Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [33]
A young teacher named Mike Callahan started a Columbia High branch of the Youth Association for Retarded Children. He roamed the halls looking for volunteers, and among the dozen or so students he roped in was an engaging football star with a free sixth period. “We’d meet once per week during school and figure out ways to help,” said Becky Sinclair, a freshman Walter’s senior year. “We were small, but the people involved were sincerely interested in doing good. It was a lot of tutoring and assisting those who needed help.”
Walter wasn’t merely a jock looking to snag credit or up his Q-rating. On Saturday mornings Payton joined Callahan, Sinclair, and Co. on trips to the Ellisville State School, one of Mississippi’s six state-funded residential mental retardation facilities. Once there Walter would chat with the kids, or play drums, or tell stories of his football adventures. “He was such a caring person,” said Sinclair. “He’d sit with a child on the ground and talk with him forever. Just the two of them.”
In the late spring of 1971, Columbia High’s branch of the Youth Association for Retarded Children took a bus to the state conference, 260 miles to the north in Tupelo. Upon arriving, Walter, Sinclair, Edward Moses, and three or four other white students walked to a nearby hamburger restaurant for lunch. They were denied service. “It never dawned on us,” said Sinclair. “But even when you were going somewhere to do good, you couldn’t always escape the racism of the time.”
Walter spent the spring competing in both baseball and track—sprinting from one practice field to another as the demands of his coaches dictated. “I was never that fond of the game,” he once wrote of baseball. “But we had a good time.”
Track and field was another story. If Payton’s achievements on the gridiron were extraordinary, then his long jump accomplishments are, to quote Boston, “absolutely unbelievable.” Because Columbia High’s facilities did not include a track, Boston, the head coach (here was one job a black man was deemed capable of holding), dragged Payton out to the football field, where he’d run and leap, run and leap, run and leap. “I’ll never forget Walter trying the long jump for the first time in practice,” said Tom Watts, a teammate. “He ran down the runway, took off over the pit, and landed in the bushes behind the pit. It was like watching a superhero fly through the air. Except Walter didn’t have a cape.”
Making his track and field debut at the Hazelhurst Relays in April 1971, Payton set a meet record with a jump of 20’7”—then proceeded to win nine consecutive dual meets. He broke the Columbia High mark with a 22’11¼” leap, and later took the state championship by soaring 22’3”. “He would jump out of the pit,” said Billy Mason, a teammate. “That’s not an exaggeration—Walter literally left the pit. And you wanna know the funniest thing about that?
“To Walter, it was no big deal. Just another day in the life.”
CHAPTER 5
RECRUITMENT
THE ARTICLE DOMINATED THE DECEMBER 17, 1970, FRONT PAGE OF THE Columbian-Progress. Atop the fold, fifty-point bold headline, two columns wide:
WILDCATS SIGNED BY STATE SCHOOLS
Five Columbia High School Wildcats have signed football scholarships with Mississippi schools.
Coach Tommy Davis, head coach at Columbia High School, and Coach Charles Boston, commended them for an outstanding year with the Wildcats and wished them successful seasons with their schools in the coming college years.
Not only were the boys commended for being good athletes but for fine academic records and team and school spirit which builds schools of character, the coaches noted.
The five Wildcats signed