"Walter was no different than anybody else, no different," insists his older brother, Eddie Payton, himself a former NFL running back. He's spent much of his life sharing Walter Payton with millions of admirers. "The fact that he was one of the greatest meant little or nothing. To us, he was always Walter."
Yet Walter Payton's bid for immortality won't be with his rushing record of 16,726 yards. Nor with his life, which ended in 1999 at 45.
It will be in a stock-still statue of Walter Payton that people recall the man who proved so fantastic at staying on the run. Today a near life-size bronze image of Payton will be unveiled in the end zone of the Columbia High School football field where he once strutted as a teenager and which is now named after him.
Paid for with donations and local fund-raisers, Columbia sculptor Ben Watts spent more than a year crafting the work.
Capturing Walter Payton's face proved problematic for Watts because no two photos of Walter seemed to be alike. So Watts recruited Eddie Payton to pose for the statue and then worked with the Payton family to capture the statue's details. The result is a figure that bears an eerie likeness to Payton - from his massive 30-inch thighs to his trademark way of carrying the football away from his body like you'd carry a wet cat.
"I wanted to make sure his face looked right," said Watts, 45. "I wanted to get his body right, too, so it looked like he was in motion - that the bronze was actually alive."
Legend's presence still felt in Columbia
No matter how lifelike any statue might be, bronze only mimics flesh and blood.
The full measure of Payton's life can be found perhaps in the tales still discussed by the people who knew and loved him in Columbia, where Payton still gallops through people's memories, high-stepping, bug-eyed and itching for a defensive player to smack.
"All the time, every day," Eddie Payton laughed, asked about how often people still talk to him about Walter. "He touched a lot of people all around the country."
Though he lived in Chicago for much of the 13 years he spent playing for the Chicago Bears, by all accounts Walter Payton's ties to Columbia and Mississippi ran deep and began with his family.
Both Payton's parents, his father Edward Sr., who was known as Pete, and his mother, Alyne, worked long hours making parachutes in the what is now the Pioneer Aerospace factory in Columbia. Their jobs left an impression on Eddie.
"It made me realize I needed a good, good education," Eddie Payton laughed.
A former running back for the Detroit Lions and now the golf coach at Jackson State University, Eddie recalled how he, Walter Payton and their sister, Pamela, grew up in a ranch-style brick house on Hendricks Street near Jefferson High School.
Charles Boston, 69, head football coach at Jefferson High School, passed the Payton home every day on his way to work. Back then, Eddie and Walter Payton were just two neighborhood kids who loved to hunt and fish, Boston said.
Decades later, Walter would thank Boston in his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech.
"He did?" Boston said, told of Payton mentioning him in his 1993 speech. "I hope I helped some. He was a good player, but I tried to treat all my guys with respect."
Nobody had to tell Payton how to play
In 1971 Columbia High School was integrated, a move that brought Boston and his players from Jefferson High, which had been the school for blacks.
Although Walter Payton didn't play football until he was junior in high school, he took to it quickly, Eddie remembered.
"Nobody has to tell the great white shark to swim when he's born," Eddie said. "It's just something he does and does well."
On his first carry in his first game, Walter Payton scored a 65-yard touchdown. Later in the game he scampered for a 75-yard touchdown.
In Columbia, with a population of around 8,000, Payton's legend has been forever intertwined with high school football.
Father and son Maurice and Forest Dantin, both lawyers in Columbia and former Columbia High football players, can clearly recall the plays, final scores and opponents from games 30 years ago.
They also say they remember how fears of integration were trampled like players who had the misfortune to step into Walter Payton's path.
"Nobody knew what was going to happen; it was integrated," said Maurice Dantin, 73, who was a Payton's business associate and who later ran for governor in 1975. "But the success of that football team just united the student body. The fear of integration was amongst the old folks, it wasn't the young folks. And when the young folks took right to it, the whole community went by it."
It would be Walter Payton, though, who brought a bit of controversy to the game.
Scouts from larger universities who'd heard about his running remained nonplused by what they thought was a "smart aleck" style, such as the time Walter Payton ran backward into the end zone taunting a pursuing opponent, said Paul "Bud" Holmes, 70, a Hattiesburg lawyer. That contributed to Walter Payton being passed over by larger schools and heading to Jackson State University.
At Jackson State, he played alongside Eddie Payton and learned from their coach, Bob Hill, how to dish out punishment to defensive linemen. His style attracted the Bears who drafted him in the first round in 1975.
That's when Holmes said he first met Walter Payton. The two men worked together for the rest of Payton's football career operating only on a handshake.
