Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl

Former Bears Coach Mike Ditka left no doubt about how he’d treat the writer of a new tell-all book about the secret life of Walter Payton.

“I’d spit on him,” the coach said in an exclusive interview with NBC Chicago. “I have no respect for him.”

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The book, The Hero No One Knew, posits the idea that Payton took drugs, had extramarital affairs and often contemplated suicide.

“Pathetic. Despicable. It serves no purpose,” Ditka said.

He said Pearlman’s reporting shouldn’t be trusted and the writing was likely motivated by money.

“People will buy it,” Ditka said.

Pearlman writes that Payton wasn’t just the smiling, hard-working, jokester who was beloved in Chicago. He was also prone to huge mood swings, and popped painkillers like they were candy. His Hall of Fame Enshrinement weekend was far from the joyous experience it should have been as Payton tried to keep his wife and his longtime mistress from meeting each other.

“When we present people as a sort of athletic cliché, and this golden guy who had no flaws whatsoever, I think we do people a disservice. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with knowing that a person was flawed.  I don’t think anything is wrong with knowing that a guy suffered through severe depression after his playing career was over, after he spent 13 years brutalizing his body… and living and dying with football and then it all of a sudden comes to an end and he doesn’t know what to do with his life,” Pearlman told NBC Chicago on Wednesday.

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WRITTEN BY ANDREW GREINER AND JEFF GOLDBLATT & FULL STORY HERE