Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton by Jeff Pearlman. 3.4 stars
If my mother ever becomes a professional football player, she’s an absolute lock to win the Walter Payton Award
If my mother ever becomes a professional football player, she’s an absolute lock to win the Walter Payton Award. Obviously, that first part is going to be tough. Mom is 86 years old, thinks all sports are ‘stupid’, and she’s only 4 feet 10 inches tall. On the other hand, she’d work cheap, so you never know.* Once she’s in the NFL though, the Payton award will be a no-brainer.
*If my mom does become a pro football player someone will obviously have to make a movie about it. I was thinking Meryl Streep could play my mother, but I’m not sure that’s a big enough challenge, so here’s how I’d cast. Dustin Hoffman as my mom, he was great playing a woman in Tootsie and he’s short enough for the role. Morgan Freeman as the crusty but lovable coach who finally comes around and sees my mother’s got the moxie to make it big. That leaves Meryl Streep free to play me, the ne’er do well son who keeps trying to get his mother’s life insured before the big game.
The Walter Payton Award is given to the NFL’s Man of the Year*, the player who is most committed community service as well as on the field excellence. Mom can’t tackle worth a damn, but I gotta believe she’s good at the off the field stuff.
*Or woman. Or grandmother.
Anyone who thinks my mom could never make it in the NFL might want to consider the fact that pro-football’s Man of the Year Award being named after Walter Payton is nearly as weird. Yes, it’s true that Payton was a brilliant running back for the 1980’s Chicago Bears. He was also drug addict, suicidal, a serial philanderer, and so addicted to nitrous oxide that he kept tanks of it in the trunk of his car. He locked himself in a broom closet and wept after his Bears won the Super Bowl because he didn’t score a touchdown. When he was inducted into the Hall of Fame he had to frantically run back and forth between his estranged wife and his mistress, trying to keep his image as a family man afloat.
The sports biographies I read as a kid tended not to focus on compulsive womanizing, drug addiction and existential despair, which is a shame since that stuff makes for great reading. I know I could use Payton’s story as a reminder that fame doesn’t fix people or that no one ever gets past just being a messy human but….eh. Dirt, sleaze, and hypocrisy are funny as hell and Pearlman is good at writing about all of it. I wouldn’t want him to write my biography but since, unlike my mother, I’ll almost certainly never make it as a pro-football player, there’s not much worry about that. Streep, Freeman, and my mom, on the other hand, should all probably watch their step.