Payton sought out tough opponents
Like many who knew Walter Payton, Holmes remembered him with fondness as the doting father and friend, the fun-loving outdoorsman, fantastic jump roper, onetime "Soul Train" dance competitor, successful businessman, and athlete who worked out almost constantly and sought out the largest, meanest defensive players on the field to pummel.
Holmes described helping Walter Payton into the Bears' training room before a game. Walter Payton could barely walk and his ankles "looked like two footballs themselves," Holmes said.
After having his ankles taped "and taped and taped" Walter Payton would go out and rack up 150- to 160-yard games, Holmes said.
"Walter loved contact, really loved contact. He just beat himself up. He'd think it was funny," Holmes said. "He'd really enjoy that. It was fun to him. (But) he didn't have a mean bone in his body."
Despite their difference in ages and backgrounds, the men shared two strong bonds: a politically incorrect sense of humor that could make a stone blush and a love of home.
"He genuinely loved people and he loved Columbia and he loved all of Mississippi," Holmes said. "He'd come out every year and he'd stay (with Holmes) and go out and run the stadium at (the University of Southern Mississippi's) M.M. Roberts."
Yet his home, beloved by Walter Payton, brought its fair share of pain. First with segregation and then with the death of Edward "Pete" Payton Sr. in December 1979.
Holmes recalled the circumstances around the elder Payton's death when Payton Sr. arrived home from work and had a beer while he worked in his garden.
"Unbeknownst to him and the world he had a leakage in his brain - a subdural hematoma," Holmes said, who saw Edward Payton's autopsy report.
The hematoma, a collection of blood about the size of a hen's egg, Holmes estimated, pressed on the nerves that affected Edward Payton's speech and motor skills. Edward Payton drove to a nearby service station where he accidentally bumped a car with his vehicle, Holmes said.
The blood leakage slurred Edward Payton's speech, and combined with the beer, gave people the impression that he might've been drunk, although he wasn't, Holmes said.
Edward Payton was taken to jail where the hematoma eventually "cut off the motor senses to his heart and he died in jail in Columbia."
"A lot of people, you know, tried to sensationalize it," Holmes said, referring to newspaper accounts both locally and in Chicago about the incident that Holmes said stirred up talk of Mississippi's past and racial injustice.
"It wasn't that," Holmes insists. "It was unfortunate. I thought that the Payton family handled it with extreme dignity."
For years the rumor was that Walter Payton wanted nothing more to do with Mississippi, which both Holmes and Eddie Payton say is untrue.
"Walter loved to come back," Holmes said. "Down deep, Walter would have been a lot happier had he lived and remained in Columbia."
Talk about his father's death was "a non-issue" and bygones should be bygones, said Eddie Payton.
"I believe in the forgiveness of our Lord the savior and so does my family. At some point in time, if something wasn't handled right, the people involved will have to answer for it," Eddie Payton said.
Money trickles in for lasting tribute
Columbia residents never forgot Walter Payton, even after he retired.
When he died after being diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a rare form of liver cancer, money to pay for a tribute immediately began trickling into the offices of the town's newspaper, The Columbian-Progress.
"We just kept getting more and more comments about it," said publisher Ken Prillhart, 66.
Watts won the sculpting job over another artist the committee initially selected. It's his largest sculpture to date and a labor of love.
Watts can remember watching Payton come into his father's menswear store one day and how Walter Payton's massive calves seemed to pulsate as he walked.
Watts would form copies of those calves and capture the likeness of a man who couldn't be contained.
"He was as great as there ever has been in any sport, I think. I'm definitely glad that I got to do Walter just because of the significance of who Walter was," Watts said.
More than $30,000 was raised to pay for the 300-pound bronze statue. Although about $5,000 is needed to finish paying for it, the money will come in.
A mix-up between the Chicago Bears and the committee to build the statue has kept the Bears out of the statue's construction.
The Bears are "exploring the opportunity of doing something" that might involve Columbia High School, said spokesman Scott Hagel. Since Walter Payton's death in 1999, the organization has donated more than $300,000 to charities that he supported.
"While we might not be able to give money to everybody, we like to participate in multiple ways," Hagel said. "There's just a lot of people who felt very close to Walter. I think that speaks to the type of person he was."
Walter Payton still brings a smile to the faces of people who knew him.
Showing visitors around the football field where Walter Payton played, Maurice Dantin relayed another story, one in which he ran "like he had an afterburner" toward the end zone.
As Dantin spoke, fat raindrops began to fall from the sky, bobbing the heads of white clover growing under the goal post near where the bronze of Walter Payton will stand.
Before he crossed the line on that play, Dantin recalled, Walter Payton waved at the coach. Dantin later asked Payton about the gesture.
