by Rich Cohen
Baschnagel was hinting at one of the difficulties of NFL life: the danger and misery of reentry, the way you go from a world of hotels and motorcades and never having to plan or think, because it’s all been taken care of, to the world occupied by the rest of us. Just like that, you’ve passed through the tunnel and find yourself back on the street in a crowd of nobodies, and it’s 5:00 p.m., and it’s Sunday, and it’s November, and it looks like rain.
The president met with Ditka—Ditka, a Republican, who, once upon a time, toyed with running for the open Senate seat that made everything else possible for Obama. In the end, even Ditka seemed to realize he did not have a senatorial temperament—perhaps if he’d run in the 1850s, when politicians filled spittoons and beat each other with canes.
The players were taken on a White House tour, through checkpoints, in and out of libraries and storied rooms. “I actually had one of the cops cuff me as we were going through,” said McMahon. “I said, ‘Dude, cuff me. They’ll think it’s old times.’ It was just like we were back in the locker room, and it was yesterday. But a couple guys looked like they’re getting around a little slower than they used to. Shit, we’re all … if we’re not over fifty, we’re damn near close!”
President Obama came out of a meeting to talk to the players, joke with his friends, tell stories. He was a fan. It was real. You could tell. He grabbed a defensive end by the cuff and said, Remember how…, his eyes wide as he listened. “He couldn’t have been more welcoming,” Baschnagel said. “He was genuinely excited.” Obama later said it was “as much fun as I will have as president of the United States.”
* * *
As soon as the White House visit was announced, I started making plans. How often do you get to see the team of teams together again a quarter of a century later? I stood behind a rope line amid reporters, most of them from Chicago newspapers. There were a few national television correspondents. Several Bears fans who worked on Capitol Hill had bluffed their way in. I got my pass with the help of Jake Tapper, a friend, who was covering the event for ABC. The back steps of the White House were on one side of us, the Mall rolled away on the other. Jake told me that this is where President Kennedy met the survivors of the Bay of Pigs invasion after they were released from Castro’s prisons.
There was a flurry of energy, a stir of Secret Service, then the players came out of the White House and filled a riser behind the presidential podium. They arranged themselves as they had been arranged for the team photo before the 1985 season. If you hold that picture beside the one taken at the White House, you see coaches and players but you also see time. McMahon was in front—just as he’d been then. He was bald in a blue sport coat, goateed, grinning, wearing a headband. Once everyone was settled, President Obama walked to the dais, flanked by Ditka and Ryan, who looked especially woebegone. It was said he had cancer; you will probably not read his name again until it’s in an obituary. “A great thing happened at the White House,” Ken Taylor, who played special teams in 1985, told me. “Despite all that had happened, Mike Ditka made sure Buddy Ryan was with him when we came out with the president. We all came out first, then the president usually comes out with the head coach. I was standing next to Mike and I heard him say, ‘No, no, no, I want Buddy with me. We’re coming out together.’ I was like, holy, holy. It’s just perspective. Time. Mike realized he didn’t win without Buddy and Buddy didn’t win without Mike. But together they were amazing.”
Obama gave a short speech. Neither soaring nor elegant, it was authentic, a Bears fan drawing on his honest-to-God memory. “In 1985, I had just moved to Chicago,” he said. “So, unlike most Chicagoans, I didn’t really know what it was like to be a suffering sports fan. There are a few members of Congress and big Bears fans here from Illinois who knew what that was like. But none of us had ever seen what happened that fall. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. This city was invigorated and brought together by this team. This team ruled the city. It riveted the country. They were everywhere. They were like the Beatles. And this was before SportsCenter and before 24/7 sports news had really taken off. But they just captured the country’s imagination.
“We loved this team. Everybody in Chicago knew all these guys’ names. We even knew the names of the offensive linemen. Now, you know offensive linemen, they don’t get enough love. But these guys had their own poster—‘the Black N Blues Brothers.’ When is the last time you saw a poster of an offensive line?
