As this story revolves around my favorite player as a child, Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton, who once held every major NFL rushing record, I post this with a heavy heart.
Not only did I look up to #34 as a kid, I had lunch with him and spent a day with him as a teen, and he was the nicest guy in the world. That fall day in 1999 when he passed away was very tough for me, because Payton died so young. And today we learn from a new Jeff Pearlman book entitled “Sweetness: the Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton” that Payton not only died young, but had a pretty troubled life that we didn’t previously know about.
And he wasn’t exactly the nicest person in the world while he was alive either.
From Yahoo:
Pearlman also details Payton’s use of the painkiller Darvon during his playing days and how he equipped an RV with nitrous oxide to use during training camp.
Once Payton’s career ended, he battled depression and often discussed suicide with close friends. Two failing relationships contributed to his malaise. Pearlman describes how Payton’s estranged wife and girlfriend both attended his Hall of Fame induction ceremony — “they were like ships passing in the night,” Payton’s assistant said — and made the triumphant weekend one of the worst of Payton’s life.
The book comes out next week, and it profiles Payton’s extramarital affairs, the crippling loneliness that plagued him in later life and (this will hit home for all of us who were disturbed by the suicide of Payton’s ’85 Bears teammate Dave Duerson) how much he contemplated suicide.
After football, many of our heroes seem to suffer from brain damage, among many other serious illnesses and afflictions. We hear too many tales of players losing pensions, access to health care, and dying young while in tremendous pain during their closing years. Sometimes that dying young (as in Duerson’s case) is by their own choice.
It all goes to show you that football is something that’s really bad for your health- and you often don’t see how much harm it inflicts until much later in life. The gridiron glory of youth (and for a very select few, adulthood) often gives way to terror and suffering in middle age. And worst of all, in many cases the story of life ends at middle age.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site that generates millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
He does regular weekly radio spots in Chicago and Cleveland and has appeared on live shows all across the world from Houston to New Zealand. The President of the United States follows him on Twitter (@Paul_M_BanksTSB) You should too