In the fall of nineteen ninety seven, Janeene Jefferson scored a pair of tickets to watch the NBA's Golden State Warriors play a home game at nearby Oakland Arena.

She invited her big brother, Reggie Payne to tag along.

Reggie was back in OpenD after having abruptly left Grambling State University, and his mood had been pretty.

Sour and his mental health cratering.

Perhaps it was the naive hope of a concerned sister, but Janeen thought the game might just maybe lift his spirits.

This was two decades before the Warriors would add future Hall of Famer Steph Curry and launch into the franchise's golden era.

At the time, they were bottom of the league junk pile that would wind up finishing nineteen and sixty three.

But even if he would be rooting on a roster of forgettable non legends like a Donal Foyle and Jeff Grayer, for Reggie sports was everything did harmlessly enough.

The crowd was into it.

The trials Spreewell, one of Golden seats few standouts, was putting up numbers and the rhythms of the game served as a soothing soundtrack for Reggie.

But then, just as he was easing into the actions before him, something snapped, and snapped hard.

Reggie began yelling at the players at the bench, at the coaches, at the refs.

His shouts grew in intensity, amplifying past the usual fan heckling.

They turned louder and darker and meaner.

So he was so charged up at the Warriors game he was like, you'll fucking.

This just going off streaming at the players.

At the players, of course, like you yell at the players at the game, but the bipolar it intensified at times.

Ten those sitting nearby inside the arena began to notice.

Then security.

Finally Janine had to pull Reggie out of the building.

We had to leave.

This was Reggie's new life.

One moment we're all good, the next we might be heading to jail.

A new, unrecognizable darkness was rising in him, and it were to only get worse.

This is Finding Sexy Sweat, a podcast where me, Jeff Pearlman, and my colleague Rick Jervis attempt to retrace the life of our longtime friend and fellow journalist Reggie Payne.

Better known by his rap name sexy sweat to.

Try and learn how our life paths differed so sharply and why Reggie met such an untimely death after being handcuffed on the living room floor of his parents' home in Sacramento.

This is episode four Homecoming.

If you've been following this podcast, you know that we've traced Reggie's steps from his upbringing in Oakland housing projects, through his glaring optimism and hope in high school and later at Grambling State University, to the realization that he was going to be a father of twenty two.

And this is when the Reggie we knew as a fellow journalism intern and doormay at Tennessee State University, the one who bounded around with optimism and swagger, the aspiring rapper, this is when he starts to be replaced by something much darker.

And the crazy thing is, we don't one hundred percent know what set it off.

It's impossible to say for sure.

Ask his family members, and they point to the time a group of Grambling football players allegedly jumped him at a party on campus.

Rick and I had trouble corroborating that story, but his family firmly believed Reggie's account of it.

That's when his behavior shifted drastically.

Even two thousand miles away, family members sensed Reggie's unraveling.

His phone calls home, once a source of delight for his parents and sisters, became increasingly moro's nonsensical.

He complained about people crawling on his roof or breaking into the Traylor where he lived off campus.

He claimed that someone had come into his trailer, opened a bag of potato chips, and then resealed it.

His words were panicky, breathless.

His sister Crystal recalled his erratic behavior when we met with the family in their Sacramento home.

He had started calling, but he'd be like, Crystal, where's Mama, And I'm like, she's not here.

He's like, tell I think somebody came on my trailer.

The phone calls came repeatedly, hour after hour, day after day, so like.

Over the course of maybe not even two weeks, he would call like Crystal, Mama, like no, she not hear this.

He's like all right, and then he a call right like look about this one.

I'm like, dude, why did you keep calling?

And it'll be like something else, like I think some about it was on my trailer roof, like like I'm matching the stuff.

Like I'll have Mama call when you get back.

After the barrage of panic's phone calls, his family had heard enough, especially Reggie's mom Harriet.

Like, Reggie, you need to get your behind home.

You come home now.

Reggie first tried going to the apartment of his girlfriend, Tia, but she was eagerly put off by his behavior and was busy caring for their son, Lil Reg who is then three.

She refused to let him into her apartment.

