Is anyone checkin for the new Walter Payton biography?
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Darius
Members Posts: 22,649 ✭✭✭✭
it apparently uncovers a side of his life that nobody knew about and that i doubt the NFL will ever accept or acknowledge. He was unfaithful in marriage, he was addicted to morphine and vicoden, he thought about killing himself and killing other people and saw nothing wrong with it. and even bringing tanks of laughing gas onto his RV and driving it to training camp to take hits off it during breaks. and when at home, he would always have a balloon full of nitrous ready to hit whenever he pleased.
Just these small portions about his life really take away from the legitimacy of the the Walter Payton Award, given to a player who in part honors the way a player conducts himself off the field. Sure his cause raised awareness for ? donation since his liver was eaten alive by years of medication abuse during and after his career.
so i guess the questions are
1. should his name be removed from the man of the year award
and
2. how will it effect his legacy. people will say that they only care about what he does on the field, but in the main, thats ? . people do care, they just ignore it when it comes to their favorite players. On the field it will be unchanged, but he's pretty well respected off the field and i think people's perception of him will change.
and
3. when the book is released, will a single ? be given that day
Just these small portions about his life really take away from the legitimacy of the the Walter Payton Award, given to a player who in part honors the way a player conducts himself off the field. Sure his cause raised awareness for ? donation since his liver was eaten alive by years of medication abuse during and after his career.
so i guess the questions are
1. should his name be removed from the man of the year award
and
2. how will it effect his legacy. people will say that they only care about what he does on the field, but in the main, thats ? . people do care, they just ignore it when it comes to their favorite players. On the field it will be unchanged, but he's pretty well respected off the field and i think people's perception of him will change.
and
3. when the book is released, will a single ? be given that day
Comments
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You intent on keeping this topic alive
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Rome was just talkin bout this. Intetesting. Smh at him having both his girlfriend and wife at his hall of fame induction. I need to read the piece in SI
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beezy f baby wrote: »Rome was just talkin bout this. Intetesting. Smh at him having both his girlfriend and wife at his hall of fame induction. I need to read the piece in SI
Gangsta... Sweetness was a true G -
No... he still was a great football player what he did outside the field doesnt matter to me..
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not really. i mean you telling me an athlete abused pain killers and had affairs with ? . i think we pretty much all assume that's true for the vast majority of athletes. not sure what's so interesting about the story.
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so who keeps catching feelings and deleting these threads?
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not really. i mean you telling me an athlete abused pain killers and had affairs with ? . i think we pretty much all assume that's true for the vast majority of athletes. not sure what's so interesting about the story.
its a huge story b/c Walter Payton has been thought to be above all of that. he didn't have any dirt on him and the league respects him enough for his name to represent the man of the year in the NFL every year. And based on the reactions to the book by Bears fans, its definitely a surprise and a controversial topic -
its a huge story b/c Walter Payton has been thought to be above all of that. he didn't have any dirt on him and the league respects him enough for his name to represent the man of the year in the NFL every year. And based on the reactions to the book by Bears fans, its definitely a surprise and a controversial topic
yeah but that was the 80's... unless you got caught with coke, no one had any dirt on them... To me it's just digging up ? on someone that's been dead for 12 years now. He was suicidal, big deal, many people are it's an illness. He cheated, name pro athletes that haven't (no Doug Christie)... He was homicidal, who hasn't been at some point? this just proves he was just a regular dude that had regular dude issues -
Nobody really checking 4 this book especially Chicago fans just guy trying ? on the man character after he died over 10 yrs ago.
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yeah but that was the 80's... unless you got caught with coke, no one had any dirt on them... To me it's just digging up ? on someone that's been dead for 12 years now. He was suicidal, big deal, many people are it's an illness. He cheated, name pro athletes that haven't (no Doug Christie)... He was homicidal, who hasn't been at some point? this just proves he was just a regular dude that had regular dude issues
exactly. he wasn't really perceived that way by anyone until now. I certainly have never heard anyone even hint that payton was a drug addict or any of the other things mentioned. -
Nobody really checking 4 this book especially Chicago fans just guy trying ? on the man character after he died over 10 yrs ago.
oh so you can't write about a dead man now? and if you do it has to be all positive? foh. -
its a huge story b/c Walter Payton has been thought to be above all of that. he didn't have any dirt on him and the league respects him enough for his name to represent the man of the year in the NFL every year. And based on the reactions to the book by Bears fans, its definitely a surprise and a controversial topic
i don't see it as a big story. you gotta be naive to think any athlete is above anything. only reason ? wasn't out there was b/c of the era he played in. I'm not surprised and i don't see anything that controversial. -
Truthfully, what player/athlete from the 70s-80s didn't have a prescription drug/illegal drug problem?