“But what made this team so captivating wasn’t just that they won,” Obama went on, “wasn’t just that they dominated—it was the way they did it. Yes, they were punishing. Yes, they were dominant. But they also had a lot of fun. And you could tell they enjoyed playing together. They were, of course, led by the coach who set the tone—Hall of Famer Mike Ditka. In training camp, he said, ‘Put a chip on your shoulder in July and keep it there till January.’
“Some of you may remember that back in 2004, when I was running for the Senate, some people were trying to draft Ditka to run against me. I will admit I was a little worried—because he doesn’t lose.”
Obama stopped and looked at the crowd. The reporters were laughing. “And in a sign that anything is possible, even in Washington, Coach Ditka and Buddy Ryan are here together,” Obama said. “Coach Ryan’s 46 defense changed football forever. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Nobody knew what to do with it. And with the talent he had on the defensive side of the ball, there wasn’t anything other teams could do about it.
“I mean, there are guys who hit, and there are guys who hit. And these guys hit. Mike Singletary, Steve McMichael, Otis Wilson, Wilber Marshall, Dan Hampton, Gary Fencik, and Richard Dent, the Super Bowl MVP—a guy I used to actually work out with in the gym and [who] made me feel weak.
“This was the defense that set the standard and it is still the standard … More than twenty-five years later, the standard against which all other teams are compared is Coach Ryan’s defense.
“These guys lived to wreak havoc. It was like they were competing with each other to see who could get to the quarterback or the running back first. There was one game that season in which the other team’s offense had the ball in Bears territory a total of twenty-one seconds.
“Now, of course, this was also the second-ranked offense in the league that season.”
Turning, Obama said, “Jim McMahon—where’s Jim?”
“Just right here,” said Mac. “Do you need me to speak?”
“No, we’re not going to let Jim have the mic,” Obama said. “I’m just going to say nice things about you.
“Jim played quarterback with no fear and lived life with very few rules—a rock-and-roll quarterback who was on the cover of Rolling Stone. And he had kids wearing headbands and shades to school …
“This team had nine Pro-Bowlers, four future Hall of Famers—five counting Coach Ditka. They won one three-game stretch by a combined score of 104 to 3 … They were so confident that the day after they lost their only game of the season, they recorded ‘The Super Bowl Shuffle.’ They were suggesting I should dance ‘The Super Bowl Shuffle’ … Can’t do it. But I do remember it. And in Chicago, you could not get away from this song even if you wanted to. I think it’s safe to say that this is the only team in NFL history with a gold record and a Grammy nomination.
“So this team changed everything for every team that came on after … They changed the laws of football. They were gritty; they were gutsy; they were hardworking; they were fun-loving—sort of how Chicagoans think of themselves.”
Facing the players, Obama smiled and said, “Congratulations to all of you. Thank you for helping to bring our city together. Thank you for the incredible fun that you gave to all of us. Stick around, guys, and enjoy yourselves,” he added, moving away, “but as I mentioned back there, don’t break anything and keep your eyes on McMahon.”
Ditka dropped a big arm across the president’s shoulder, snagging him before he could escape. “Wait, wait, one second, one second,”
said the coach. “We want to give the president something on behalf of the 1985 Chicago Bears”—a jersey, number 85, which Ditka presented in the way of a chalice. “We consider him one of us,” said Ditka. “It was a great group of guys. We’re very proud that you honored us by bringing us here. It’s only twenty-six years after the fact, and five administrations, but thank you.”
The players came out of the riser and went down the steps. The sun blazed, the wind blew. It was fall but felt like summer. Even more telling than the Bears mingling on the grass were those not mingling because they had not come. Each had his reasons. Wilber Marshall hadn’t come because Marshall, who was said to be ailing—“it’s really the hit-ors that took the worst of it,” Mac told me—was squabbling with the team for money he claimed he was still owed from his last contract. The Fridge hadn’t come because the Fridge was ailing and preferred to keep close to home in Aiken, South Carolina. “I called him the other day just to see if he was going,” Tyrone Keys said. “He told me he has a hard time traveling. He has a wife, and they’re just hanging on.” Payton hadn’t come because Payton was dead. Dave Duerson was dead, too. Dan Hampton skipped the event for personal and political reasons. “He said he didn’t want to go because, one, he doesn’t like the guy who’s in the White House, two, it’s been twenty-five years—it’s time to let it go—and, three, they didn’t invite our wives,” Tim Wrightman told me. “So, here’s my response, which I posted on Facebook. ‘One, I can differentiate between celebrating the president and celebrating the team, although I played on the smarter side of the line. Two, if twenty-five years means it’s time to let it go, will you please stop doing those car commercials that say you’re a Super Bowl champion? And three, which wife did you want to bring, Dan? The one you had when we won, or the one you have now?’”