Ultimately, Reggie followed his mother's advice, packed his stuff and booked a one way Greyhound bus ticket to Oakland, the Grambling State campus, once radiating with friendships and promise, had turned into sneering shadows.

Reggie was thinking about the football team incident as he climbed on the bus that day.

Here's what he said in his memoir.

The days after my jumping, I was isolated, embarrassed, and lonely, which to this day I think played with my psyche.

Getting jumped or crowded as they say Louisiana on a black campus.

Dude, what did people think of me?

What could I do?

Get a gun and shoot up the football door.

No, that wouldn't be a wise decision.

I didn't know what to expect next.

I must say this somewhere close to Dallas, Texas, the satin, the rear of the greyhound.

I felt my head snap.

In the last episode we described where Reggie said happened on that greyhound bus, he literally felt his mind snap.

While working on this podcast, I've thought about that a decent amount.

You're at an age where you.

Think everything is going to go great and your life is ahead of you.

And here's Reggie and one second he's a new father and he has all these dreams of becoming a sports writer, and you know, the next minute, he's on a greyhound bus.

His brain feels like it's imploding.

He doesn't know what's going on with his kid, he doesn't know what's going out with Tea, and everything feels like it's collapsing.

Of all the lows he went through, that might be the lowest singular moment.

I had to be such a rough spot to like being.

I've had sort of mental anxiety.

I've had like anxiety attacks.

Like those things tended to happen to me later in life, like in my thirties maybe forties, and I feel like I guess I was better equipped to deal with them then.

I can't imagine being, you know, this twenty two to twenty four year old kid again, with your whole life in front of you, and then seeing all that collapse because of this thing happening.

It just must have been unbearable, really, Like if you think about it, he had already been home once.

Remember he had come home, he had taken some time off, then he came back to Grambling and he was determined to like get his degree and live out his actual dream.

And then this happens, and then this is much more significant.

This is a real sort of mental collapse at this point.

I mean, he didn't even know what was going on.

Like, so you're him, You already feel like a disappointment, and meanwhile you have these sort of undiagnosed mental health attacks and you know what it is.

You don't know how to deal with it.

You don't know what's up, what's down, what's left, what's right.

You feel like something's wrong with you.

You know that something's wrong with you, but you don't have the coping tools, the medication, therapy, anything to deal with it.

So you're just drowning and you're returning home.

Yeah, I must have been terrifying.

Reggie's time as a sports edit the Grambling Student newspaper suggested he had it all in front of him.

He was a gifted writer with a ton of talent and street smarts.

But now he was on a two day bus ride home.

When he got to Oakland, his family met him at the bus station.

And the person who walked off the bus left them stunned.

Usually, when Reggie came home on break from Grambling, it was a cause of celebration for his family and the Lockwood Village Projects in general.

Once they threw him an actual party, praising the local kid who was growing into a.

But in May nineteen ninety six, the family drove downtown to the Greyhound bus terminal and we're speechless at the regie who stepped off the bus.

When he got to the Greyhound bus station.

We were like what the He was like very thin.

It was like, okay, you was calling trip and we knew something wasn't right.

But he came home he was like a freaking skeleton.

I've had a bunch of homecomings with my kids by now I have two kids, and you always hope that wherever they're coming back from from camp or from college or some trip, you always hope that they're going to, you know, step off the plane or step off the bus or get out of the car, and they're going to look good and they're gonna be excited, and they're going to have this sort of pep in their step because they just had this adventure and they had this thing happened in their life.

And I think you you kind of think when your kid is coming back from college, it's going to be the same.

And even if you know that, you know there's it's not going great, you shoult of hope if nothing else, your kid gets off the bus and he's content and sound minded and at least feeling somewhat good about himself.

And that is definitely not what they got here.

Yeah, you only want the best for all your children, right, Like you're constantly trying to protect them.

You constantly want them to go through life in a healthy, sane way.

And here they are, you know, showing up to this Greyhound bus station and out comes this son of yours.

You're only an oldest son, and he's just a shut of himself, right, he just looks so different.

It's just a nightmare scenario for any parent.

They obviously knew heading to the bus station that something had been off, and they knew it hadn't been an easy road for him, but I think seeing him there in the flesh, it was just significantly worse than they.

Could have imagined.

