Walter Payton Bio A Not-So-Sweet Tale
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By DERON SNYDER
From King David to Martin Luther King Jr. and — more recently in sports — from Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods, plenty of high-achievers have been known to commit adultery. Others in all fields have strayed, perhaps, without being busted. But all it takes in many cases is one dogged reporter interviewing 678 people over the course of 2 1/2 years to produce a 496-page biography.
That appears to be the case with a new book on the late NFL Hall of Fame running back, Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton, written by Jeff Pearlman and excerpted in the current edition of Sports Illustrated. The author told SI.com that he “set out to write a definitive biography — period. When people would ask, ‘Well, is this going to be positive?’ I’d say, ‘Not positive, not negative — definitive,’ ” Pearlman said.
