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By Root 1412 0

to him, understood him. Coming out of tiny Jackson State, Payton was far from the collegiate golden child, running before seventy thousand fans and national television audiences. Playing for the oft-miserable Bears, he took brutal shots, but refused to stay down for long. He was a workman, lacking only a hard hat and lunch pail. He was never overwhelmingly fast or especially big, but he fought for everything he gained. He was a trooper. A survivor. A dogged workhorse. You loved Walter Payton because you appreciated Walter Payton. Unlike Dickerson, he rarely whined. Unlike Simpson, he never preened. “Do you think they still wear Jim Brown jerseys in Cleveland?” said Mike Ditka. “No. Do they still wear Paul Hornung jerseys in Green Bay? No. Johnny Unitas jerseys in Baltimore? No. You know why, at Bears games, you’ll see hundreds of Walter Payton jerseys? Because people know what he was all about. They know that when Walter put on his uniform and the game started, he was going to give everything he had, no matter what. That’s awfully powerful.”

In the modern history of sports, Payton’s smile is rivaled only by the one flashed by Magic Johnson. It seemed to emit its own energy, and the radiance only intensified as children approached for an autograph or a high-five.

Was Walter Payton perfect? Far from it. He was flawed, as all of us are. He was prone to terrible lapses in judgment and often treated women as objects, not people. He ignored his out-of-wedlock son, blew much of his money, struggled with a form of depression that led to suicidal thoughts and threats. The confident swagger with which he walked often served as a front for deep-seated insecurities and a man crying out for help.

In other words, he was human.

As I wrap up work on this book, that’s what I love most about Payton. Yes, he was a superstar. And yes, his death—as was the case with celebrities ranging from James Dean and Marilyn Monroe to Jimi Hendricks and Shannon Hoon—served to freeze him in time, forever a Chicago Bear, forever young and strong and vibrant.

What makes a person truly unique, however, is his shortcomings, and how he chooses to deal with them. Through all his highs and all his lows, Walter Payton continued to possess a rare sense of humanity. Having now covered sports for sixteen years, I’ve seen an endless stream of athletes treat their fans as eczema-like irritations. They walk through the world as if encased in a Plexiglas bubble, immune to the fact that a minute’s worth of attention will often never be forgotten.

Until the day he died, Payton refused to lose sight of this.

Had I so desired, I could have written a seven-hundred-page book consisting solely of You’re-not-gonna-believe-this stories of Payton’s goodness. The time he met a University of Central Florida defensive back named Todd Burks on an airplane and hooked him up with a tryout with the Bears. The time he pulled aside a Jackson State running back named William Arnold and offered the pep talk of a lifetime. The times he gave away autographed helmets, autographed footballs, autographed pictures to one charity or another.

Here at the end, however, I want to conclude with my personal favorite.

In 1984, Brandon Peacy was a twelve-year-old student at Jack Benny Middle School in Waukegan, Illinois. One day his father, Bill, surprised him by saying, “Grab some football cards, we’re going on a trip.” Forty-five minutes later Brandon found himself at the Chicago Bears’ training facility in Lake Forest. “My dad knew someone who worked for the Bears,” Peacy said. “We were given a tour of the facility—the locker room, the weight room. I was blown away.”

Brandon strolled toward the field, where he stood on the sideline, playing with a football. He heard a high-pitched voice—“Hey, buddy! Hey, buddy! Come here, buddy!” It was Walter Payton.

The running back was standing in a circle with Jim McMahon, Steve Fuller, and Matt Suhey. He asked Brandon his name and introduced him to the players. “Brandon, you don’t have to be nervous,” he said. “I’m just a guy.” Before Payton headed off