You know one thing I think about as a parent that I don't think people realize until they become parents.

You would always rather it be you than them.

Like once you become a parent, you would always trade places with your kid and their misery.

Like if your kid breaks a leg and is really struggling.

I'm not even just making this up.

I'm sure you've seen it too, Like you'd rather you break your leg.

My kids, you know, there've been issues with whatever anxiety, and I'd rather that be me, Like and I'm sure Reggie's parents showing up with the bus station, they'd rather be them.

Like the last thing you want to see in the world, hands down, as a parent, is your kids hurting in such a profound, profound way.

And the worst bird is knowing there's really nothing you can do about it, that you are just there and your witness to it and your witness to your kid crumbling apart.

But there's nothing you can really do about it.

That is the worst freaking thing in the world.

And I've experienced it, and I'm sure you've experienced it too.

What is it like to watch some sort of unravel?

Oh, it's it's it's very hard.

It's heartbreaking, heart breaking.

It was bad days when you can't good damn.

But what does that what would a bad day look like like?

What does that mean?

Set out burst?

We got a good moments?

Good moment's good in the neighborhood.

Like some of the younger kids who used to like show his baseball cars to r to licrockers, so.

He would want to run down and light fight him, chase them.

They like Ridge.

It's me like they would never write him back, they would.

Never like seeing him up or nothing.

Everybody knew it wasn't the same Rede.

According to the family, Reggie moved back into his old room in their apartment at Lockwood Village, but he was a physical, mental, and emotional husk of his old self.

His girlfriend, Tia was back with their son in southern California, a seven hour drive south from Reggie's home in Oakland.

He was two classes Shy of graduating from Grambling, Reggie enrolled at the College of Alameda, just a few miles away from their apartment.

Six credits.

That's all he needed to get that coveted diploma to separate himself from the majority of the people growing up in the housing project where he lived.

Ambitions still flickered inside of.

Him, but his mind had other plans.

People in the neighborhood quickly noticed Reggie had been the crown prince of sixty nine Village, the superstar who elevated himself on pure street smarts, focus and talent, destined for greatness.

And now everybody was liked, like, you know, I'd come home as the music is this.

Time it was like having the reds, y'all like somebody.

That's what they say in the community.

It's just like, first of all, they go, they know he's on drugs.

This is around the time Reggie went to that disastrous Golden State Warriors game.

After that, Reggie's condition only grew worse.

A few days of normal, Reggie would be quickly followed by erratic behavior.

His family could no longer hope he'd just snap out of it.

They started considering seeking outside help.

He would walk around.

He would he would just walk around, like spitting on the floor.

That's not Reggie.

We already knew something's not right.

But we got him here and he's gonna be okay.

I'm all flattened, my gun up.

He's gonna be fine.

You know.

Then he's spitting on the floor.

No, we have to go somewhere.

Rig you have to get some help.

Do you think he knew when he was hong when he's spitting on the floor and all that stuff is going on, do you think he knew something was wrong with him?

Like was he aware that he something was broken in him?

I don't think he realized it, like this is not me, you know.

I think he felt like I'm still Reggie.

I'm still sexy, sweat, you know, still mean, because he would say, I'm not crazy.

Y'all'd have one crazy you know it ain't me.

So no, he didn't.

He didn't realize that was there, like mental health wise, sort of a low moment or an incident that you remember where you were like this has reached a point that is unsustainable.

It wasn't one particular moment.

He was just not himself no more.

How long a.

Pretty pretty quick, like maybe a couple of weeks.

I'm on the.

Table of the hall.

My mom sent me to the place I've always known as a crazy house.

Reggie's referring to the John George Psychiatric Hospital, an eighty bed impatient facility in nearby Alameda.

According to its website, John George is a quote world class patient and family center system of care affiliated with the University of California.

Our mission here at John George Psychiatric Hospital is simple but powerful, caring, healing, teaching, serving all.

But it wasn't a place without its challenges.

All sorts of patients showed up at the hospital, many in distress her dangerous states of mental anxiety.

In nineteen ninety eight, a year after Reggie's visit, California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health investigated John George after fielding complaints about violent workplace assaults, mostly patient's assaulting.

