Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton

by Jeff Pearlman

Overview

The definitive biography of Chicago Bears superstar Walter Payton.

In the twelve years since his death from cancer, Walter Payton’s legend has only grown in magnitude. The Hall of Fame running back, who broke Jim Brown’s all-time NFL rushing mark, appeared in nine Pro Bowls, won a Super Bowl ring with the 1985 Chicago Bears, and is still revered throughout the sporting landscape. Payton has become the lasting image of what’s great about football. Yet in mindlessly canonizing the man simply known as “Sweetness,” we have missed the opportunity to understand—and appreciate—one of the most uniquely complex and enigmatic superstars in the history of American sports.

No longer. Based on meticulous research and interviews with nearly seven hundred family members, friends, teammates, and various associates, Sweetness delivers an unforgettable portrait of a man who lived his life just like he played the game: at full speed. From his childhood in segregated Mississippi, to Chicago, where Payton emerged from athlete to icon as he broke the NFL’s all-time rushing record and led the Bears to Super Bowl glory; to his darker moments battling depression and adjusting to life after football, Sweetness is an eloquently written, revelatory saga of a complex, guarded superstar who died far too young.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592407378
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/28/2012
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	98,779
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jeff Pearlman is the author of four previous books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Bad Guys Won! and Boys Will Be Boys. He is a columnist for SI.com as well as a contributor to The Wall Street Journal. He blogs regularly at jeffpearlman.com. Pearlman and his family live in New York.

Table of Contents

Prologue xiii

Part 1 Columbia

Chapter 1 Bubba 3

Chapter 2 Learning the Game 19

Chapter 3 Black and White 29

Chapter 4 The Emergence 38

Chapter 5 Recruitment 54

Part 2 Jackson

Chapter 6 Jackson State 65

Chapter 7 Soul 82

Chapter 8 Connie 95

Chapter 9 Heisman Hopes 107

Part 3 Chicago

Chapter 10 Going Pro 123

Chapter 11 Birth of Sweetness 140

Chapter 12 Zero Yards 158

Chapter 13 The Wake-Up Call 172

Chapter 14 The Strangest Run 186

Chapter 15 Darkness 207

Chapter 16 The Unbearable Bears 223

Chapter 17 A Rose in a Dandelion Garden 244

Chapter 16 Power 255

Chapter 19 Shuffle 280

Chapter 20 Super Letdown 304

Chapter 21 Aftermath 316

Part 4 Retirement

Chapter 22 Now What? 341

Chapter 23 A Bottomless Void 368

Chapter 24 Depression 376

Part 5 Final

Chapter 25 Sick 393

Chapter 26 The End 409

Chapter 27 Legacy 417

Chapter 28 Afterword 424

Acknowledge 431

Notes 437

Bibliography 467

Index 471

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Pearlman did not set out to expose Payton but to understand him, to identify and define the qualities that made him so appealing. He was a football-playing hero to millions, true, but he was also a human being of considerable complexity. There’s a story in how those two sides intersected, and a skilled biographer gets to that story ... If Walter Payton, magnificent football player and Chicago treasure, is enough for you, ignore the book and cherish your memories. If Walter Payton, flawed but fascinating human being, intrigues you, read it. You might come away with a greater appreciation."
—The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

"Mr. Halberstam would have been the first to insist that we not confuse fiction with nonfiction, and that we not mistake biography — the telling of a life — for hagiography — the burnishing of a legend. Which was football's big trouble last week, it turns out, as lots of folks who should know better took exception to a new biography of Walter Payton."
—ESPN.com, "The Sporting Life"

"I found the Walter of your book to be more of a hero than the one people refer to."
—Rick Hogan, WGN Sunday Papers

I have read the book and I can tell you your appreciation of Walter will be heightened if you read the whole book and not just the excerpt — Rick Kogan

"Jeff Pearlman has written Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton, which depicts Mr. Payton as perhaps the greatest all-around football player ever, a generous teammate and a loving father."
—Scott Simon, NPR Weekend Edition

"Over the weekend I read an advance copy of Sweetness and found it to be an incredible, thoughtful, deep and profound read. It’s exceptional work.  I wouldn’t let an out-of-context excerpt and some enraged condemnations get in the way of a fascinating read about a fascinating man."
—Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports

