Payton’s post football recognition was pretty significant. He had two great events in his post football career. The first came when his number 34 jersey was retired by the Bears.
What was probably his biggest honor came when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993. His son Jarrett was his presenter and he gave a very touching speech at the ceremony.
I pulled a couple of quotes out of his speech I thought were nice to share.
Payton said “Football is a team game and it takes everyone on that team to make a product such as these Hall of Famers are sitting under this tend and the ones that are being inducted today. And they will be the first ones to say, that when you stood up here and accepted being inducted here they did it with a great deal of embarrassment because you were pointing all the accolades towards them and they realized in their hearts that there were teammates that threw blocks and caught passes and talked to them when they were down”.
Another great quote from Payton’s speech is, as he said “I am going to close by saying life is short, it is oh so sweet, there are a lot of people that we meet as we walk through these shallow halls, but the things that mean the most are the friendships that you meet and take along with you.”
“I am going to close by saying life is short, it is oh so sweet, there are a lot of people that we meet as we walk through these shallow halls, but the things that mean the most are the friendships that you meet and take along with you.”
Payton had a very active life after he retired. He was involved in an attempt to bring an NFL team to the city of St. Louis. He tried to become the NFL’s first minority owner in the venture which would have been a huge move ahead in the league. Discontent among the group caused the project to fail and new franchises were given to Jacksonville and Carolina instead of St. Louis.
He dabbled in the racing industry as he became a co-owner of Dale Coyne Racing which was part of the Indy Car establishment. Payton actually had an accident racing a car but he was not injured.
Another venture Payton became involved in was owning a restaurant. The restaurant was located in Aurora, Illinois and was named Walter Payton’s Roadhouse.
There were Payton sightings in different circles. One of his more famous appearances came in 1987 when he joined quarterback Joe Montana as host on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
As a side to his personal life, Payton was married to his wife Connie in 1976. They had two children, Jarrett born in 1980 and Brittney born in 1985.