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.
Payton was born in Columbia, MS in 1954 and came to the game relatively late in life for an NFL player. It was not until high school that he discovered his talent for and love of the game. He continued to play in college at Jackson State in 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.
Payton’s second season was more uniformly impressive, with 1,000 yards and the NFL MVP title. This year saw the Bears headed to the playoffs, where Walter Payton ran 274 yards in just one game – this record shattering achievement was not broken until 2000!
Walter Payton was known fondly as “sweetness” to fans and teammates, a nickname which belied his incredible 13 year career record of 16,726 total career-rushing yards, 110 touchdowns and no less than 77 100-yard rushing games.
Payton accomplished it all while making it look easy. Between 1976 and 1981, he ran 1,000 yards in every season and played in every Pro Bowl from 1979 up until he retired from the sport. While others have since surpassed Payton’s rushing record, this may not have been the case had he had a little more time – the 1975 and 1977 seasons were cut short.
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.
Payton went public with the announcement that he had been diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. He was placed on a waiting list for a new liver; sadly, he passed away on November 1st of that year.
There are many stories fun, exciting, and charming about old number 34 of the Chicago Bear, but perhaps Walter’s biggest legacy is the outreach of people signing up for organ donation after his death in Illinois. We still today, miss the man, the shuffle-yeah, we still miss “Sweetness.