"READ THE BOOK...But if you like texture, if you want to get the sense of a real life lived by a real person with real beauty within and real warts, start reading and do so with an open mind."
—The Indianapolis Star

"Pearlman did not set out to expose Payton but to understand him, to identify and define the qualities that made him so appealing. He was a football-playing hero to millions, true, but he was also a human being of considerable complexity. There’s a story in how those two sides intersected, and a skilled biographer gets to that story ... If Walter Payton, magnificent football player and Chicago treasure, is enough for you, ignore the book and cherish your memories. If Walter Payton, flawed but fascinating human being, intrigues you, read it. You might come away with a greater appreciation."
—The New York Times

If Walter Payton, magnificent football player and Chicago treasure, is enough for you, ignore the book and cherish your memories. If Walter Payton, flawed but fascinating human being, intrigues you, read it. You might come away with a greater appreciation

From the Publisher

Jeff Pearlman does the work of first-rate biography in his addictively readable Sweetness. He presents Walter Payton in all of his flaws and contradictions yet leaves you in the end with a much deeper appreciation of an uncommon man.”

Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Maraniss

Until now, we’ve known Walter Payton as a two-dimensional figure in football’s pantheon. Jeff Pearlman’s thorough biography, exhaustively researched and compellingly written, shows that beneath the Sweetness lay the raw stuff of mortality. Sweetness is the purest, and most poignant, of portraits.”

Peter Richmond

Jeff Pearlman proves once again why he’s one of the best sports biographers in the country. This is easily the most comprehensive look at an historic National Football League figure. Pearlman will tell you things about Walter you didn’t know and he does so in a stylish, informative way.”

author of Jim Brown: The Fierce Life of an Ame Michael Freeman

Walter Payton’s life was thrilling, complicated, triumphant, and turbulent, and it takes an artful storyteller to present it all properly. Thankfully for Payton—and for us, the readers of this splendid book—there is Jeff Pearlman to provide precisely the perfect touch.”

New York Post

With Sweetness, Jeff Pearlman joins that small group of men who can claim to have caught up with Walter Payton, with history’s most elusive football player. But Jeff’s the first to make that chase with love in his heart. This book is beautiful.”

author of Out of Orbit Chris Jones

SI.com and Wall Street Journal writer Pearlman (Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty, 2008, etc.) delivers a definitive biography of one of the NFL's all-time greats. Though some of Walter Payton's (1954–1999) records have been broken since his 1987 retirement, his image as a gridiron hero, and arguably football's greatest-ever running back, has endured. Pearlman's book provides much to enhance that image, and a bit to tarnish it as well. An extraordinarily gifted athlete known for his ferocious stiff-arm, his refusal to run out of bounds and his unparalleled work ethic, Payton was, and is, beloved by football fans. But to those who knew him, even close friends and family, he was an enigma. Praised as the ultimate team player, he would sulk and whine if not given the ball as much as he felt he deserved. After years of carrying mediocre Chicago Bears teams, Payton threw his equipment to the ground in disgust and hid in a closet after finally winning a Super Bowl, when Bears coach Mike Ditka allowed William "Refrigerator" Perry, not Payton, to score a touchdown in the game. Known for going out of his way to befriend marginal players who were certain to be cut, for spending hours with sick children, for knowing the names and backgrounds of every employee, Payton was an absentee father and serial womanizer who provided financial support for, but never met or acknowledged, his illegitimate son. Pearlman at first seems not to recognize the disparity, repeatedly describing Payton as a humble man while recounting anecdotes that indicate otherwise. Eventually the author confronts the puzzling contradictions of his subject's personality, but refrains from psychoanalysis or other attempts to explain them. The section on the infamous 1985 Bears, a team rife with dysfunction everywhere but on the field, is a highlight, as is the description of Payton's senior year in high school, when Mississippi schools were forced to desegregate. The book's devastating conclusion shows the familiar depressing decline of an athlete in retirement and his shocking death from cancer at 45. A highly readable warts-and-all portrait of an athletic giant, but those who prefer their idols unblemished may want to steer clear.

Kirkus Reviews