Walter Payton Biographer Blasts Mike Ditka

By Chuck Sudo in News on Oct 2, 2012 6:15PM



The official Chicagoist portrait of Mike Ditka. he would spit on Jeff Pearlman, author of a biography of Walter Payton that was widely praised everywhere but Chicago. Here Ditka, Tribune columnist John Kass, ESPN’s Michael Wilbon (a Chicago native), and others universally panned the book, despite none of them having read it.

Ditka’s comments particularly stung Pearlman, who interviewed “Da Coach” for the book. The rift between the two isn’t going to heal anytime soon. A new book about Payton written by his brother Eddie, Walter & Me, is being viewed as a response to Pearlman’s Sweetness: the Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton. Ditka “wrote” the book's introduction and took some potshots at Pearlman in the process.

“And when it comes to someone writing about my friend, I have to ask, how well did the writer really know him? Did he grow up with him? Was he on the field with him? Did he live with him? Was he a parent? Was he a coach? Was he a player? In the case of Jeff Pearlman, the answer to those questions is, “no.” Pearlman wrote a book about Walter, but it was written from a distance. It was all secondhand. He put together a few things he’d heard—some of them from people who have very little credibility—to paint a picture that just doesn’t look much like the Walter I knew “He’ll always hold a high place in my book, and you couldn’t pay me enough to ever crack open the cover of Pearlman’s book. I know he tried to say you can’t just look in the excerpts, but I saw all I needed to see in those excerpts. It’s pathetic to write something like that about an individual who isn’t here to defend himself. If the person has passed and can’t respond, then just let the speculation rest with him. Period.”

That’s not how biographies work, Coach. A biographer's job isn't to make a reader feel good. It's to inform.

To fill in the blanks.

To tell the truth.

To humanize.

Pearlman removed the gloves and came out swinging in a post on his website where he fills in the blanks and humanizes Ditka. “Ditka is, in no particular order, a dolt, a bully, a thug, a moron, an ass and a fool,” Pearlman wrote. “He also happens to be the man who coached the Bears to the Super Bowl XX title, which means he can do no wrong in his adopted hometown of Chicago.”

The truth hurts.

Pearlman continues:

This might be hard for Ditka to fathom, but most people tear apart a book after completing it. This, of course, would require Ditka to read 480 pages, something I doubt he’s ever done. In fact, I’m willing to accept 100-to-one odds he never read Eddie’s book, which is about half the size of mine. Second, I love how Mike Ditka has taken ownership of Walter Payton, and feels comfortable in discussing his legacy. If Ditka knew Walter so well, how was he thoroughly, 100-percent unaware of his late-life despondency and depression? If Ditka was so tight with his former halfback, why didn’t he help him out with the emotional problems that so plagued him? Where was Mike Ditka when Walter Payton needed him?

Pearlman goes on to highlight what he believes is the perceived hypocrisy of Ditka having Payton bear the burden of the Bears offense all those years, not wonder if it may have contributed to the deterioration of his health and ask where Ditka’s advocacy for former players was when he was coaching.

It’s a scathing takedown we would recommend Ditka read over a pork chop and a bottle of Kick Ass Red.

