Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [42]
The year was 1952, and as soon as Hill learned of the opportunity, he packed a duffle bag and told his grandmothers not to expect him for dinner. Any dinner. Ever again. “I was through with the cotton fields,” he said. “I left home and decided that I’d either make the team at Jackson State or join the army.” He caught the three-hour bus ride south to Jackson, knowing nothing about Jackson State or T. B. Ellis or the college game. Ellis took one look at the boy, with his muscular forearms and powerful legs, and thought of Jack Spinks, the six-foot, 235-pound Alcorn fullback who had recently become the first black ballplayer from Mississippi to be drafted into the NFL. Then he watched him run. Hill was raw, but bursting with promise. After a week of tryouts, Ellis tacked a piece of paper with the final roster onto a board in the athletic dormitory. Hill could barely look. This was his life–“it was either football, the army, or cotton,” he said. “And I didn’t want the army or cotton.” When he finally worked up the nerve and spotted his name, in small black lettering seven or eight down from the top, he let out a euphoric roar.
Hill’s four years as a student-athlete at Jackson State go down as the best of his life. He was inserted into the starting lineup midway through his freshman season by Ellis, who ran the T-formation and sought size for his power running attack. When John Merritt took over as head coach the following year, he leaned on Hill even more, turning him into a primary ball carrier. A studious player who could absorb large quantities of information, Hill studied his coaches’ mannerisms and styles. Both Ellis and Merritt were oft-angry leaders who mentally and physically intimidated their legions, and Hill fed off of it. The worse the punishment, the madder he became. The madder he became, the better he played.
Upon graduating from Jackson State in 1956, Hill was drafted in the twentieth round by the Baltimore Colts. He was with the organization for one year, never appearing in a game but paying close attention to Weeb Ewbank, the third-year head coach who would go on to a Hall of Fame career. Hill spent the following season with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League before suffering a career-ending right leg injury. “I didn’t want to stop playing at twenty-four years old, but I had no choice,” he said. “Physically, it was over for me. I couldn’t run like I used to.”
Hill heard the cotton fields of Tippo whispering his name; chanting for him to come back home and take his rightful place among the relatives and friends who were fulfilling their natural destinies. This call would serve as a driving force for years. “We all have motivations,” he said. “Mine was not going back.”
Hill worked for one year as an assistant to LeRoy Smith at Mississippi Vocational College, then moved to Magee, Mississippi, to serve as the head coach at the all-black Magee High School. He took over a team that had existed for only one season, with a roster of roughly twenty kids, almost all of whom picked cotton in the wee morning hours, worked at the local poultry farm catching chickens in the evening, and practiced from seven to nine at night. The coaches of larger schools giddily added Magee to their schedules, eager to pick up the certain victory.
Combining the fierce discipline of Ellis and Merritt with the on-field ingenuity of Ewbank, Hill led his team to an 8-2 mark, earning a reputation as a local football savant. Nearly all of the opposing teams ran the T-offense Hill knew from high school and college; Magee operated the wide-open pro set utilized by Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. Nearly all of the opposing teams ran a traditional 4-3 defense; Magee went with a 5-3 setup, blitzing on nearly every down. “Oh, man, it was a lot of fun,” Hill said. “I’d have receivers spread out all over the field, and our quarterback, Earnest James, could throw with anyone. There were