Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [61]
In the immediate aftermath of the Omaha victory, Mississippi Governor Bill Waller held a press conference to praise Payton and Jackson State. “This team,” he said, “is deserving of the full attention and support of all state officials and the people of Mississippi.”
A couple of days later William Winter, Mississippi’s lieutenant governor, visited a Tigers practice and told the assembled media (well, one reporter) that, “the potential for good public relations for Mississippi from the Jackson State team had never been fully realized. We’ve had such a good thing out here for years, and the only people who have really noticed have been the pros.”
Such was the draw of Walter Payton. He was a lock for a hundred yards per game, no matter the defense, no matter the game plan. When a team like Mississippi Valley State dedicated itself to stuffing the interior, Payton swept outside, using his speed and quickness to run for 151 yards in a 26–22 victory. When a team like Bishop College, the Tigers’ week five opponent, assigned a linebacker to shadow Payton wherever he went, Rickey Young, Jackson State’s six-foot-two, 180-pound fullback, made a mockery of the strategy, bulldozing said player into the turf.
In fact, it was Payton’s otherworldly performance against Bishop that had Jefferson and the school’s small public relations staff believing they could, come senior year, mount a credible Heisman Trophy campaign.
Like Lane one season earlier, Bishop was a nondescript NAIA Division II black college with a handful of scholarships and little business standing toe to toe with Jackson State. They entered the game 1-3, with lopsided losses to three schools—Langston University (49–13), Ouachita Baptist (40–19), and Northwestern State (28–7)—the Tigers would have crushed. “Bishop was pretty much always terrible,” said Curtis Jones, a Tigers defensive back. “There was a tradition—we’d beat up on them and eventually they’d quit.” Located in a residential neighborhood on Dallas’ south side, Bishop stood as an afterthought on the college football landscape. “We had a wonderful choir and a wonderful band,” said Robert Roberts, a Bishop receiver. “Most people came to Bishop to train to become Baptist preachers, not football players.”
The Bishop-Jackson State matchup was the first part of a Memorial Stadium doubleheader, featuring Kentucky and Mississippi State in the nightcap. Many whites were accidentally exposed to Payton and Co. as they entered the stadium early to hunker down for the featured game. This would prove to be a most serendipitous find.
On Jackson State’s first offensive play of the afternoon, from its own forty-five-yard line, quarterback Jimmy Lewis tossed the ball to Payton for a sweep around the left end. Bishop’s best player was a defensive back named Bobby Brooks, who would go on to play three seasons with the New York Giants. In the previous few days, Brooks had grown tired of hearing Bishop’s coaches rave about Payton. “Every week the coaches told us the story of some receiver . . . some quarterback . . . some running back who’s supposed to be so great and amazing,” Brooks said. “Then I’d go on the field and think, ‘Man, this guy is nothing.’ ”
Brooks assumed Payton couldn’t possibly be as dominant as word had it. “Well, Walter’s running this sweep right toward my way, and I go to hit him,” Brooks said. “I wrap up both legs and I fall to the ground making the tackle, and I look up to see how he fell. Well, I notice he’s not down. He’s doing a show pony leg kick all the way down the field. That’s the first tackle I ever missed in a game. Ever. I was so pissed, so angry, that I got up, and just as he’s about to step into the end zone, I caught him