Running Wild

Payton aims at O.J. 's record

The scene is a familiar one to all small boys with big dreams: make-believe football games in the backyard, played in solitude to the roar of an imaginary crowd. "I'd throw up the ball, pretend it was a kickoff, then run and fake and flip and fall down and get up again and call another play. Sometimes I'd pretend it was a pass. I'd run and catch it or dive for it. That was a lot of fun."

Now the phantom crowds that cheered on Walter Payton as a boy are for real. As a super running back for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League, he has transformed the Windy City into Payton Place, where adoring fans and the daily papers call him "Wonderful Walter." Little wonder. In his third year as a pro, Payton, 23, has not only broken O.J. Simpson's single-game rushing mark of 273 yds. (275 yds. in November's game against the Minnesota Vikings) but is also helping to keep the rebuilding Bears in contention for a play-off spot. As the season draws to an end this weekend, he has a shot at surpassing Simpson's 2,003-yd. single-year record.

Plunging through a hole, cutting to elude pursuing linebackers, squirming for ward with with the tacklers best of draped around and to him, have Payton earned may be the hardest runner to bring down in the N.F.L. game. "He's just mule-headed," says his mother Alyne, whose oldest son Eddie returns kicks for the Detroit Lions. "When five or six players get him, he just won't give up."

It is more than determination that keeps Payton on his feet. At 5 ft. 10 1/2 in., 204 Ibs., he plays bigger and stronger than he looks. A schoolboy record holder in the long jump, he can hurdle clumps of defensive linemen. He is strong enough to walk 50 yds. on his hands -- and to stiff-arm would-be tacklers almost as far. Says Bears Coach Jack Pardee: "To me, he's a big man without great height. He's big in every sense -- bone structure, muscle structure. He's got great leg strength and back strength. He has fine agility and is light on his feet." Light enough, in fact, to boogie them second place in a national Soul Train dance contest during college.

Payton avoids the limelight and shares credit for his performance with the linemen who block for him; after every touchdown, he hands the ball to a teammate for a triumphant spike. At the end of last season, he also handed each offensive lineman more tangible evidence of his gratitude: a gold watch. Declares Payton: "Maybe it's all right to brag if you're Billie Jean King or Muhammad Ali. But I'm in a team sport. It takes ten more guys, and I don't see why I should rip all the glory." Payton first attracted attention at Mississippi's all-black Jackson State, which became a magnet for pro scouts as he set an N.C.A.A. scoring record with 66 touchdowns. Looking for a centerpiece for their rebuilding effort, the Bears picked him in the first round of the draft.

Payton has not let them down. During his rookie year, no less an authority than former Cleveland Browns Fullback Jim Brown watched him run two plays and pegged him for the pinnacle. Said Brown: "Walter had the quickness and the moves and the instincts of just a great runner. He was the most impressive back that I've seen come into the league in a long time." Fred O'Connor, Chicago's backfield coach, was moved to assert: "God must have taken a chisel and said, 'I'm gonna make me a halfback.' " O'Connor, God knows, seems to be right.

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