Never Die Easy!

[640 words] Walter Payton ranks second on the National Football League’s list of all-time leaders in rushing yards. Through 13 seasons as a Chicago Bear Payton was tackled and knocked down thousands of times. He built an extraordinary career, not by getting knocked down, but by not staying down! He was knocked down a final time when he died on November 1, 1999 of a rare autoimmune liver disease, a few months over 45 years old. Payton had a motto in life—“Never Die Easy”—which he attributed to Bob Hill, his coach at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. In practice, this meant that Payton refused to deliberately run out of bounds and always sought to resist would-be-tacklers instead of going down or giving in without a fight. Never Die Easy is also the title of Payton’s posthumously published autobiography. The words “never die easy” and the approach to life they…