Staff.

Employee number one had calmed a male mental health patient and was walking away from him when he assaulted her from behind.

Alamna County Psychiatric Hospital Titan security Friday after a veteran doctor was killed on the job and a patient she had been evaluating was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Numerous other investigations and citations followed.

In two thousand and three, a patient attacked and killed one of the hospital's doctors during an examination.

But for his family, the hospital was an important, though difficult step toward getting Reggie better.

About a week after the ill fated Warriors game, Harriet drove Reggie to John George and had him admitted for inpatient treatment.

It's unknown for us decisely what Reggie saw or felt there, but we get a few clues from his book.

He starts chapter fifteen with the ominous line John George is not the place to be, trust me.

And he was diagnosed there for the first time.

Yeah, as bipowlar So we weren't able to find any records from Reggie's time at John George, but his family told us he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

He would go on to spend ten days at the hospital.

He was prescribed to medications navane and antipsychotic medication used to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia, and kogentin, then primarily prescribed with other medications to treat symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

But in this case to address movement problems that can arise as side effects from antipsychotic medications taken together.

Side effects can include confusion, hallucinations, drowsiness, and dry mouth.

Reggie's mother visited him every day at the hospital.

We would could sit in the TV row TV usually some sports or something.

I wouldn't say very long.

I think it was very short visits, you know.

I think John George was good for him and he got set.

Up with some good counselors.

Outside of that.

During his stay at the psychiatric hospital, Reggie also met a woman admitted for her own mental struggles.

The two of them connected, huddling in emotional sessions and opening up to one another.

Reggie later mentioned this woman to his family, telling them he had met this quote nice young lady who was having a hard time, and said he wished he could see her again, just to see how she was doing.

He never did, but whoever this person was, she left a lasting, searing impression on Reggie.

To that young lady, if you ever read this, I'll always remember us crying together, your beautiful soul.

I hope your life got better.

After ten days of John George, Reggie was released now armed with a diagnosis and medication to combat his paranoia and anxieties.

At first, he seemed much improved.

There were sparks of the old Reggie, cracking jokes, complaining about the Raiders quarterback flirting with pretty women as they stroll past his porch.

But the meds also took their toll, causing Reggie to be sluggish and mentally foggy.

His sexy, sweat, bravado, and wit had mostly vanished.

Like many people struggling with mental illness, Reggie's life became a battle between not wanting to over medicate or slipping back into symptoms if the meds were skipped.

That's when he came out of John George is that when he got the job at the newspaper not very long after, he never gave up.

He would always try to get a job.

He kept busy, kept doing something, kept doing something.

So after he got out of the hospital, Reggie was still determined to finish his degree and become a working journal and find a career for himself in this industry.

And I actually, looking back, I find it very very admirable.

I never faced any of those hardships.

And it's hard enough making it as a journalist.

And here's Reggie just busting his ass, busting his ass, everything falling apart around him, and he's still going for it.

It's very admirable.

I mean, at this point, he's still struggling with his mental illness.

He's still trying to go to therapy and taking medications, but he's also making this two mile commute across the Title Canal to actually attend classes at the College of a lot of media.

He's not giving up on his dream, and after a few months he actually gets it.

In late nineteen ninety seven, he started covering sports as a new reporter for the San Leandro Times, a daily newspaper in the Bay Area.

Reggie was psyched.

It had been a difficult journey, but here he was, at long last being paid to cover sports.

You'd write mainly about.

Local stuff, high school games, small colleges.

Reggie seemed to be back on track.

In his brief time at the newspaper, he was churning out regular copy and he relished being back in journalism.

This is what he was born to do and he.

Was doing it.

Sadly, it wouldn't last.

As his family leaves through Reggie's medical records and photos.

I asked them whether they ever got glimpses of the old Reggie after his stay at John George.

Oh, yeah, there would be moments.

There would be times when he's like.

Himself, but I'd to keep eye on that, never know when it's gonna change.

Nothing about this perspective to me, he never never been the same to me, not in one moment.

No, that's the only thing that gave me comfort in him not being here, because he's never been the same to me.

All accounts, Reggie's stay at John George helped him mentally, but the next two decades were a deepening struggle.

