George S. Halas Jr., The Man Called "Mugs"

Judging by the fierce reaction to this week's end-of-season press conference by Bears chairman George McCaskey and president Ted Phillips, the majority of fans are not convinced that these two have any idea how to lift their franchise out of mediocrity. Phillips is the only person not named Halas or McCaskey to hold the title of Bears president. During his 22-year tenure, the Bears have a .486 winning percentage and have played a total of nine postseason games, winning three.

 

GEORGE HALAS JR. and JIM FINKS.

When the legendary George Halas retired as head coach after the 1967 season, the Bears had an all-time winning percentage of .680 over 48 seasons and had won nine world championships. Only a few years later, at a Bears game in 1973, George Halas Jr. turned to his dad and said, "I am so sick of this!" By "this," the man known as Mugs meant the Bears' recent history of losing, which was about to extend to five consecutive sub-.500 seasons. (It was the first such streak of more than two years in franchise history.)

     In September 1974, the Halases did something about it. They hired the Bears' first general manager other than Papa Bear himself--and the man they chose for the job proved to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

     He was Jim Finks, who had just concluded a ten-year stint in a similar role with the Minnesota Vikings, which resulted in Super Bowl appearances after the 1969 and 1973 seasons and the NFL Executive of the Year award in 1973.

     The Bears opened the 1974 season two days after Finks was hired, with a team that did not yet have his fingerprints on it. They beat the Detroit Lions in the opener, but soon reverted to form and finished 4-10.
     Finks had spent the season evaluating the Bears' coaches and players, and he delivered his verdict shortly after clock ticked down on a season-ending 42-0 loss at Washington. Head coach Abe Gibron was sent packing, and so were a good many of his players. Jack Pardee took over as head coach, and Finks and his staff set about planning for the 1975 draft.
     The first player that Finks drafted for the Bears, with the fourth overall pick in 1975, was the immortal Walter Payton. Long-time starters Mike Hartenstine, Virgil Livers, Revie Sorey, and Bob Avellini also were products of that same draft.
     During his years with the Bears, Finks never missed on a first-round pick. After Payton, his other first-rounders were Dennis Lick, Ted Albrecht, Dan Hampton, Al Harris, Otis Wilson, and Keith Van Horne. He got future Hall of Famer Mike Singletary in the second round in 1981.        

     Finks was no longer employed by the Bears when his rebuilding project culminated in the 1985 world championship. He had resigned in 1982 after Papa Bear hired head coach Mike Ditka without consulting him. 

     

Sadly, neither George Halas Jr. nor his dad lived to see the Bears' resounding victory in the 1986 Super Bowl. Mugs passed away suddenly on the morning of December 16, 1979. He was only 54 years old. That afternoon, the Bears dedicated their game (the season finale) to Mugs and routed the St. Louis Cardinals 42-6 to make the playoffs for just the second time since the 1963 championship.

     George Halas Jr. had been groomed for his whole life to take over the Bears some day. If he had survived his dad, who passed away on Halloween in 1983 at age 88, Mugs would have taken control of the franchise and eventually passed it on to his children, Christine and Stephen. In that case, Mugs's sister and brother-in-law, Virginia and Ed McCaskey--along with their ten children and 21 grandchildren--would have been stockholders but would not have been running the show all these years.

     It's only fair to wonder how different the Bears' recent history might have been. 

 

 

 Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.

 

Worth a Thousand Words: Halas and Lombardi

When the Bears defeated the New York Giants in the 1963 NFL championship game, it marked a brief interruption of the league’s dominance by Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers, who won the title in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1967.      

     It had been 17 years since the Bears’ last championship. “I have waited a long time,” said head coach George Halas. “I guess today’s game proves that if you live long enough, everything nice you want to happen, will happen.” 

     Papa Bear was asked if he planned to retire, now that the monkey was off his back. “I guess I will have to hang on,” he replied. “Where could a 68-year-old find another job?” 

 

 

GEORGE HALAS and VINCE LOMBARDI.

  

 

 Halas finally did retire on May 27, 1968. He had played with the Bears for 10 years (1920-1929). He had been their head coach for 40 years (four periods of 10 years each, beginning in 1920, 1933, 1946, and 1958). He had won 324 games—95 more than Curly Lambeau, who ranked second at the time—and compiled a winning percentage of .671. He had won eight championships. (The Bears have captured one title in the subsequent 53 seasons.) 

When Halas retired, a man who belonged with him on the Mount Rushmore of pro football coaches paid his fierce rival and dear friend a touching compliment. “There is only one man I embrace when we meet,” said Lombardi, “and only one I call ‘Coach’—George Halas.”