"'Coach," Dantin said, with a smile that recalled "Sweetness" himself, "I was just letting you know everything was all right, and I was getting ready to leave him.'"
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20030517/topstories/315979.html
Yet Walter Payton's bid for immortality won't be with his rushing record of 16,726 yards. Nor with his life, which ended in 1999 at 45.
It will be in a stock-still statue of Walter Payton that people recall the man who proved so fantastic at staying on the run. Today a near life-size bronze image of Payton will be unveiled in the end zone of the Columbia High School football field where he once strutted as a teenager and which is now named after him.
Paid for with donations and local fund-raisers, Columbia sculptor Ben Watts spent more than a year crafting the work.
Capturing Walter Payton's face proved problematic for Watts because no two photos of Walter seemed to be alike. So Watts recruited Eddie Payton to pose for the statue and then worked with the Payton family to capture the statue's details. The result is a figure that bears an eerie likeness to Payton - from his massive 30-inch thighs to his trademark way of carrying the football away from his body like you'd carry a wet cat.
"I wanted to make sure his face looked right," said Watts, 45. "I wanted to get his body right, too, so it looked like he was in motion - that the bronze was actually alive."
Legend's presence still felt in Columbia
No matter how lifelike any statue might be, bronze only mimics flesh and blood.
The full measure of Payton's life can be found perhaps in the tales still discussed by the people who knew and loved him in Columbia, where Payton still gallops through people's memories, high-stepping, bug-eyed and itching for a defensive player to smack.
"All the time, every day," Eddie Payton laughed, asked about how often people still talk to him about Walter. "He touched a lot of people all around the country."
Though he lived in Chicago for much of the 13 years he spent playing for the Chicago Bears, by all accounts Walter Payton's ties to Columbia and Mississippi ran deep and began with his family.
Both Payton's parents, his father Edward Sr., who was known as Pete, and his mother, Alyne, worked long hours making parachutes in the what is now the Pioneer Aerospace factory in Columbia. Their jobs left an impression on Eddie.
"It made me realize I needed a good, good education," Eddie Payton laughed.
A former running back for the Detroit Lions and now the golf coach at Jackson State University, Eddie recalled how he, Walter Payton and their sister, Pamela, grew up in a ranch-style brick house on Hendricks Street near Jefferson High School.
Charles Boston, 69, head football coach at Jefferson High School, passed the Payton home every day on his way to work. Back then, Eddie and Walter Payton were just two neighborhood kids who loved to hunt and fish, Boston said.
Decades later, Walter would thank Boston in his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech.
"He did?" Boston said, told of Payton mentioning him in his 1993 speech. "I hope I helped some. He was a good player, but I tried to treat all my guys with respect."
Nobody had to tell Payton how to play
In 1971 Columbia High School was integrated, a move that brought Boston and his players from Jefferson High, which had been the school for blacks.
Although Walter Payton didn't play football until he was junior in high school, he took to it quickly, Eddie remembered.
"Nobody has to tell the great white shark to swim when he's born," Eddie said. "It's just something he does and does well."
On his first carry in his first game, Walter Payton scored a 65-yard touchdown. Later in the game he scampered for a 75-yard touchdown.
In Columbia, with a population of around 8,000, Payton's legend has been forever intertwined with high school football.
Father and son Maurice and Forest Dantin, both lawyers in Columbia and former Columbia High football players, can clearly recall the plays, final scores and opponents from games 30 years ago.
They also say they remember how fears of integration were trampled like players who had the misfortune to step into Walter Payton's path.
"Nobody knew what was going to happen; it was integrated," said Maurice Dantin, 73, who was a Payton's business associate and who later ran for governor in 1975. "But the success of that football team just united the student body. The fear of integration was amongst the old folks, it wasn't the young folks. And when the young folks took right to it, the whole community went by it."
It would be Walter Payton, though, who brought a bit of controversy to the game.
Scouts from larger universities who'd heard about his running remained nonplused by what they thought was a "smart aleck" style, such as the time Walter Payton ran backward into the end zone taunting a pursuing opponent, said Paul "Bud" Holmes, 70, a Hattiesburg lawyer. That contributed to Walter Payton being passed over by larger schools and heading to Jackson State University.
At Jackson State, he played alongside Eddie Payton and learned from their coach, Bob Hill, how to dish out punishment to defensive linemen. His style attracted the Bears who drafted him in the first round in 1975.
That's when Holmes said he first met Walter Payton. The two men worked together for the rest of Payton's football career operating only on a handshake.
Payton sought out tough opponents
Like many who knew Walter Payton, Holmes remembered him with fondness as the doting father and friend, the fun-loving outdoorsman, fantastic jump roper, onetime "Soul Train" dance competitor, successful businessman, and athlete who worked out almost constantly and sought out the largest, meanest defensive players on the field to pummel.
