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Atlanta Falcons came multiple times. So did the Colts. And the Dolphins. And the Bears. And the Raiders. Scouts loved the way Payton ran and caught and blocked, and they especially appreciated how, after scoring a touchdown, he took the ball and casually handed it to an official. “He always acted like he’d done it before, and he’d do it again,” said Bernard Fernandez, who covered Jackson State for the Clarion-Ledger. “He was no ordinary kid.” Ken Herock, an Oakland scout, had heard stories of Jackson State’s freak of nature, but wanted to see for himself. “He was an NFL back, that much was obvious,” said Herock. “I scouted Archie Griffin at Ohio State, and I wasn’t sold. He was too small, and not that quick. But Walter had all the tools you looked for. And the most impressive part was his makeup. He’d sit down and watch the tapes with you and break them down. There was nothing not to like.”

For Heisman voters, it mattered not. Though Payton rushed for 1,029 yards, and tallied nineteen touchdowns, one field goal, and six extra points for the 7-3 Tigers, he was a nonfactor. As predicted, on December 3, 1973, New York’s Downtown Athletic Club announced that Griffin, the Ohio State junior, had won the Heisman Trophy in decisive fashion. Having rushed for 1,695 yards and twelve touchdowns, he was an overwhelming—and easy—choice.

Walter Payton placed fourteenth.

PART THREE

CHICAGO

Larry Ely, Chicago Bears linebacker, 1975

I came to the Bears from my first NFL team, the Cincinnati Bengals. One of the coaches there in the spring of 1974 was Bill Walsh. I ran into him somewhere after I’d signed with the Bears, and I told him about going to Chicago and trying to win a spot. He said, “You’ve got a real treat coming.” I said, “What?” He said, “You guys have a rookie running back named Walter Payton, and he’ll end up being the best who ever played the game.”

That was before Walter ever took a single NFL handoff.

CHAPTER 10

GOING PRO

WALTER PAYTON WAS WEARING A PURSE.

Back in the fall of 1974, such an accessory was, inexplicably, en vogue for young Southern men of color. So that’s what the greatest football player in the history of Jackson State University had slung over his shoulder: A black leather handbag, dangling from a thin strap.

As did Robert Brazile and Rickey Young, his two Tiger teammates. The three men, all either twenty-one or twenty-two, all nervously twitching, stood alongside a wall in the nondescript Hattiesburg law office, saying nothing, staring toward the ground. Decked out in fancy new suits and shiny dress shoes, the players felt awkward and out of place. As star collegiate athletes, Payton, Brazile, and Young were used to the casualness of university life, as well as the dirt and grass of a hundred-yard field.

But not to this.

They were brought here on this late-November day by Bob Hill, who, when he wasn’t terrifying his players, took it upon himself to safeguard their futures. Back in his days as a high school coach, Hill had been introduced to Paul H. Holmes, a local white attorney known to everyone as, simply, Bud. The two struck up a friendship, fostered primarily upon Holmes’ unorthodox approach to race relations. Instead of tiptoeing around issues of black-white, Holmes attacked race with the tactfulness of a jackhammer. “Y’all are a helluva lot better off than we are,” he told blacks on more than one occasion. “Your ancestors knew somebody wanted you and paid good money. My ancestor was probably sent here out from some prison. My people came out of prison, yours were selected. We all came here under difficult conditions. So why be mad?”

Hill liked Holmes. Liked his honesty, liked his vulgarity, liked his passion for football. Mostly, he liked that he was one of the few white attorneys in Mississippi willing to extend a helping hand toward young blacks. In 1969, when Hill was still the backfield coach at Jackson State, one of his former high school players, a kid named Verlin Bourne, had gotten in some legal trouble. He called Bud. “I don’t know if you’d take a black