Mike Ditka: 'I'd spit on' author of Walter Payton book

Mike Ditka is outraged by what's been written about Walter Payton

The backlash to Jeff Pearlman's book on Walter Payton continues to mount, and Mike Ditka is leading the charge. The former Bears coach says of Pearlman, "I'd spit on him. I have no respect for him."

There have been other similar reactions to Pearlman's Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton since an excerpt went online this week at SI.com. The book will be released Oct. 4, and in it Pearlman quotes Payton's agent Bud Holmes and others while detailing the NFL Hall of Famer's alleged abuse of pain-killers and laughing gas.

Pearlman also reports Payton had a longtime mistress, and that he often contemplated suicide after retiring. Payton died in 1999, at the age of 45.

"Pathetic. Despicable. It serves no purpose," Ditka told NBC Chicago.

In another interview, with ESPN 1000 in Chicago, Ditka said, "What's the point? What's the point? The point is one thing only -- to sell books. That's all it's about. It's a bunch of crap, first of all."

In particular, Ditka took issue with dredging up this side of Payton's life so long after he died from cancer and liver problems.

"If you're going to wait 12 years after somebody's passed, come on," Ditka said. "This is the sign of a gutless individual who would do this. Totally gutless who would hide behind that, and that's what he's done."

Ditka added that, "I have a lot of questions about the authenticity of the book."

Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera, who was Payton's teammate on the Bears, also told ESPN 1000 that, "It's unfortunate somebody wrote a book and throws that kind of light on somebody who's not here to defend himself . . . I think it's a shame."

Pearlman has been defending his work on his Twitter page, where his main message has been to ask people to read the entire book before judging it. He elaborated on that in a blog post, writing, in part:

"This will come off as a money play, so let me put that to rest: Go to the library. Skim at the book shop. Borrow from a friend. I don't care how you read Sweetness, but if you're someone screaming and yelling, 'How dare you! How dare you!' I encourage you to take in 460 pages, not seven."