Holmes described helping Walter Payton into the Bears' training room before a game. Walter Payton could barely walk and his ankles "looked like two footballs themselves," Holmes said.
After having his ankles taped "and taped and taped" Walter Payton would go out and rack up 150- to 160-yard games, Holmes said.
"Walter loved contact, really loved contact. He just beat himself up. He'd think it was funny," Holmes said. "He'd really enjoy that. It was fun to him. (But) he didn't have a mean bone in his body."
Despite their difference in ages and backgrounds, the men shared two strong bonds: a politically incorrect sense of humor that could make a stone blush and a love of home.
"He genuinely loved people and he loved Columbia and he loved all of Mississippi," Holmes said. "He'd come out every year and he'd stay (with Holmes) and go out and run the stadium at (the University of Southern Mississippi's) M.M. Roberts."
Yet his home, beloved by Walter Payton, brought its fair share of pain. First with segregation and then with the death of Edward "Pete" Payton Sr. in December 1979.
Holmes recalled the circumstances around the elder Payton's death when Payton Sr. arrived home from work and had a beer while he worked in his garden.
"Unbeknownst to him and the world he had a leakage in his brain - a subdural hematoma," Holmes said, who saw Edward Payton's autopsy report.
The hematoma, a collection of blood about the size of a hen's egg, Holmes estimated, pressed on the nerves that affected Edward Payton's speech and motor skills. Edward Payton drove to a nearby service station where he accidentally bumped a car with his vehicle, Holmes said.
The blood leakage slurred Edward Payton's speech, and combined with the beer, gave people the impression that he might've been drunk, although he wasn't, Holmes said.
Edward Payton was taken to jail where the hematoma eventually "cut off the motor senses to his heart and he died in jail in Columbia."
"A lot of people, you know, tried to sensationalize it," Holmes said, referring to newspaper accounts both locally and in Chicago about the incident that Holmes said stirred up talk of Mississippi's past and racial injustice.
"It wasn't that," Holmes insists. "It was unfortunate. I thought that the Payton family handled it with extreme dignity."
For years the rumor was that Walter Payton wanted nothing more to do with Mississippi, which both Holmes and Eddie Payton say is untrue.
"Walter loved to come back," Holmes said. "Down deep, Walter would have been a lot happier had he lived and remained in Columbia."
Talk about his father's death was "a non-issue" and bygones should be bygones, said Eddie Payton.
"I believe in the forgiveness of our Lord the savior and so does my family. At some point in time, if something wasn't handled right, the people involved will have to answer for it," Eddie Payton said.
Money trickles in for lasting tribute
Columbia residents never forgot Walter Payton, even after he retired.
When he died after being diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a rare form of liver cancer, money to pay for a tribute immediately began trickling into the offices of the town's newspaper, The Columbian-Progress.
"We just kept getting more and more comments about it," said publisher Ken Prillhart, 66.
Watts won the sculpting job over another artist the committee initially selected. It's his largest sculpture to date and a labor of love.
Watts can remember watching Payton come into his father's menswear store one day and how Walter Payton's massive calves seemed to pulsate as he walked.
Watts would form copies of those calves and capture the likeness of a man who couldn't be contained.
"He was as great as there ever has been in any sport, I think. I'm definitely glad that I got to do Walter just because of the significance of who Walter was," Watts said.
More than $30,000 was raised to pay for the 300-pound bronze statue. Although about $5,000 is needed to finish paying for it, the money will come in.
A mix-up between the Chicago Bears and the committee to build the statue has kept the Bears out of the statue's construction.
The Bears are "exploring the opportunity of doing something" that might involve Columbia High School, said spokesman Scott Hagel. Since Walter Payton's death in 1999, the organization has donated more than $300,000 to charities that he supported.
"While we might not be able to give money to everybody, we like to participate in multiple ways," Hagel said. "There's just a lot of people who felt very close to Walter. I think that speaks to the type of person he was."
Walter Payton still brings a smile to the faces of people who knew him.
Showing visitors around the football field where Walter Payton played, Maurice Dantin relayed another story, one in which he ran "like he had an afterburner" toward the end zone.
As Dantin spoke, fat raindrops began to fall from the sky, bobbing the heads of white clover growing under the goal post near where the bronze of Walter Payton will stand.
Before he crossed the line on that play, Dantin recalled, Walter Payton waved at the coach. Dantin later asked Payton about the gesture.
"'Coach," Dantin said, with a smile that recalled "Sweetness" himself, "I was just letting you know everything was all right, and I was getting ready to leave him.'"
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20030517/topstories/315979.html
