Sweetness

I just finished reading Sweetness, the new biography on Walter Payton. It's become somewhat controversial because, as you would expect from the first truly definitive biography, it dares to show Walter Payton as (gasp) an actual human being and not some larger than life persona who could do no wrong.

As a beloved figure in the sports world and particularly in Chicago, I suppose that this is inevitable. People do not like to have their idols torn down. And there definitely is something special about Payton. If you go to the Bears game this weekend you will still see a lot of people wearing Walter Payton jerseys. There will be a smattering of Singletary, Ditka, Butkus, and maybe even Sayers jerseys but I suspect that after Urlacher, Cutler, and Hester (all current players) that far and away the most popular jersey you'll see is Payton, despite the fact that he played his last game nearly 24 years ago.

So does the book really tarnish his image? I would say that it does. While the positives outweigh the negatives by an unbelievably wide margin, a couple of the negatives are pretty damning. Supposedly, Payton popped painkillers like they were candy. That's not terribly surprising given the amount of punishment his body took. He also suffered from terrible bouts of depression after he retired. Also not surprising, given that many athletes suffer through similar issues and what we now know about the damage caused by repetitive blows to the head. Then there is the philandering. Supposedly Payton could rival Wilt Chamberlain in that category. But of course as a professional athlete, that type of behavior is certainly not out of the norm. So all of those are revelatory, but not altogether shocking. The big bombshell (at least as far as I'm concerned) is that he fathered an illegitimate child and then completely ignored him. Literally never saw him once, despite the fact that until Payton's death he never lived more than 30 miles away from him. He did financially support him and the mother whenever they asked for it, but I view that more as self-interest since he wanted to make sure she didn't run to the press about it.

I have found the reaction to these revelations to be very interesting. Mike Ditka said (about the author) that he would "spit on him" if he ever saw him, despite the fact that he cooperated on the book. And Ron Rivera (his former teammate) has said "It’s unfortunate somebody wrote a book and throws that kind of light on somebody who's not here to defend himself." So keep in mind that neither of these people are suggesting that what is revealed in the book isn't true, just that it shouldn't be written about. That's a head-scratcher to me. So if we wish to write something negative about someone, we are limited to only doing it while they are alive? Once they are gone, we should limit ourselves only to a person's positive aspects? If so, I'd be very interested to read the Ron Rivera version of Hitler's life.

I have always been of the belief that it is never wrong to speak the truth. There are times when, in the interests of politeness or conflict avoidance, it may be better to lie, but I still would never fault anyone for telling the truth. I've always thought that one of the big motivators to leading a good and moral life was so that the memory of that would live on in the people that you affected. But if everyone's going to remember you in a good light anyway after you die, I guess you might as well just act like a selfish jackass.

Really though, I do understand the reaction. It reminds me of a Simpsons episode. Lisa uncovers some terrible truths about the town's founder, Jebediah Springfield. In the end, she decides not to reveal what she found to the townspeople because she says that the memory and legacy of Jebediah Springfield has value too, and she didn't want to take that away from people even though Jebediah himself didn't deserve to be beloved. I suppose it is the same here. Walter Payton wronged some people, and he deserved to have those truths exposed. But the people who admired and respected him probably didn't deserve to have that taken from them.

As I said, on the other side of these revelations are all the things that were truly incredible about Payton's life. His work ethic was unbelievable - it literally would be impossible to overstate his commitment to keeping himself in peak shape. There are also dozens of stories (and, according to the author, literally hundreds more that were didn't make it into the book) about Payton going out of his for one of his fans. It's not just that he would agree to meet a sick child that happened to be on the same airplane with him, he'd sit down and talk to him for half an hour. He's agree to make an appearance somewhere and speak for 10 minutes, and then he'd stick around for 4 hours and just talk to everyone. In an age of diva star athletes, that's really refreshing. And of course the way that he approached the end of his life can only be described as extremely courageous. Once he made the decision to go public about his disease, he didn't hide from it or from anyone. He just continued to go about his business, giving speeches, meeting his fans, catching up with old friends and teammates - all the way until he no longer physically could.

In the end, I still have a lot of great memories of watching Sweetness play for the Bears. He's one of the main reasons I became a Bears fan in the first place. I have even more respect for him as a football player than I ever have, and I truly believe that, taken as a whole, he was the greatest running back of all time. After reading this, though, I'd have to say that I won't think of him in quite the same way ever again. But you know what, that's ok. I'd rather have the truth.