The reporters were cleared out, a barrier was erected and, behind that barrier, the ’85 Bears drank beer as a band played. It was another characteristic episode in the life of a fan: no matter how close you get, you will never be one of the boys. How close had I come? I could hear the music, but I could not make out the words. They stood us beside a White House driveway, where we were free to buttonhole players who happened to wander past. Taking pity, three old-timers came out: Dent, Wilson, and Michael McCaskey, who, several years ago, was basically fired by his mom. The team is now headed by another grandchild, George McCaskey, though day-to-day operations are overseen by the Bears’ president and CEO, Ted Phillips. According to lore, it was the second Mayor Daley who forced the ouster of Mike McCaskey in 1999. There were many issues in play, including the renovation of Soldier Field, but Daley had resented McCaskey for years—because McCaskey fired Ditka.
The reporters asked fifteen or twenty variations of three questions—“How does it feel?” “Do you miss it?” “How would the ’85 team do today?”—but that’s not what interested me. What interested me was Richard Dent, not what he said but how he walked. He’d been young and lithe, but while I was living my life he got old, became deliberate, heavy footed, slow. The world weighs on him. The youth has been squeezed from him like water from a sponge.
Something about that walk made me think of how sad it is to play professional sports. First you’re fast and strong and everyone cares and it’s all you’ve ever done or wanted to do. Then it’s over. If you’re lucky, you are like McMahon, who invested his money wisely. But a few years out of the game, most retired players have to struggle to make ends meet—card shows, speaking gigs, whatever comes along. The money came fast and goes faster. In the worst cases, retirement is followed by bankruptcy or destitution. After all, the ’85 Bears played before big money. In 1980, when Walter Payton made $475,000, he was the highest-paid man in the game. In the Super Bowl year, McMahon made $100,000. In 1991, playing for the Eagles, he made just over $500,000. According to the website Sports City, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler will make $8.47 million in 2013. The team’s wide receiver Brandon Marshall will make over $9 million.
But in the end, it’s not the money these players miss. Few of them said a word to me about having arrived a dozen seasons too early. It’s the game itself, the big play, the raucous locker room. If you ask a player how his career ended, he never has to think. “It was during training camp,” Brian Baschnagel told me. “I was coming off two knee surgeries and had been in the league for ten years. I went into [Ditka’s] office on Monday. I said, ‘I got to know what you’re thinking.’ As soon as I said that, he looked down. Mike always looked you in the eye. But he put his head down and hemmed and hawed, then looked up and said, ‘Brian, I think you need to think of retiring.’ There was an empty feeling. It was early in the morning. I cleaned out my locker before anybody got in. I didn’t even say goodbye.”
“For me, it happened in ’90,” said Kurt Becker. “I had nothing left. I finished the season and went in and talked to Mike. I said, ‘Mike, man, I’m done.’ And he’s like, really? I said, ‘Yeah, I’m beat up and out of gas.’ And he said, ‘Well, think about it.’ I said, ‘I thought about it. I’m done.’”
“It was the body,” Emery Moorehead told me. “The off-seasons got shorter and shorter and the pain lingered longer and longer. All of a sudden, that old ankle sprain came back in the second or third week of training camp and you had to play with it all year. It never healed. When you start to break apart, you know it’s time. I broke my leg in my last game. It was against the Rams, the first week in December. I got leg whipped by Jimbo. It was strange. I knew I was coming to the end, so when it happened, I thought, That was the last play. I won a Super Bowl my ninth season and I was ready to go, but it’s still hard. A lot of guys never figure it out. It’s a huge problem: you can’t match the excitement of Sunday ever again. It’s hard to find a guy who will say okay, I’m going to sell real estate and that will make me happy. Come July, you wish you were back out with the team. It never goes away.”
