Who: Walter Payton’s longtime agent
Worthwhile links:
http://southwesterninternshipexperience.com/2011/04/bud-holmes-encouraging-my-daughter-succeed-on-her-own/
http://www.peekyou.com/bud_holmes
Breakdown: Coming out of Jackson State in 1975, Walter Payton struggled to find representation. At the time, many white agents stuck with white ballplayers (especially in the south), and the Jackson State campus was hardly crawling with top-flight representation.
Bob Hill, Jackson State’s coach, introduced Payton to Holmes, a Hattiesburg, Mississippi-based attorney who represented Ray Guy, the former Southern Miss punter who had been drafted by the Oakland Raiders. Payton had never met anyone like Holmes—a white man who felt at ease and natural with African-Americans. He agreed to have Holmes serve as his agent, and the two were together for all of Payton’s career.
Pearlman’s take: A person could easily go 200 lives and never meet someone like Bud Holmes. Walter’s former agent invited me to his home in Petal, Mississippi, where we sat and talked for hours upon hours. Like Walter 3 ½ decades earlier, I’d never met anyone like Holmes. He is a man who uses the N-word regularly, yet is beloved and trusted by African-Americans. He is a man who questions many of the changes brought about by integration, yet also believes in the righteousness of progress. He was, by almost all accounts, a fantastic agent—underestimated as a so-called southern bumpkin, yet as smart and keen as they come.
From Sweetness: Over the course of the next few days, Holmes never heard from Payton.
Then, on a late Friday evening, the phone rang. It was Walter. “Bud, I’m confused,” he said in a panic. “I’m at the airport and I have to go up to Chicago for a press conference, and I don’t know what to do.”
Holmes was furious. “OK, Walter, do you have something to write with?” he said.
“Yeah,” Payton said. “I’ve got a pen.”
“Here’s what you do,” Holmes said. “You get on an airplane and you fly to Chicago. As soon as you get off the plane, go to a phone booth.”
“OK,” Payton said. “Got it.”
“Good,” Holmes said. “Now, in that phone booth they’ll have the newest Yellow Pages. Open the book and look under ‘Attorneys.’ It’s spelled A-T-T-O-R-N-E-Y-S. Got it?”
“Yeah,” said Payton. “I got it.”
“Great,” Holmes said. “Get yourself one, because you’re gonna need a crazy son of a bitch to represent you. I don’t fool with crazy bastards like you.”
Payton stuttered and stammered. Holmes didn’t. “I ain’t heard a word from you, and I do not beg,” he said. “To hell with your flight. If you’re not here in my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning— and I don’t mean ten-oh-one—you can get someone else to represent you. Because I’m not putting up with this bullshit.”
Never mind that the Bears had planned an entire trip in his honor—Payton left the airport in Jackson. “The team sent me to pick him up at the terminal in Chicago,” said Pat McCaskey, a public relations assistant with the team and the grandson of George Halas, the Bears’ owner. “I waited and waited at the gate. No Walter.” The following morning, Holmes arrived at his Hattiesburg- based offi ce at seven o’clock, and found Payton standing by the entrance. Holmes brushed past him without saying a word. His secretary rang him moments later. “Walter Payton is here,” she said. “He said he has an appointment.”
“He does,” Holmes replied. “But it’s at ten. Tell him to come back then.”
When Payton returned, Holmes gave him one of the great tongue lashings of his young life. “Walter,” he said, “we can start over or we can just put an end to this thing. If you can’t communicate better than that, we have no future together, because I don’t put up with bullshit. And what you did to me was pure bullshit.”
Payton apologized, and promised Holmes he was done acting like a juvenile. “You’re my agent,” he said. “I trust you. You tell me what to do, I’ll do it.”