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In the summer leading up to his junior year at Jackson State, Walter—as was required by Bob Hill—remained on campus for practice. He worked out at the field house and held down a show-up-and-do-little maintenance job at a nearby park that was arranged for him by Doug Shanks, Jackson’s city commissioner. In the course of those weeks, lingering on a mostly empty campus, the stifling Mississippi heat beating down upon him, Walter found himself trying to win back the affections of Lorna Jones, his on-again, off-again girlfriend.

Tired of her beau’s philandering, Lorna had mostly washed her hands of Walter. She reunited with an old high school flame and moved on with her life. Yet Payton remained undeterred. He knew Lorna still wore the promise ring he had once given her, which led him to believe hope remained. “He made a strong push, and we did actually get back together,” Lorna said. “But there was a big obstacle standing in the way—my mother.”

As the wife of an unfaithful husband, M. V. Manning Jones bristled at the idea of Lorna and Walter reconnecting. She knew how he had treated her daughter, and demanded Lorna have nothing to do with him. Walter was no longer allowed to call or visit. “He came one time to my house to have it out with my mother,” she said. “Two hardheaded individuals going at it.” As Lorna waited in the den, M. V. and Walter met in the kitchen. After ten minutes of threats and accusations (“My mom told him he needed to apologize to me for the way he treated me,” Lorna said. “He refused.”), Walter stormed from the room, uttered, “I’m gone,” and left the house. “Good riddance,” M. V. told her daughter. “He’s not good enough for you.”

For the next few months, Walter and Lorna engaged in a covert romance. The two held hands, kissed on the steps outside Sampson Hall, cruised down to Lynch Street for hamburgers and Cokes. They tiptoed around Jackson, careful not to run into Lorna’s parents or any of her parents’ friends.

“[The mother] thought Walter wasn’t good enough for her girl,” said Bob Hill. “Here’s Walter—he’s got no trouble at all. He’s a top football player, a dedicated student, a nice, nice kid—and she refused to let her daughter near him. I thought it was shameful.”

Until his final moments of life, Walter never forgot the slight. As far as he was concerned, he was the innocent victim of a mother gone crazy. It irked and offended him. Mostly, it drove him. Walter was jolted by the racism of his hometown and the successes of his older brother and the intensity of his head coach. But were there a singular moment that infuriated him to the point of motivation, it was a mother telling her child, “Walter Payton isn’t good enough for you.”

“He would talk about it often,” said Ginny Quirk, Walter’s executive assistant for the final fourteen years of his life. “The way that made him feel, and how it pushed him to make something of himself.”

Divorced from his first wife, Yvonne, in 1973 Hill was dating Betty Ballette, a New Orleans resident who flew up to Jackson on weekends. One day, while driving through campus, Hill spotted his star running back hiding behind a large oak tree, trying to track down Lorna. “I stepped on the brakes and I said, ‘Walter, let me introduce you to somebody,’ ” recalled Hill. “He was heartbroken over his girl, but he was also open to the idea.” Doing his best Yente the matchmaker, the coach gave Payton the phone number for Betty’s niece, a high school senior in New Orleans named Connie Norwood. Hill had met Connie on his trips to Betty’s house, and immediately liked her. A soft-spoken cheerleader with light cocoa skin and almondshaped eyes, Connie was a complete package—funny, studious, sharp. She was even a standout dancer, appearing regularly on a weekly New Orleans dance show, The Walt Boatner Hour. “Call her,” Hill told Walter. “She’s expecting to hear from you.”

Because he had no telephone in his dorm room, Walter snuck into a Jackson State guidance counselor’s office and dialed Connie’s number. She had been told by her aunt