He was let go from the San Leandro Times, essentially bringing an end to his journalism career.

He started getting help at Turning Point Community Programs, a mental health treatment center, but he misvisits or common to angry and belligerent one visit, then calm and cooperative the next.

He struggled to find a job, surviving on disability benefits.

More meds were prescribed.

During one visit to Turning Point in September of twenty fifteen, his psychiatrist noted Reggie had been diagnosed as having schizo effective disorder a combination of schizophrenia and a moved disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder.

He told him he was bombarded at night by voices in his left ear, sometimes of black celebrities like R Kelly.

He admitted to smoking weed and drinking two to three beers a night before bed.

When asked if he'd ever had a head injury, Reggie recounted the time at Grambling he got jumped by a group of flayers.

Reggie swore by that incident, though Jeff and I had trouble confirming it through friends or former football players.

Reggie continued visiting Turning Point.

Things seemed to only get worse.

During another visit in August of twenty eighteen, he told the psychiatrist he sleeps only three to four hours a night, quote because of the voices in his head, and that he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital three times in recent months.

He rarely left his house.

The list of meds read like a pharmacy exam.

Clonazepam, thiophyxine, Abilify for panel law, Latuda, and prozac.

In other words, he was really struggling, truly.

He also was diagnosed with diabetes and began receiving dialysis.

The combination of bad physical and mental health overwhelmed Reggie.

His state of mind started to slide.

Right, if you were to surmise what he was like at his best compared to what he was like later on, Like how would you compare contrast who he was that week became It's.

Like you're locked in there so in your eyes sometimes I see you want to come out, but you can't.

So I know he struggled with like who I am?

And he said that a lot, like I'm a gregular man, I'm a writer.

You can't take that for me, like nobody wants to.

But he was so smart that he understood that, Like shit you thought.

I think that's what he struggled with, Like I want to be myself, but I think he realized that I am different.

Now, Like if you asked the question for the part of him to have realized he was different.

Did I have a weird question for him?

So, like emostionally in my curent about sports, right, and there's always something really haunt him about the athlete.

Who is supposed to be great and doesn't be hungry, and he's haunted his whole life by this everyone.

He was always the phenom in high school and he went to college and he threw ninety eight but then he blew out his arm and I was working it right or else To me in a way that feels like raggy, like gram Late, Holy shit, this guy's going to gram lay journalism, internship, freedom for them, all this stuff.

And it seems like it's really it just seems crushing.

He probably thought he was meant for something, ye or am I overstatedent?

No?

No, he was meant for greatness.

He was great.

He knew he was great, he knew he.

Was a ship.

That was a struggle, like not being able to get to that over that heel you right there, you right there, you teetering and you're teetering and then you just keep.

Yeah and then you see everyone else going on a way.

Yeah.

Did he talk about that about not being able to reach those heights and didn't work for Never?

Never just openly said, I mean most.

I heard about that is like he could have been young, Yeah, that could have been me.

What did he say about Puss.

I'm actually curious about when when he would talk about us to you all, like what he did.

He's just they're successful.

I mean, you talk about what you do, you know, and what Jeff does, and he wouldn't stay on.

It very long.

Well we knew that we do, but watching, yeah, and probably even afraid to like reach out to Jack.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, he didn't have anything great to tell you.

Voices in his head, paranoia, anxiety, insomnia, all of it would come roaring back, and this time it would lead him and his family to unthink about tragedy.

Next time on Finding Sexy Sweat, And then all of a.

Sudden, the music was playing and you'd get on the floor and you just starting.

To get hidi, and you could tell, and I could tell.

I'm like, you know, Rich, let's just, you know, let's go get.

Some fresh air because he's sweating at this point too.

Calm the fuck down.

If you don't comb your hair.

Still, I try to hold out, we can fix this, but then I see, no, m something's not right.

Finding Sexy Sweat is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.

This episode was reported, written and hosted by Jeff Pearlman and Rich Jervis, who was produced by Gabby Watts with production support from Etily's Prez Zaron Burnett is our story editor.

Jesse and Eiswanger scored and mixed the episode.

Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr.

Please leave the show a review and you can follow along with the show on Instagram at School of Humans.