Walter Payton, who passed away on November 1, 1999, was the essence of what an NFL player should be. His Hall of Fame career with the Chicago Bears still rings in the ears of Bear’s fans and to this day, sports announcers, still compare rookies to Payton’s running style.
Born in 1954 in Columbia, Mississippi, Walter was smack in the middle of the racially charged South and reflected on that throughout his public career. One of three children, Walter’s youth was not full of the technology of today and kids were kids who fished and played kick-ball and stickball and sports of all kinds. At John Jefferson High School, he found football to be his game and continued on at Jackson State in Jackson, Mississippi.
Fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting, Walter was also the fourth pick in the 1975 NFL draft going to Chicago. With his rookie season starting slow with only 679 total yards and 7 touchdowns, his final rookie game against New Orleans was a vision of what was to come when he ran for 134 yards-a site unseen in Chicago since the Gale Sayers days.
In his second season with the Bears, Walter reached 1,000 yards with 13 touchdowns and was named the NFL’s most valuable player in 1977. In 1977, the Bears made the playoffs where Walter ran for 274 yards in one game, a record that wasn’t broken until the year 2000.
With 16,726 total career-rushing yards, 110 touchdowns, and seventy-seven 100-yard rushing games throughout his 13 years in the NFL, Walter was fondly given the nickname “Sweetness,” early in his career.
He made it look easy rushing for 1,000 yards every season between 1976 and 1981 and his first Pro-Bowl came in 1979-he was voted to every Pro-Bowl after that year until his retirement. Although his rushing yard record has been broken, that was mainly due to two strikes during his career in the NFL, which cut the seasons short, and between 1975 and 1977, the NFL season was only 14 games, unlike the 16 games it is today.
With the arrival of coach Mike Ditka and his authoritative attitude, new players were recruited to Chicago to ensure Payton’s success. That came in 1984 when they led the NFC Central Division, the year that Walter broke Jim Brown’s running record. Walter, being the gentleman he was, accepted his new title with dignity, but reminded everyone that day to think of other athletes whose careers were cut short due to injury or illness.
And of course, 1986 was the year of the “Super Bowl Shuffle”, still commonly heard coming from the jukeboxes in Chicago taverns. The Bears had made it to the Super Bowl for the first time and they were victorious over the Patriots in the matchup, with a jaw-dropping 46-10 score.
The following year, Payton’s retirement was marked with a huge send off at the Bears home field, Soldier Field in Chicago. After his retirement from the game, he stayed active, sitting on the team’s board of directors, beginning a CART racing team and even opening a restaurant. He was name dot the NFL Hall of Fame in 1996, a fitting cap on an extraordinary career.
Early in 1999, Walter, with his wife Connie beside him told the press that he had been diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis-a condition that would eventually place him on an organ donor list for a new liver. Walter did not use his notoriety to gain that liver and while he avoided the limelight during 1999, it was announced on November 1st of that year that he had passed away.
Any Bears fan will instantly associate the number 34 with Payton. He is remembered for his career on the field and still celebrated for his raising awareness of the importance of organ donation, spurring many of the people of Illinois to become organ donors. To this day, Chicago sports fans may get a little misty eyed as they raise a glass of Old Style to their “sweetness”.