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Truthfully, what player/athlete from the 70s-80s didn't have a prescription drug/illegal drug problem?
i dont know. but nobody has ever accused payton of it, and he's pretty much been excluded from any conversation about it.
if a month ago someone on here made this claim about payton, people wouldn't believe it -
i dont know. but nobody has ever accused payton of it, and he's pretty much been excluded from any conversation about it.
if a month ago someone on here made this claim about payton, people wouldn't believe it
True, but during the time period he played in media outlets weren't as polarizing, and some of the players had better working relationships with sportswriters.
So if they were doing things of that nature, it would get overlooked. -
The pain pill addiction and cheating on his wife dont surprise me, the suicidal thoughts is shocking to me but the author might be making that part up just to sell his book
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Controversy sells and moves the needle
Same reason the tiger woods scandal was such big news, only difference is that payton is dead
The reactions of payton/bears fans I've come across on different forums has been hilarious tho -
Sweet, Home: A Chicagoan Stands Up For Walter Payton
I grew up in a house that is about three miles from football’s most famous hill. I was maybe 5 or 6 years old the first time my dad took me there. The area was a landfill then — mostly trash, brush, dirt, and rocks, with a few small paths carved into tall grass. "This is it," he said. "This is Walter Payton’s hill." And he didn’t need to say anything else.
Like any suburban Chicago kid born as Payton’s career was ending, all I had were the stories — of running that hill, of end zone leaps, of refusing to duck out of bounds. That, and what seemed like 100 viewings of a VHS tape in my grandparents’ basement called Super Bowl Champions: The Story of the 1985 Chicago Bears (I was the only kindergartener in greater Chicagoland who thought Wilber Marshall was the greatest pass-rusher ever). That team still rules Chicago. I was 12 when Payton died. The news came late in the afternoon, just before the drive to football practice. I cried the whole way there.
That sentiment toward Payton isn’t unique among those raised in and around Chicago, and it’s why the reaction to an excerpt from Jeff Pearlman’s new Payton biography isn’t the least bit surprising. The excerpt from Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton in Sports Illustrated is filled with revelations about drug abuse, infidelity, and threats of suicide. The incredulity came quickly. On Chicago sports radio, Mike Ditka called Pearlman "gutless." Both Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and former Payton teammate Ron Rivera dismissed the stories entirely.
Pearlman has said that based on the excerpt, he understands the vitriol. The humanness that he felt obligated to explore is what still makes Payton the most beloved athlete in the city where Michael Jordan won six titles. There was something preternatural about Jordan that made him hard to relate to, and eventually, there were too many Big Macs and too much Spike Lee for him to really belong to anyone at all. He was the world's. But the way Payton played is Chicago — lowering shoulders in the city of Big Shoulders. In a Bears city, he was the Bear.
Some have pointed out that those are where the expectations of Payton should have stopped. He is arguably the greatest running back who ever lived, and that, they argue, is enough. But if there was ever an athlete who deserved our trust, it was Walter. Every year, an NFL player is recognized for his charitable contributions with the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. The headlines for Pearlman’s excerpt highlight the transgressions, but the spread starts with Payton asking a flight attendant to introduce him to a 10-year-old boy in need of a liver transplant. There is still a profound sense of reverence toward Payton, whose death in 1999 has given his legend more than a decade to solidify. And he clearly put a great deal of effort into maintaining his public persona. Even knowing that, Pearlman is inclined to say this:
"If you go to a Bears game, you still see tons of people — 12 years after he died — wearing Walter Payton jerseys. That's not just because he was a great player. He was so good to the fans. That's why he's iconic. He treated people with dignity."
I don’t begrudge Pearlman. As a reporter, there’s no way I can. I’ll buy the book, and I bet when it’s finished I’ll think the same thing I do today — that Walter Payton is as human as the rest of us. What I took from this excerpt isn’t the painkillers or the infidelity. It’s that boy on the plane. Walter Payton is ours. And I still wouldn’t have it any other way.
Good read on Grantland
