Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [38]
Alyne Payton—strong-willed, tough, focused—had never liked the idea of her youngest son going all the way to Kansas. “If you can’t make up your mind where you want to go to school, I’ll make it up for you,” she said. “You’re going to Jackson State.”
That was that. Almost. The administrators at Kansas State were furious. In their minds, Walter Payton had been kidnapped. Everything Hill had done—allowing Walter to attend summer school, lining up a job, driving him home—was part of an elaborate scheme. When it came to the ethics of college football, Hill was no Mother Teresa. He bought recruits meals and clothing, hid them from opposing programs, and made promises he couldn’t keep. According to numerous players, he reveled in paying for various achievements (a punt return for a touchdown netted ten dollars) and in setting bounties upon opposing stars. (“He once offered us fifty dollars to knock [Grambling quarterback] Doug Williams out of a game,” said Vernon Perry, a Tigers safety. “I actually did it, and Bob paid up.”) John Peoples, Jackson State’s president, recalled Hill telling him, “I can get Walter Payton, but you have to let me do what I have to do.”
“I said, ‘That’s fine—just don’t do anything illegal,” said Peoples. “Don’t do anything wrong.”
After Payton finally signed a letter to attend Jackson State, Peoples received a call from James McCain, Kansas State’s president. A rugged former lieutenant commander in the navy, McCain was infuriated. “Dr. Peoples, I’m planning on reporting you to the NCAA.”
“Reporting me?” Peoples asked. “For what?”
“For kidnapping,” McCain replied. “You kidnapped Walter Payton.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Peoples said. “But I do know that Walter Payton has not enrolled with you. So how can someone be kidnapped if he’s not enrolled?”
McCain seethed. Peoples was right—though Payton had signed the letter, he’d never enrolled in Kansas State. At the time, that was enough for an athlete to go wherever he preferred. “I’m going to call the NCAA about this,” McCain said. “You’ll hear back from me soon.”
It was the last time the two ever spoke.
Walter Payton was coming to Jackson State.
PART TWO
JACKSON
W.C. Gorden, Assistant Football Coach, Jackson State
We had running backs at Jackson State who were bigger than Walter, who were stronger than Walter. But as I learned, fifty percent of talent is height, is weight, is strength, and is speed. The other fifty percent—the most important fifty percent—is that the youngster has to want to be a superb football player. And Walter had that compelling desire to lift weights, to condition himself, to run a riverbank up and down, to run the stadium steps. After practice he’d go eat dinner, then come back to the gym. He didn’t play the game for the crowd appeal or the attention. He played for the love.
CHAPTER 6
JACKSON STATE
THROUGHOUT HIS BLISSFULLY PLACID BOYHOOD, WALTER PAYTON WAS NEVER one to make trouble or start a fight. Oh, maybe he and his pals would steal a couple of melons from a field, or perhaps he’d drive thirty miles above the speed limit in his daddy’s truck. But when it came to conflict, and especially conflict over civil rights and desegregation, Walter was nowhere to be found. When, in April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, the blacks of Columbia held a march from Jefferson High School to City Hall. Not only did Walter refuse to participate, he didn’t even attend as an observer.
At Jackson State, however, Walter encountered an entirely new perspective on race. Although he had spent much of his summer living on the Jackson campus, with the arrival of the 4,800-member student body for the start of the fall semester came an eye-opening education