Walter & Me (13 page)

Sometimes Sugarman’s bed would be a little more than wet. Like it’d be missing. He’d come in from a long, hard day of classes, and his mattress would just be gone. It’d be nowhere in the room, and he’d have to spend the rest of his day looking for it. We’d also do things like take all the clothes out of his closet and just stuff them in his drawer. After a few weeks of that sort of stuff, he started telling us he’d be sleeping with one eye open. Well, Sugarman must’ve have been blind in that one eye because we always got him.

Of course, Sugarman’s going to get the last laugh on us Payton boys. I’m sure of that. You see, he went and became a minister. I’m thinking Walter and I will one day have to answer directly to God for a thing or two we did to Sugarman. Then again, I think even God has to think some of that was funny, so who knows? Maybe we’ll get off easy. Regardless, and in all seriousness, Sugarman is one of the top 10 good guys I’ve ever been around in all my life. I’m sure Walter would agree. Wait, what am I’m saying? I’m sure Walter
does
agree. Sugarman was a hell of an athlete and a heaven of a man. He answered a higher calling when his playing days were through. He kept Walter and me in balance (as best he could, anyway) while we were at Jackson State, and he prayed with us all the time. We Payton boys sure needed that with all the crazy stuff we were doing.

Most of Walter’s mischief back in the day was all in good fun, like in science class when he found out he could mix this and that together to give off the smelliest smell you ever done smelled. Let me tell you, when Walter got a hold of knowledge like that, everyone around him would pay through the nose for it. He stole some “this and that” from the lab once and stunk up the girls’ dorms and even the coaches’ offices.

But not every trick he pulled was just in good fun. Sometimes he and the guys would take things just a tad too far.

The popular swimming hole for a lot of us was Barnett Reservoir, just north of Jackson. Folks would go there to swim and to just have an overall good time. They’d park their cars up on the hill, and they’d head down to jump in the water. Well, Walter and his friends knew all about it. Sometimes they’d drive by, and if there were some cars parked up the hill, they’d park their own car down a bit and walk back to where the swimmers were. They’d check the cars, and if one of them had an open window, it was on. Walter would get inside the car, put it in neutral, and the guys would all push it from behind so that it started rolling down the hill. Once the car was on its way, Walter and his teammates would take off running and chuckling. The car they pushed would eventually hit the water and proceed to partially sink. Or it might sink all the way. Either way, some poor sucker had his car ruined, and all for a good laugh. Of course, now I must confess that it wasn’t always just Walter and his teammates. I went along with ’em a time or two and might’ve participated in a “car drowning.” Or two. Or more. But who’s counting?

I wasn’t involved in everything they were doing, and Walter was sometimes counting on me to be a confidant of sorts. He liked sitting down with me and talking about some of the stuff they did that no good person should ever be getting caught up in. Since I was still hanging around campus as a student, Walter knew that he could come to me and unload some of the crazier shit he and some of the guys on the team were getting into. I couldn’t believe my ears on more than one occasion. Still, I can say that most of the time, Walter knew when to stop…even if his teammates didn’t.

Sometimes, when you’re hanging out with friends, things can get out of hand. A group of young guys hanging out night after night will sure enough get into some trouble even if they don’t mean to. Walter found himself in one of those “sho’ nuff” predicaments one night. He was just chilling with some of his teammates, and one of them followed another one who followed another one to a place they shouldn’t have been. From what I was told, there was this girl who decided one night she wanted to take on three or four guys from the football team at once, so one of the guys found his way to that girl and led the others there, too. Well, Walter was hanging with that particular group on that particular night, so you know where he ended up. Before he could do anything about it, there he was in a room with his teammates as one after the other had their way with that girl. It was all consensual, mind you, but still not right. Walter knew it wasn’t right, too. He was kicking himself for being there and, even worse, staying there. Well, a few weeks later, that girl said she thought she was pregnant and was going to sue them all and have ’em all arrested and whatnot. Sho’ nuff, she pressed charges of sexual battery against the whole group. The cops showed up and put together a lineup of suspects, which included my brother. They were all taken to the station, and the girl was ready to start doing some identifying. “Well, which ones were involved?” the cops asked her. “Point them out.”

