AURORA, Ill., March 29 (UPI) -- Thieves took what they thought was the Super Bowl XX ring of late Chicago Bear great and prankster Walter Payton but got only a replica, a report said.
The copy of the 1986 Super Bowl prize was stolen Monday, when thieves smashed a display at Walter Payton's Roundhouse Complex in Aurora, Ill.
Roundhouse owner and co-founder Scott Asher was incensed.
"You're stealing from the memory of Walter," Ascher told the Elgin (Ill.) Courier News.
But even Ascher didn't know until November that the ring Payton had always told him was real was, in fact, a copy.
Ascher got the truth from former teammate Matt Suhey.
Payton, known as Sweetness, was fond of practical jokes and pranks.
It turns out Payton's real ring has been with his wife since 2002, when it was found in a couch belonging to a basketball player who lost it in the early 1990s.
At the time, Payton consoled the player in saying the lost ring was only a replica.
