What Christless Success Does to Us

ESPN.com on Walter Payton--

They called him Sweetness, but Chicago Bears great Walter Payton had a dark side, according to a biography to be released Oct. 4.

An excerpt of Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton by Jeff Pearlman will appear in the Oct. 3 issue of Sports Illustrated and describes the Hall of Famer as suicidal, abusing pain medication and dealing with a crumbling family situation.

Payton, who retired as the then-all-time leading rusher in NFL history after the 1987 season, was depressed and suicidal in the mid-1990s. Pearlman cites a letter to a friend in which Payton said he imagined himself killing those around him and then turning a gun on himself.

"Walter would call me all the time saying he was about to kill himself, he was tired," Payton's longtime agent Bud Holmes said, according to SI.com. "He was angry. Nobody loved him. He wanted to be dead."

HT: Steve McCoy