“I didn’t want to come back in ’87,” said Fencik. “I was beat up. Most of my friends were gone. I wanted to leave on a good note. For most players, the end is bitter. You get cut, you feel discarded, unwanted. I came back in ’87 and ended up getting benched. It was a difficult, emotional year. I was glad it was over. I’m glad I got to retire. It would’ve been humiliating to be cut. It takes about fifteen minutes to clear out your locker. Then I wanted to talk to Mike. I went to his office and he sat me down, had an unlit cigar in his mouth, threw his feet on his desk, and looked at me and said, ‘Boy, we really screwed you this year.’
“No matter what you do after, it’s never going to be as fun,” Fencik went on. “You’re used to this tempo of every seven days there’s a win or a loss. There’s no ‘Oh, the meeting got delayed,’ or there’s no definitive answer. Every week you win or lose. You get used to that pace, you get used to being part of this big thing. Then you walk away. It’s over. I actually had a kid in a grocery store come up to me. I could see he was following me and was going to come over at some point and ask for an autograph. He said, ‘Excuse me, didn’t you used to be Gary Fencik of the Chicago Bears?’ For a lot of players losing that identity … it’s a challenge.”
“The morning that I walked out with my bag with all my belongings, I ran into [teammate] Jeff Fisher,” said Plank. “I told him I’d been released. There’s this line: you’re part of the team or not, and I could see him reassessing me. We had a past but there would be no future. We shook hands, but it was empty. I was suddenly aware of all the players who’d gone through it before me. It’s the end of a life.”
For Dan Hampton, the end came when he realized he was being beaten by players he would once have dominated. “You know that song? ‘The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be’?” he told a reporter. “Well, at some point I realized I was that old gray mare.” Near the end of his last game, the Giants had the ball on Chicago’s goal line. In the huddle, Hampton implored his teammates: “Guys, don’t let them score on the last play of my career.” They did, and the Bears lost 31–3.
S
teve McMichael was last on the field in 1994. “I was still being hardheaded, thinking I could still play, until Barry Sanders went the distance on me in Detroit,” he wrote. “[Barry] cut inside, then went into the gap where the defensive end should’ve been, but wasn’t. The play I’d always made, to come back out and make the tackle, the knee wasn’t there, it gave. He was gone. That’s when I knew it was over.”
“You know what I miss?” McMichael told Mark Bazer. “I miss walking out of that tunnel to the roar of the crowd. Here’s some poetry: ‘It didn’t matter anymore, life and death the same. Only that the crowd would be there to greet him with howls of lust and fury. He started to understand his sense of worth. He mattered.’ That was from Conan the Barbarian, ’cause I fucking plagiarize.”
“I miss being twenty-five years old and playing with my friends,” said Plank. “Now we’re scattered across the country and it’s all in the past. If you’re lucky enough to experience something that intense when you’re young, you pay for it the rest of your life.”
* * *
I came to realize that the various fates of these men, taken together, formed a picture of a generation: among them, they’ve experienced the best and the worst of America. After he retired, Emery Moorehead got a job in the Northbrook office of Koenig & Strey, a real estate firm. He showed houses on the North Shore, a touch of the Super Bowl, a glint of ring to close the deal. He began his new life before his career was over, experiencing what the rocket boys call a hard reentry. “One of my buddies from the team, Reggie Phillips, gave me my first listing up in Mundelein,” Moorehead told me. “The season had ended and I’d been out with a friend and our wives. The phone was ringing when I got home. It was 9:30. January or February. Bitter cold. It was another agent from Koenig & Strey. She lived across the street from the Mundelein house and said, ‘I see the sign with your name on it and just want to tell you there’s a stream of water running out of the garage and turning to ice outside.’ A pipe had burst and there was two or three inches of water in the first floor. I had to run out, and now it felt like the middle of the night, and rent a shop vac at a grocery store—it was the only place open. I was on my hands and knees till three or four in the morning. When the football season ended, Reggie had turned off the heat and just left. He was from Texas. He didn’t know. All the pipes had burst. When I called him, I was like, ‘Dude!’”