Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [88]
Unfortunately, on the afternoon of July 19, the fun ended. While carrying the ball during practice, Payton tripped and fell to Dyche’s artificial turf on his right elbow. A fiery pain shot through his arm. Within minutes, his elbow swelled to the size of a large grapefruit. By day’s end, it looked like a coconut. “It was twice the size of what it should have been,” said Kurt Schumacher, an Ohio State offensive lineman. “The thing was enormous.”
McKay pulled Payton from further workouts and enlisted Allen Carter, his halfback at USC, as an emergency replacement. (“The joke was that McKay turned us into the USC All-Star team,” said Walter White, a tight end from the University of Maryland. “Which he pretty much did.”) The Bears sent Fred Caito, the club’s longtime trainer, to Evanston to investigate the matter. Payton was suffering from bursitis of the elbow—his bursa, a fluid-filled sack that serves as a cushion between skin and bone, had become inflamed, and the elbow was infected. “I went to Walter’s hotel and introduced myself, and told him we were going to see a doctor,” recalled Caito. “Walter was a scared kid from Mississippi who didn’t know what the hell he was doing in the big city.” Caito brought Payton to his car, and the two began driving to the office of Dr. Ted Fox, the Bears’ physician. Thirty-five years later, Caito still chuckles at what happened next. “We’re in the car and his elbow is swelling and we have no idea what’s going to happen,” Caito said. “And Walter turned to me and said, ‘Can you stop at that Baskin-Robbins down there?’ I remember thinking, ‘What? I don’t have time for this.’ But I agreed. So we went in, and then he didn’t have any money. The kid was the highest-paid rookie in team history, and the first time we met he needed me to buy him an ice cream cone.”
Fox examined Payton’s elbow. He told him he’d have to sit out several days, and that he should wear special padding to prevent further impact. The doctor then reached for a long needle, with the intent of giving Payton a cortisone injection. Payton’s face turned pale. Sweat poured down his forehead.
“I don’t do needles,” he told Fox.
“Well,” said the doctor, “you do now.”
The Steelers’ All-Star game was played a week later, on a Friday night. More than fifty million viewers watched on ABC, and a near-capacity crowd of 54,562 fans (including the entire Bears roster) packed Soldier Field, anxious to see the Super Bowl champions, but also anxious to see their city’s new featured halfback. Before kickoff, the public address announcer introduced each of the players as they jogged to midfield. The last one was Payton. And now, the first pick of the Chicago Bears—Waaaaaalllllttteeer Paaaaaayyyton . . .
“Soldier Field just lit up,” said Fred O’Connor, the Bears’ running backs coach. “And Walter jogged out, and he looked like the most magnificent athlete I had ever seen. I turned to Jack Pardee and said, ‘I think I can coach this kid.’ ”
Chuck Noll, the stoic Steelers coach, assured the media his team was here to win, and he was correct. On the All-Stars’ first offensive series of the game, Bartkowski hit McInally with a twenty-eight-yard touchdown pass. As the Harvard receiver crossed the goal line, a Pittsburgh defender delivered a decidedly late blow, breaking McInally’s left leg. “The guy was so embarrassed, he hit me after I scored,” McInally said. “They had to carry me off on a stretcher.”
The All-Stars actually led 14–7 at halftime, but played sloppily in the second half and lost, 21–14. With his elbow entombed in a white bundle, Payton paced the team with seven carries for a paltry sixteen yards. His primary goal—to prevent his elbow from exploding into a thousand pieces—was accomplished. “The whole three weeks was just a wonderful experience for Walter, for me, for all of us,” said McInally. “We really