Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [81]
Roughly five minutes before Musburger was scheduled to conduct the live interview, he asked Payton to cease using any “ethnic words.”
Payton: “Mista Mooseburger, what’s an ethnic word?”
Musburger: “Well, you keep using that word.”
Payton: “What word is that?”
Musburger: “The word that describes black people in a negative light.”
Payton: “I don’t understand, Mista Mooseburger.”
Musburger: “Walter, you can’t say ‘nigger’ on TV.”
Payton: “Oh, Mista Mooseburger, don’t you worry. I’m a good little nigger, Mista Mooseburger, I promise. Tell him, Mista Bud.
Tell Mista Mooseburger that I’m a good little nigger!”
With no time left, Musburger took a deep breath, stared into the camera, and began the segment. A handful of Jackson State highlights flashed across the screen, and Musburger opened by asking Payton—who calmly sipped from a glass of orange juice—how he felt about being drafted by the Bears.
“I’ll tell you, Brent, nothing thrills me more than the very idea of being able to play for a franchise as storied and legendary as the Chicago . . .”
“The interview was fantastic,” said Holmes, who later received a plaque from Payton that read HONORARY NIGGER. “And when it was over Brent came up to me laughing. He told me, ‘Goddamn, Walter is a smart ass, isn’t he?’ ”
The Bears were not happy. The interview was designed to make the organization look like a band of buffoons, and it worked. Later in the day, Finks called Holmes at his hotel. “Mr. Holmes,” he said, “do you think it would be all right if I were to meet my number one draft pick? It seems everyone else has.”
That night, Payton, Holmes, Finks, and Bill McGrane, an assistant to the general manager, met at a French restaurant in downtown Chicago. The two Mississippians had so enjoyed toying with Musburger that they kept the act going. Holmes wanted the Bears to believe they were dining with a backwoods agent and an even more backwoods football player. When the waiter passed out menus, Holmes noticed that one of the featured dishes was pêcher le poisson—fish. “Well look here, Walter!” he said. “They’ve got possum on the menu!”
“Mmmm!” yelped Payton. “I want me some of that there possum! I want it bad!”
“Walter,” said Finks, “that’s not possum. It’s fish.”
“Well, dang,” Payton said. “I wanted a mess of that possum so bad!”
“Walter, they ain’t got no grits, either,” Holmes said. “Lord, I don’t even see fried chicken or catfish.”
When the waiter came to take an order, Payton looked up with confused eyes. “Do you have anything that’s just kind of plain?” he said. “Like a piece of meat with nothin’ on it?”
Throughout the meal, Holmes watched Finks’ facial expressions morph from shocked to disgusted to dismayed to mystified. “At the start of dinner Jim Finks told us he hadn’t had a drink in two or three years,” said Holmes. “That night he had two double scotches.”
Over the next few weeks, Holmes and Finks exchanged contract proposals, but the Bears were negotiating from a position of weakness. Their two top returning running backs, Grandberry and Carl Garrett, were marginal players, and as Holmes was speaking with Finks he was also being propositioned by Eugene Pullano, president of the Chicago Winds of the second-year World Football League.
A multimillionaire whose family made its fortunes in the insurance business, Pullano took Holmes and Payton to dinner and offered the world. Join the Winds, he said, and you’ll make $150,000 annually, plus we’ll pay for your apartment, buy you a new Cadillac, and sign Rickey Young to be your blocking back. The WFL had already lured several players away from the NFL, supplying it with much-needed early credibility. “This guy had a great big gold bear ring that had two ruby eyes,” said Holmes. “Well, during dinner he took it off his finger and handed it to Walter. Just gave it to him.”
Payton was tempted. The money was great, the perks even greater. But, come day’s end, his dream wasn’t to