned, this was to be her coming out weekend as Walter Payton’s significant other. She brought a new dress. Had her hair and nails done. Lita dreamed of attending all the parties and functions; dreamed of being introduced by Walter to his family members, friends, and fellow inductees. “Lita had balls of steel in Canton,” said Quirk. “She said, ‘This is my time and I’m going to take a stand.’ ”
Walter had different ideas. As Fouts and Little and Noll and Walsh seized the moment by attending shindigs and accepting congratulatory wishes, Walter and Lita spent three days cooped up in the room. He only emerged every so often to make a required appearance. Occasionally he’d visit Jarrett and Brittney in their suite—but they were strictly prohibited from visiting his. Otherwise, he was MIA. He missed an important Thursday night function that left Hall officials fuming and earned the scorn of Bears legend Gale Sayers, who blasted his ho-hum attitude. Ray Nitschke, the Packer great, issued an impassioned plea to try and get Payton’s attention. It didn’t work. “Walter mostly hid,” said Holmes. “The moment of a lifetime, and Walter’s hiding out. After it was all done he called me and asked how he did. I told him the truth. I said, ‘Walter, you did very well on stage, but I’m disappointed in you, the way you ignored your mama and your family and your kids. People don’t do that. It’s not fair.’ ”
On the morning of Saturday, July 31, Walter and Lita had a quiet breakfast in their hotel room before he, all alone, headed downstairs to the lobby of the McKinley Grand. From her room Quirk was on the phone, frantically finalizing the most awkward of seating arrangements. Because Walter and Connie were still assumed to be Walter and Connie, Quirk assigned her to the front row, alongside their children, Walter’s mother, Alyne, his brother, Eddie, and his sister, Pamela. Lita, meanwhile, was situated one row back, two down from Quirk and alongside Susan Ward, a public relations specialist who was working with Payton. “Susan was the buffer,” said Quirk. “I didn’t want to sit next to Lita. She was causing too much drama.”
Payton arrived at the front steps of the Hall shortly before the start of the event. He was visibly nervous and unfocused, and those few who were in the know had little doubt of the cause of his burden. Smooth and suave in public, Payton was terrified by the potential for center-stage embarrassment. Would Lita stand up and confront Connie? Would Lita storm off if he mentioned Connie in the speech? “Walter’s ideal was to hide Lita,” said Quirk. “But Lita wasn’t having that.”
At twelve fifty P.M., Jarrett rose to introduce Walter Payton into the Class of 1993. He felt his knees wobble and his hands quiver. This was a new level of pressure—thousands of eyes staring down upon him. His fourminute