He had told us he would be in Las Vegas for the ESPN NFL Player of the Decade Award. It was between Roger Staubach, Jerry Rice, and Walter Payton, so he wouldn’t be coming in that night. At 7pm, he came walking in…
“I missed my plane,” is all he said as he walked by us and headed upstairs to shoot pool.
At 10pm, ESPN announced the winner… NFL Player of the Decade, Walter Payton. We were all High Fiving each other and shouting… then it dawned on me… the only person who doesn’t know he won is Walter… he’s upstairs shooting pool.
So, I went up and told him he had won.
As he lined up his shot , he said, “That’s nice, but what is really important is dropping this 9 ball.”
After sinking the 9 ball he continued, “ It isn’t important what you did 10 or 15 years ago or even yesterday… the only thing that has matters is what you are going to do today and tomorrow.”