Somebody stated these comments about Walter Payton:

"Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a chronic liver disease caused by progressive inflammation and scarring of the bile ducts of the liver, just in case you wanted to know. I fully believe he abused steroids for over a decade (had all the signs), lived under the radar with God knows who, and shot a man late one night in his Schaumburg bar after the bar had closed."

My question is: have u ever heard these comments about Walter Payton?

Graycap23 said:

I never heard any negative shit about Sweetness. Then again, I never heard bad things about Kirby Puckett either. It turned out he had a dark side too.

Graycap23 said:

Terry Bradshaw said something about steroids to the effect that everyone did it & nobody asked questions.

It has been 10 years since Sweetness left us, darn shame. One of the greatest football players (in my era) to ever play the game.

Now, on to this story. During Walter's last few days, people were running off at the mouth, like people always do, saying that he had used roids, but there was never any proof. Walter's doctor even came out and crushed those lies. The rare liver disease affects just three in 100,000 people. The cause of the disease, which blocks the bile ducts, is unknown, but isn't related to alcohol, steroids, hepatitis or immune deficiency, Walter's doctor stated.

The thing is, we will never know the truth. And like NDRU, using Terry Bradshaw's quote about steroids, in the 70s that was probably the thing to do and nobody ever really thought about the side effects, who the heck knew? Football players back in those days played hard we know that they did other things on the side. But with Walter, who knows. But I doubt it.

http://sportsillustrated....ton_liver/

JellyBean said:

That shit still breaks my heart. Sweetness was one of my sports heroes.

JellyBean said:

true, and Terry was pre-Walter, the point is that a lot of guys did stuff that they might be judged for today, but those were different times. Personally I don't care if they did steroids. I care if modern players do, because supposedly it's not allowed, so if they use them they are consciously cheating.

JellyBean said:

I saw that press conference live and I remember saying, "Where is Walter?" and he was the "old" man sitting there. That was a mind blower.....I still can't believe that moment.

Walter Payton made me a football fan. I remember watching his training vids with him running the banks of the Mississippi during the offseason. The guy was a health freak, so the the notion of Sweetness doing steroids seems really like a flat out lie.

The 1970s were full of various forms of substance abuse by athletes across the board, but Sweetness seems to be the exception to this rule, but who knows?

JellyBean said:

Allow me to add. Mr. Payton has some symptoms and wasn't feeling up to par and choose to ignore it... like so many men do. It was reported at the time if he had gone in ealier, he probably would have been a candidate for a liver transplant. Since he waited the cancer moved to the bile duct.