With the Chicago Bears on a bye this week, I wanted to take some time to write about a Bears legend, an Illinois sports icon, and my first favorite football player… Hall of Fame linebacker Dick Butkus, who passed away at the age of 80 on this date only two years ago.
Now the first thing I should note is that I’m 33 years old, which means I not only missed the 1985 Bears by six full years, but also that I missed the final season of Dick Butkus’ career by nearly two full decades. Therefore, if you were asking yourself how Butkus managed to become the favorite player of a then-seven-year-old, you should know that I don’t consider that to be an unreasonable inquiry.
Here’s the easiest way I could explain it… born to a lifelong Chicago Bears fan and a lifelong New York Jets fan, I was bound to end up supporting of one of these two tortured franchises. In the end, my Dad won out, and from the time I was a baby, I was constantly decked out in Bears gear.
But as any Bears fan knows, the nineties weren’t the best decade for the Monsters of the Midway, especially coming off of the eighties, when Chicago was one of the league’s most successful franchises, with a Super Bowl title and multiple NFC Championship Game appearances to their name.
Therefore, without one present-day Bear I could really get behind as a kid in the late-nineties, I ended up utilizing NFL Films VHS tapes to find my first favorite football player, and let me tell you, as someone who has always had an interest in both football and history, I grew up feeling like NFL Films was made specifically for me.
And let me tell you one more thing, the absolute best NFL films segments centered on Richard Marvin Butkus…
I always thought this made me somewhat of an abnormal young football fan. While most young fans nowadays seem to gravitate toward the offensive players with the most exciting highlight reels, I was drawn to someone totally different. My guy was the angry, muddy, grunting and growling linebacker who embodied the Monsters of the Midway mantra one borderline dirty hit at a time.
Interestingly though, it turns out I wasn’t the only football fan out there who was impacted by the way NFL Films memorialized this gridiron legend.
The Hall of Fame Career of Dick Butkus
Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1942, Butkus ended up as a two-way standout at the University of Illinois, playing both center and middle linebacker for a Fighting Illini program that won the Rose Bowl in 1963. Butkus was twice named an All-American and earned Big Ten Player of the Year honors as well, and 20 years after he played his last down for the Illini, college football’s annual award given to the nation’s best linebacker was named after Dick Butkus.
The Chicago Bears ended up selecting Butkus with the 3rd overall pick in the 1965 NFL Draft — get this, the Bears took Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers just one pick later — giving the hometown kid a chance to live out his pro football dreams in his own backyard.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason why Butkus played the game with such a violent streak. He took it personally when opposing offenses had success against his defense and his city. And make no mistake, no player has personified the city of Chicago quite like Dick Butkus. In the City of Big Shoulders, no one’s shoulders have inflicted more pain than Butkus’, and yes, for the record, he used his fingers, hands, forearms, elbows and even teeth to inflict plenty of pain too.
Although the punishment that Butkus dished out is what he’s most often remembered for, he was also a remarkably skilled linebacker who had a nose for the ball. As a rookie, Butkus picked off five passes, recovered six fumbles and forced another six fumbles. By the time his career ended, Butkus had accumulated 22 interceptions and 27 fumble recoveries.
What’s maybe most amazing about Dick Butkus is that he achieved this reputation despite playing only nine seasons in the league. Chicago’s record during those nine years was 48-74-4, but everyone around the NFL recognized that he was maybe the league’s best player for much of that entire stretch. In fact, in 1970, a panel of NFL coaches named Butkus the player they would want to start a team with.
It should come as no surprise that Butkus was a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 1979, and he’s been named to every all-time team that has been formed since his retirement. In 2010, he was named the 10th greatest player in league history in the NFL Network’s The Top 100 special, and when the league’s 100th anniversary team was announced in 2019, Butkus was predictably one of the selections.
Dick Butkus’ Final Appearance at Soldier Field
In a somewhat strange twist, I was actually present for Dick Butkus’ final appearance at Soldier Field. On the opening Sunday of the 2023 NFL season, myself, my then-girlfriend now fiancee, and my parents made the trip to Chicago to see the Bears at Soldier Field for the very first time. The game itself is one I’d like to forget about… Chicago lost 38-20 to those damn cheeseheads who play in Green Bay. However, the halftime festivities are what I’ll remember forever.
Because it was opening day in Chicago, the Bears brought out the legends at numerous legends from the franchise’s past to be honored at halftime. In total, there had to be about 50 former players who made their return to Soldier Field on that beautiful Sunday afternoon.
The final player announced was Butkus, and understandably, it was Butkus who got the loudest, longest and most sincere applause from all 60,000-plus fans in the crowd, myself and my Dad included. For both of us, he played a role in why we fell in love with the game of football and why we fell in love with the Chicago Bears. And sadly, less than one month later, he was gone.
The phrase ‘gone but not forgotten’ is often used to describe someone after they’ve passed away, but in Dick Butkus’ case, that’s indisputably true. You can’t possibly think about Chicago Bears football without seeing the eyes of a madman standing over center, putting the fear of God into opposing quarterbacks. With 100 years of football in the books, few players have possessed the combination of skill, stature and standing within their city that Butkus did.
“Some people were made to be doctors, others to be lawyers. I was made to play football,” Butkus once said.
More specifically, Dick Butkus was born to play football for the Chicago Bears.
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