He embraced fans, and especially children, with a generosity rarely seen in athletes. This customary tribute to championship sports teams was delayed a quarter-century in the Bears’ case because the Space Shuttle One can lament some of the reactions to this book while also understanding the sense of aggrievement that it has provoked. The Chicago Bears wore his 34 jersey number as patches on their jerseys.Is the Coronavirus Crisis Increasing America's Drug Overdoses?Fact Check: What Power Does the President Really Have Over State Governors?Festival of Sacrifice: The Past and Present of the Islamic Holiday of Eid al-AdhaHow Worried Should We Be About the Saharan Dust Cloud’s Arrival?Has the Time Come to Abolish the Electoral College?Is the Coronavirus Crisis Increasing America's Drug Overdoses?Fact Check: What Power Does the President Really Have Over State Governors?Festival of Sacrifice: The Past and Present of the Islamic Holiday of Eid al-AdhaHow Worried Should We Be About the Saharan Dust Cloud’s Arrival? Until the day he died, Payton refused to lose sight of this.”As it happens, Pearlman’s book appeared days before President Obama welcomed the 1985 Bears at the White House.
Here's a look back at his remarkable life. Some of the reader condemnations of Pearlman on various websites reflect a sense of personal loss, as if the author had defiled not just Payton, but the memory of their own childhood. Payton was called Bubba as a child, and Jackson State fans called him Little Monk and Spider-Man. “Sweetness” also broke the single-game rushing record that year, rushing for a career-high 275 yards against the Minnesota Vikings, a record that stood for 23 years. An excerpt of "Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton," by Jeff Pearlman, will appear in the Oct. 3 issue of Sports Illustrated, and describes the … Walter Payton was a famous running back for the NFL's Chicago Bears. Payton also had an illegitimate son, whom Pearlman gives the pseudonym Nigel. He disapproved of the growing practice of touchdown celebrations; he preferred post-game antics such as rushing into the locker room and locking his teammates out in the cold while taking a long shower.Throughout his life, Payton had claimed his date of birth as July 25, 1954, a date which is cited in many of his early biographies.Payton married Connie Norwood in 1976. It was well known that he had a progressive liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis . “I’ve seen an endless stream of athletes treat their fans as eczema-like irritations,” Pearlman writes. After Sugarman, Walter Payton became Sweetness. It will take more than this to make us forget that we saw him run.Get a roundup of the most important and intriguing stories from around the world, delivered to your inbox every weekday.The American Conservative exists to advance a Main Street conservatism. Payton had somehow convinced us that he didn’t.His later-life despair and erratic behavior has prompted some to speculate whether Payton might have suffered brain trauma, the cloud that hovers over football’s future today. His formidable spirit remained; he could still find it in himself, having just finished a chemotherapy session, to spend a few hours with a young cancer sufferer who idolized him.
Payton was the all-time leading rusher in the history of the National Football League. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Payton announced that he had the liver disease in February of 1999, several months before he met his demise. But he continued to work and continued to improve each and every week. What was the location of death? Never Die Easy is Walter Payton's autobiography, told from the heart. It’s a decision former Bears head coach Walter Payton retired following the 1987 season. In April of that year, Payton made a final public appearanc… Walter Payton missed just one game in his career and that came in his rookie season. The book negates nothing about Payton’s football greatness or his toughness—he missed just one game in 13 years—but it punctures the image of Payton as the most selfless of players. Payton died at age 45 from consequences of bile duct cancer, which may have been caused by a liver disease known as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). During the The Bears struggled to assemble consecutive winning seasons, landing only two playoff berths since his arrival. He was revered around the league as the long-suffering legend who just wanted to play with a winner, but when Mike Ditka, Jim McMahon, Mike Singletary, and others arrived in the eighties to give him his wish, he felt overshadowed and unappreciated.January 26, 1986, the day the Bears rolled to a Super Bowl victory over New England, 46-10, should have marked the consummation of Payton’s career. Teams held ceremonies during the week he died to commemorate him and his accomplishments. It’s not difficult to understand the pain of Payton’s family or the protectiveness of his friends. Following his plea for organ donation, centers throughout the state of Illinois were flooded with calls asking how they could sign up. The disease progressed fast, and while Payton tried to keep his condition a secret, his wasted-away physique and jaundiced appearance made this impossible. Eventually, they thought of Sugarman, and a twist on that nickname became permanent. We’ll never know, but Payton’s personal struggles illustrate a more universal point: that it’s all but impossible to be a great athlete and have anything like a normal life. Soon after his death, the NFL added Walter Payton’s name to its annual Man of the Year Award, an honor given to a player that makes a significant impact in his community, which Payton certainly did in his life. In one game, a 72-0 drubbing of Lane College, Payton rushed for 279 yards and seven touchdowns, both school records.In 1973, Walter Payton rushed for 1,139 yards and 24 touchdowns, the latter being yet another school record.