Gale Sayers, who passed away today, is one of the few Chicago athletes of our time who can be called a legend without any exaggeration. He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer despite playing only 68 games in the NFL (at age 34, he was the youngest man ever inducted). He was a first-team All-Pro five times. He was named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary team at both running back and kick returner (he was the only player honored at two positions). He is linked in our collective memory to linebacker Dick Butkus (another legend), with whom he joined the Bears in 1965, and with running back Brian Piccolo, with whom he was best friends until the latter's untimely demise. After his playing days, he found success in a variety of fields.
On the football field, Sayers's greatest performance was his phenomenal six-touchdown game at Wrigley Field in 1965. We remember that game below.
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| GALE SAYERS |
A steady
rain turned Wrigley Field into a virtual swamp for the Bears-49ers game of
December 12, 1965. Like all of his fellow players, the Bears’ sensational
rookie Gale Sayers was concerned about the conditions. “It was a rainy, muddy
day and I actually didn’t like playing in that kind of weather,” he recalled.
“So many things can happen; you can slip, pull a muscle, tear a hamstring.”
It wouldn’t
have been surprising if the sloppy footing had neutralized Sayers more than
anyone else, for speed and agility were his chief weapons. But Sayers ran wild.
First he caught a screen pass from Rudy Bukich, and romped 80 yards for a
touchdown. Then he ran 21 yards from scrimmage for a second touchdown. He
scored again on a seven-yard run from scrimmage.
Next, Sayers
took a handoff and zigged and zagged his way 50 yards for yet another
touchdown. It appeared that he alone was playing on a dry field, while 21 other
men slipped and slid around him.
His fifth
touchdown came on a straightforward plunge from one yard out.
Sayers saved
his most spectacular play of the day for last. Fielding a San Francisco punt at his own 15-yard line,
he made a dazzling move against the grain, leaving his would-be tacklers
stupefied. He went 85 yards to the end zone, and was all by himself after
passing the midfield stripe.
With this
sixth touchdown, Sayers equaled the single-game record. It was his 21st of the
season, also a record at the time. He might have scored once more, but he
slipped (finally) making one of his patented cuts on a punt return—after he’d
already gone 32 yards. “The way things were going,” Sayers recalled years
later, “I probably could have scored eight touchdowns that day. But back then
no one cared about records. I didn’t even know I’d tied the six-touchdown
record until after the ballgame.”
The final
score was 61-20. The man known as the Kansas Comet amassed 336 total yards for
the day—with 113 yards on nine rushes (an average of 12.5 per carry!), 134
yards on punt returns, and 89 yards on two pass receptions. “I never saw such a
thing in my life!” said Bears coach George Halas. It was fitting that the
greatest single-game performance by a rookie in NFL history had come from the
man who was in the midst of the greatest rookie season in NFL history.
San Francisco defensive back George Donnelly offered an apt description of Sayers’s elusiveness in the open field:
“He looks no different than any other runner when he’s coming at you, but when
he gets there he’s gone.”
For the
Bears, just two years removed from their most recent championship, the future
looked bright with Sayers and another rookie, middle linebacker Dick Butkus, destined
to rank among the greatest players of all time. Regrettably, knee injuries
drove both players into premature retirement, and a succession of losing
seasons followed. It would be 10 years before the Bears found a player of
similar stature, Walter Payton, and 10 more before they again wore the crown.
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Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.
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