Her finger made its way to each guy in the lineup, followed by words of condemnation for all. Except one. She finally pointed at Walter and said, “Yeah, he was there.” Walter just knew what was coming next. He was sure she’d lie or remember incorrectly or something, and he was thinking he was going to need himself a good lawyer. Well, she did remember correctly and the lie never came. The girl lowered her finger and finished, “But he didn’t do nothing.” And that was absolutely right. My brother didn’t do nothing. Well, nothing except find himself in a bad situation that he didn’t know how to get out of. He knew what was right and wrong, and he didn’t do a thing to that girl. I know he wouldn’t have done that, even if he wasn’t seeing Connie at the time, but the fact that he was committed to her made the temptation even easier to resist. He was in love with Connie, and nothing was going to get in the way of that.

So, what about the other guys? Did they go to trial? Did they have to go to jail? Well, the answers are no and no. And it was all thanks to Coach Hill. God bless that man for going through more crap with his players than a human being should have to endure. They did something wrong that night by taking that girl up on her offer, but they didn’t do nothing illegal. Still, they should’ve at the very least been smarter than to do what they did. Coach Hill talked with them and then with the girl. I have no idea what was said by Coach Hill, but I do know the girl dropped all of the charges. There was just no way any of those boys were going to go to jail for a crime that never happened. Coach made sure of that.

Amazingly, that wasn’t the only time Walter could’ve gone to jail while he was at Jackson State. During his senior year, right before the NFL draft, Walter, Rickey Young, Robert Brazile, and Vernon Perry (the young one just hanging around with the old guys) came up with a sort of “last hurrah” type of prank. They all knew they were about to be drafted, so Walter arranged to buy this Nissan 240Z sports car on credit. Everyone knew he was about to make a bunch of money, so he was good for it.
And that car was good for picking up girls. It was a sexy little performance car, that’s for sure. Thing is, Walter and the guys didn’t want to pick up girls with that car. They wanted to scare ’em.

Walter and his boys of mischief went out and got this lifelike monster mask that resembled the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with bumps on it and bulging eyes and all kinds of just straight nastiness. They put the mask on Robert Brazile and put him in the trunk of the car (still not sure how they fit him in there), leaving it cracked open. Then they drove down to Lynch Street, just off campus, and found a group of girls just waiting to be scared, even if they didn’t know it. The car pulled up to the girls and stopped in front of them. “Excuse me, ma’am,” Walter said in his most polite Southern voice, “could you close my trunk that popped open?” One of the girls went to the back of the car to grant his request, and Brazile popped out wearing that mask. He didn’t have to utter a word. In my opinion, he didn’t even have to wear the mask, but that’s neither here nor there. Those girls were scared out of their wits. They took off running, and the boys had the deep, end-of-an-era belly laugh that they were looking for. But that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted more. They wanted to do some serious scaring and decided to take the show to downtown Jackson.

The boys cruised around downtown with Brazile stuffed down in the half-opened trunk, and then finally came across a couple of white girls walking down Capitol Street. Walter pulled up beside them, rolled down his window, and started up the conversation. “Excuse me, girls, could one of you slam that trunk down for me?” Well, both of them walked back there, probably unsure if they could say no, and Brazile popped out with the mask. Those girls were freaked out. And I mean, really freaked out. They went running down the street screaming, but that’s not all. It didn’t take them long to trip and fall, skinnin’ themselves up but good. They were crying as hard as they fell, and the guys couldn’t stop laughing until they were crying, too. Walter hit the gas, and they all headed back to campus, tired from all the scaring they’d done that night. Well, it turned out those two white girls weren’t too scared to tell someone what happened.

