1
Oct
2011
Why Sour Sweetness?
(photo courtesy of www.photobucket.com)
For anyone who watch football in the late 1970s and 1980s, Walter Payton was emblematic of all that was good in professional sports. He was graceful on the field, and gracious off of it. Soft spoken and dignified, Payton– or, perhaps more precisely, what we knew of Payton– was the kind of player– the kind of person– to emulate. The NFL calls its man of the year award the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award for that very reason. I was never a Bears fans. But, like many others, I was always a fan of Walter Payton.
Twelve years after his untimely death, Sports Illustrated has excerpted a book by Jeff Pearlman alleging that Payton cheated on his wife and did drugs. Why write this book? While I don’t condone cheating on your wife or using drugs, I fundamentally do not understand why this book needs to be written, now. For starters, the guy’s dead: he can’t defend himself. Moreover, people don’t still look up to Payton (see point one, he’s dead). Instead, they admire him for what he represented and, when they see an image of him dancing between defenders, the “C” emblazoned on his helmet, they think of when they were a kid. When Sunday was spent glued to a television, watching the voracious Bears’ defense serve as the perfect compliment to Payton’s elegance. Am I supposed to revisit that? Question it? Realize that, gee, idols aren’t always what they are cracked up to be when you peal away the onion? Wow, there’s a novel and timely lesson for the 40-plus crowd that admired him. Pearlman: for an encore, how about a book on the real truth behind the VHS versus Betamax fight for market share?
29
Jun
2010
VIDEO: Walter Payton runs the wildcat offense (1984)
Props to the guys at Tremendous Upside Potential for uncovering this gem from the mid-80s, featuring Bears Hall of Fame RB Walter Payton running a variation of the Wildcat offense, WAY before it was in fashion in the NFL. I’m not exactly sure what happened to Jim McMahon that forced Payton into action here, but Sweetness is fairly effective here, leading the offense to about midfield before heaving a bomb downfield that gets picked off by the Packers (effectively a punt).
Man, that guy was the best.
10
May
2009
Mike Singletary Brings the “Pain” to 49ers Training Camp
Walter Payton's off-season hill runs became the thing of legend (Photo: DailyHerald.com)
49ers Head Coach Mike Singletary knows a little something about pain. After all, the Hall of Fame Linebacker inflicted pain on NFL running backs for his entire career. But he also watched some of the greatest players in NFL history inflict incredible pain on themselves during the off-season, in order to give themselves an edge on the playing field.
Walter Payton and Jerry Rice famously included grueling hill runs as part of their training regimens … hills that pushed players to their limits, and made most men puke before reaching the finish. Now, taking a page from their book, Singletary has incorporated a 45-foot-high, 45-degree hill – known simply as “Pain” into 49ers Training Camp:
“There’s something about the hill,” Singletary told reporters back in mid-March after the 49ers first minicamp and the hill was on full display for the first time. “It’s beautiful to look at but what it’s going to do for our guys is it’s going to bring about something that you can’t really get in the weight room, something that you really can’t get on the track.”
“All the guys that I know that worked out on a hill, they were a cut above some of the other competition around the league and they had a long playing careers,” Singletary said. “So I’m excited about the hill and it just adds another dimension to our workout.”
49ers feeling the Pain (Photo: 49ers.com)
Former Head Coach Mike Nolan actually introduced the hill to the 49ers facility, but Singletary doubled the size in order to maximize the strenuousness of the workouts. But still, it’s nothing compared to the hills used by Payton and Rice. Singletary continues:
“The hill that Jerry Rice and those guys ran, it was a lot higher than that. The hill that some of the guys and I ran on, it was closer to that size where you could do a lot more things. You had a lot more options in terms of things you could do on the hill. So that’s why I’m excited about ours. There’s a lot of versatility to it.”
Let’s face it, Singletary is the MAN. One of the greatest players of all time, and now as head coach, he’s going to turn the 49ers franchise back around in no time. The press conference meltdowns, getting in players’ faces, and bringing the old-school back to the NFL. LOVE IT!
Also, this discussion also gives us an excuse to look back at Walter Payton’s career, and let the video state his case as the greatest RB of all time (in response to yesterday’s Barry Sanders post):
(bonus “Payton’s Hill” run footage at 2:24)