 

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.

Ditka Makes the Play of His Life

 

On November 24, 1963, the Bears went into Pittsburgh for a crucial game against the Steelers. The Bears held a narrow lead in the Western Division over the NFL’s two-time defending champions, the Green Bay Packers, whom they had soundly beaten the week before. At 9-1, they were poised for a run at their first championship in 17 years. What should have been a thrilling time for the Bears and their fans, however, had been marred by a stunning tragedy—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy less than 48 hours before the Bears were scheduled to play Pittsburgh. 

Despite suggestions that he do so, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle chose not to postpone that weekend’s games. “Everyone has a different way of paying respects,” he said on Sunday. “I went to church today, and I imagine many of the people at the games did, too. I cannot feel that playing the games was disrespectful nor can I feel that I have made a mistake.” Later, though, Rozelle called the decision the worst mistake of his life.

The Bears-Steelers game, like all those in the league that day, would be played in a virtual vacuum, since all television and radio coverage was focused on the nation’s mourning of the late President. The Bears were tuned in along with millions of their fellow citizens when news came that the President’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had himself been shot to death in the Dallas police headquarters. In the locker room at Forbes Field, coach George Halas ordered the radio switched off and implored his players to concentrate on the game at hand.

MIKE DITKA

 

The Steelers came into the game 6-3-1, and still had a slim chance to win the Eastern Division and with it a berth in the NFL championship game. It was a must game for both teams, and they played like it. The sellout crowd of 36,465 was treated to a tough, seesaw battle. The teams traded touchdowns in the first half and went into halftime tied 14-14. The third quarter was scoreless, thanks to two missed field-goal attempts by Pittsburgh’s Lou Michaels. Finally, Michaels connected from 11 yards out to give the Steelers a 17-14 lead early in the fourth quarter. Charlie Bivins’s fumble of the ensuing kickoff was recovered by Pittsburgh on the Chicago 12-yard line, apparently dooming the Bears—but the Steelers were called for offsides on the play.

The Bears got another chance. With less than five minutes remaining, though, they found themselves with a second-and-36 from their own 22-yard line. By now they knew that the Packers had beaten the 49ers 28-10 in Milwaukee. A loss would drop the Bears into a first-place tie with the defending champs.

The Bears’ leading ground gainers, Joe Marconi and Willie Galimore, were being shut down; they would combine for fewer than 90 yards all day. Quarterback Bill Wade was thus forced to go to the air, and he had been intercepted three times already. “Throw the ball to me,” Mike Ditka told Wade in the huddle, “and I’ll try to run with it.” The Bears’ tight end ran a hook pattern, and Wade hit him about five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. The first Steeler to hit Ditka, defensive back Clendon Thomas, was also the one who brought him down—63 yards downfield from their initial point of contact. In between, Ditka literally ran over almost every defender on the field. At midfield, three Steelers converged from different angles, all hitting Ditka simultaneously. Only Ditka was on his feet after the collision, still charging toward the goal line. Thomas eventually wrestled him down at the Pittsburgh 15. “I lost my legs,” Ditka said after the game, unhappy that he hadn’t gone all the way. “They were completely dead. I had just run pass patterns on the three previous plays, and suddenly I found myself in the clear with the ball. I kept looking for somebody to lateral to, but nobody showed up.”

Ditka needn’t have apologized. “One of the greatest individual efforts I have seen in 40 years of football,” said Halas. “They had him stopped a half dozen times, but his feet never stopped churning.” The play, which became a staple of NFL Films highlight reels, set up the field goal by Roger Leclerc that gave the Bears a hard-earned 17-17 tie and kept them in first place.

The Bears won two and tied one of their three remaining regular-season games to finish at 11-1-2, an eyelash ahead of Green Bay's 11-2-1 for the Western Division title. On December 29, the Bears defeated the New York Giants for the world championship--which remains to this day one of only two they have captured since 1946.

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.    

Worth a Thousand Words: A Trio of Immortals, 1965

It has often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. We're going to try to prove that from time to time by presenting an indelible image and not beating it to death with too much verbiage. 

     The photograph below shows Bears head coach George Halas with his two prize rookies, running back Gale Sayers and linebacker Dick Butkus, in 1965. (Has any team in the history of professional sports ever had two more impactful rookies in the same year? Discuss amongst yourselves.)

 

 

There are Hall of Famers--and then there are the true immortals, for whom the term "Hall of Famer" doesn't quite go far enough. The three men in the photo belong in the latter category.

 

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.