The girls reported it to the police, and the police thought the description the girls gave sure sounded like some Jackson State football players. Word about the incident got back to you-know-who….yep, Coach Hill. The Jackson Police Department called Coach and let him know what was going on. “Coach,” they said, “we’re looking for a few football players who scared some girls so bad tonight that they fell down and got hurt. The girls say they were driving a 240Z sports car. Do you know anything about that?”

Coach didn’t know anything about it when they called, but he knew who had a 240Z sports car. Everybody knew that. He said, “I know the car, Officer, and I think I know who did this. If I get the men responsible and handle it, they won’t have to go to jail, right?”

Coach had a way with all sorts of people, and the Jackson Police Department was no different. “I promise they won’t go to jail, Coach,” they answered, “but only if you’ll take care of it.” Sho’ nuff he would.

Coach Hill was now the one on a mission of causing fear and pain. But he wasn’t looking for unsuspecting girls just walking down the street, minding their own business. Oh no. He was looking for some grown men who got a kick out of scaring unsuspecting girls just walking down the street, minding their own business. He walked right over to the football dorm, went up to Room 210, knocked on the door, and walked right on into the room without saying a word. Then he let it rip. “I need to see Rickey, Walter, and Brazile downstairs. NOW!” He turned and walked out of the room. The three amigos gathered themselves and marched downstairs right after him.

Coach was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, and the face he had on was scarier than any monster mask Walter and his friends could’ve dreamed of. “Give me the damn mask!” Coach shouted as soon as they got to the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t want to hear nothing from none of y’all. Just give me the mask right now!” Brazile went back up the stairs as fast as he could to get the mask while Walter and Rickey stood in a mess of shame with their eyes looking straight down. Brazile came back down with the mask; Coach snatched it from him and walked away. As he went through the door of the dorm building, Coach turned to glare at the boys and said five words that were like daggers. “I’ll talk to y’all later.”

Well, it wasn’t much later because Coach returned that night with his whistle. He walked back up to Room 210, knocked on the door again, and blew his whistle in the first face he saw when the door opened. “Y’all come with me!” he barked at the boys before turning around and heading back down the stairs. The boys followed again, of course.

Coach Hill led Walter, Rickey, and Brazile onto the football field and proceeded to run ’em all night long. They were seniors about to graduate and enter the NFL draft, but they were practicing like they’d just arrived on campus. The two-a-days from their first year were nothing compared to the punishment they endured that night. It didn’t matter that they were about to go off into the world and make their mark. Those men were still boys in the eyes of Coach Hill. They were boys still living in Coach’s house. They were still living under Coach’s roof, and dammit, they were going to follow Coach’s rules. For one night, right before they were about to go pro, it was like freshman year all over again. I’ve said it before, but I can’t say it enough. You don’t mess with Coach Hill.

All jokes aside, plenty of teams knew by then that you don’t mess with Walter Payton, either. Not on a football field. He was a beast. He’d become a fine-tuned machine by the time his college days came to a close. Walter was a true phenom. He earned first-team All-American in 1974 and MVP in all of Division II football. Before Walter’s senior season,
Dick Young, a columnist for
The Sporting News
, boldly predicted Walter would be the first player from a traditionally black school to win the Heisman. Now, even though he finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy balloting, even being in the hunt for it meant he’d done the impossible for a player from a historically all-black college. Integration was one small step for education, but Walter took one giant leap for black athletes everywhere. In his career at Jackson State, Walter rushed for 3,563 yards on 584 carries for 6.1 yards per carry. He set the NCAA Division II scoring record at 464 points, which included 66 touchdowns, 5 field goals, and 53 extra points. He also managed to get his bachelor’s degree in three and a half years. And you know, I think he was more proud of that than of all those awards and records he got playing football. In fact, during Walter’s last semester, with a college degree already in hand, he began his quest for a master’s. As it turned out, he wouldn’t finish that up, because something else was waiting for him. The NFL was calling his name. He wasn’t going to get that master’s degree, but the temperature was about to drop a degree of two for him, I can tell you that. There was a draft in the air, and things were about to get windy.