The Chicago Bears’ plan to relocate to Northwest Indiana just doesn’t sit right with Delores Davis and Gwen Williams, both lifelong North Siders.
“How’s that going to sound? Indiana Bears… it doesn’t sound right,” said Williams, 72.
“No, no, hell to the no, I’m done,” said Davis, 67, who also didn’t like the idea of the Bears moving to Arlington Heights.
“Chicago needs to keep Chicago in Chicago. That’s what makes Chicago,” Davis said. “They want to go to the suburbs, but we don’t want that. We want them right in Chicago so we can get over there and see them.”
The Bears announced Friday that the team’s board of directors voted a day earlier to advance their plans to build a stadium in Hammond, Indiana.
Bears fans who gathered Friday around the football team’s original Chicago home — Wrigley Field — had mixed feelings about the potential move. Those who live in Chicago fumed, while most fans from Indiana celebrated the team’s announcement.
Terrance Weems, 53, from Gary, Indiana, went to Friday’s Cubs game with a group of friends, all of whom live in Indiana and are “very happy.” The Bears announcement was the hot topic on their bus ride to the game.
“I think the thing that people are misunderstanding is feeling that Chicago is gonna be losing something. It’s not about the loss. Northwest Indiana has been part of Chicago forever,” Weems said. “Nothing’s changing as far as how Northwest Indiana and Chicago relate.”
While Weems acknowledged, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said he thinks the Indiana government has done a better job fiscally to welcome the Bears than the Illinois government has. He also pointed to the recent South Shore Line commuter rail extension to Hammond that could accommodate fans from Chicago.
“It’s not going to be very difficult at all,” he said, of Illinois residents commuting to games.
From his home in Gary, a trip to Soldier Field takes, depending on traffic, as quick as 30 minutes. A stadium in Hammond would be about the same travel time.
Meanwhile, in Hammond just hours after the news broke, Secundino “Dino” Dvojacki put on his Chicago Bears jersey, hat and other gear … along with his entire family … and headed down to the potential site of the future stadium at Wolf Lake to take photos.
“I watched the Bears win the Super Bowl in 1985. I think it’s a great opportunity for the region,” the 64-year-old Dvojacki who lives just a few blocks from where the Bears could build their new domed stadium.
“ I know our mayor (Tom McDermott, Jr.) fought tooth and nail to get it,” Dvojacki said. “It would have been nice in Chicago, because that’s where we normally go see them. However, you couldn’t beat the deal they were offered from Indiana. Indiana came up with a deal within a matter of weeks.”
Earlier this year, Indiana lawmakers sweetened the deal for the Bears to move there with taxpayer-backed financing and tax breaks for the team.
While Thursday’s move is not the final decision, Dvojacki’s 29-year-old daughter Melissa said she was hopeful the area, which historically has been home to heavy industry, would develop more thanks to the Bears.
“I think we really deserve it. A lot of people have been talking crap saying the Bears shouldn’t come to Hammond because this is Indiana,” Melissa Dvojacki said. “But if we’re really thinking about it, Hammond is more Chicago than Arlington Heights is. I feel like we really embody everything the Bears stand for. You know, we’re full of grit, we’re hardworking, we’re resilient. I think that’s everything that the Bears franchise is trying to embody. So, I’m excited. And you can see the (Chicago) skyline from right here.”
A short distance away at the Sunrise Restaurant in nearby Whiting, Alberto Diaz was having lunch with his brother and had mixed feelings.
“I was born in Chicago. I’m a little heartbroken about the news. I was hoping to see the Bears win a championship for Chicago at least one more time,” the 43-year-old Diaz said.
Eloy Salgado, 26, of Chicago’s East Side, said the Bears need to stay in Illinois.
I honestly think that they should stick to Chicago, because its the Chicago Bears, not the East Chicago Bears,” Salgado said while having lunch less than a mile from the possible location for the stadium. “I mean I like Hammond. I think it’s great, but let’s keep the Bears in Chicago.”
Back in Wrigleyville, Lance Bonham, who was born in Chicago but now lives in Louisiana, said, “the business is going to do whatever is the most lucrative for them business-wise.”
“The Bears are a Chicago team, I think they should stay in Chicago, but I do think they need a new stadium and I think Chicago as a city should support that,” Bonham said. “If it goes to another local subdivision, maybe, but Chicago needs to participate a little bit more in their athletic teams otherwise they’re gonna lose them.”
“The only thing to blame is the economy, and cities, counties, states not looking forward, saying what are we going to do in five, 10, 15 years,” Bonham said.
Still, for most Chicagoans, a move to Indiana is less about the logistics and more a matter of civic principle.
“Stay home,” is Nik Sabbatino’s simple message to Bears ownership.
“Some kind of renovation at least or a new stadium within city limits,” said Sabbatino, from the West Loop. “Arlington Heights is fine, it’s better than Indiana. It’s not Indiana’s team, it’s Illinois’ team.”
Elizabeth Lucas, 52, a lifelong Bears fan from Iowa who now lives in Idaho, said the Bears moving to Indiana would make her less of a fan.
She’s been to Soldier Field for Bears games. But would she go to Hammond?
“If it was a free ticket,” Lucas said.
“Do not leave Chicago. This is the Chicago Bears, not the Indiana Bears,” Lucas said.
“I think that the [Illinois] legislature as well as the McCaskey family, the board of directors for the Bears, they all need to be working on this to make it happen,” Lucas added. “There’s got to be compromise. You’re telling me in the entire Chicagoland area, there’s not a single location that they can find a mutual agreement to be able to have a stadium and we have to go out of state? I don’t buy it.”