Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football

by Rich Cohen

  The phrase “already gone” was especially striking, as it seemed to suggest not just changes in the game but also the death of the hardscrabble towns that gave pro football its ethos. These men were dismissive of rules meant to protect quarterbacks and wide receivers. The forearm shiver, the clothesline, the head slap that sent stars turning not unpleasantly around your helmet: getting hurt’s always been part of it. Have the injuries gotten so much worse? No one really knows because no one bothered to examine the veterans of the ’33 Giants or ’46 Bears or ’64 Packers who became bewildered or angry in retirement, or made a spectacle of themselves at alumni dinners. They did not count them because they did not know, and they did not know because they did not care. Football was just another risky job in a nation filled with them, and a better, more interesting life than that of railroad welder (Ditka’s father) or coal deliveryman (Unitas’s father). Danger was the not unreasonable cost of playing the game. Why do you think both sidelines go ghostly when a man stays down? Because each player knows it can all be over in a moment: not just the game, or the season, but everything. It’s one of the truths that make football more tense than other sports. The stakes are high and the pain is real.

  I used to hope the Bears would lose the coin toss so the 46 defense would come out first. I wanted to see the other team not just beaten but annihilated, their quarterback too intimidated to look downfield. In your mind, the opposition becomes the enemy, and there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your enemy humiliated. Yes, it’s just a game, but for a few hours, it feels like justice.

  But I’ve come to rethink some of my taste for the knockout blow. It’s impossible to watch the player who stays on the ground without guilt. What have you just seen? A ten-yard loss, or the beginning of a trauma that will define a man’s life? The release experienced by a fan watching in 2013 is the same as it was for a fan watching in 1933, but the game itself is not the same. The players have gotten so big, so athletic, and so fast—it’s as if football has outgrown its skin, as if the stars have become too powerful for their own good. In the early days, when the iron cities of the Midwest were booming and an upper-deck seat could be had for around five bucks, the stands were filled with the same sort of men who filled the rosters. A blue-collar league for a blue-collar crowd: pipe fitters and burners, men who worked with their hands and gave up their bodies. The hardship of the game was more than just a spectacle. It echoed the physical and mental challenges these people faced every day. Seeing your own struggle at a remove is a kind of transcendence.

  But the players and fans parted company long ago. An NFL game, where bad seats can cost over a hundred bucks, has too often become a rich man’s diversion. It’s one reason Gary Fencik was a hero in Chicago: he connected the gridiron to the skybox. But when we watch from home, as if from a million miles away, we witness a surreal drama: a Sunday afternoon passion play, the quarterback on the road to Calvary. It’s only when a player goes down that we remember it’s a contest of actual human beings, many of whom begin to fall apart before they retire. And so even the most gung ho of us cannot help but feel conflicted. On the one hand, there’s no better, faster, more exciting sport. On the other, the consequences are real; the hit lasts a moment but the effects linger. Like the man in the Hitchcock movie, we know too much.

  Is there a way to protect athletes, to reform the sport without losing the old zipperoo? That’s what the owners, players, and everyone who cares about it is searching for: the fixes that can change everything yet preserve what’s important. If we fail, some worry that football will go the way of boxing. Not because people won’t watch, but because parents won’t let their children play. (I don’t know if I’ll let my sons play.) Those who love it know it has to change, as it has changed in the past. It was a scrum that took to the air. It was checkers that turned into chess. Here’s what I tell my friends: don’t fear, as every reform has eventually resulted in a better game. I only hope that, no matter what shape these regulations take, there will be some George Halas on the Chicago sideline to spot the loophole that turns the new rule into an explosion of points. As you follow a team but only love a player, I find that as much as I love big hits, I love Dave Duerson more.

  20

  I DID IT MY (FUCKING) WAY

  I met Mike Ditka on the second floor of his restaurant—Ditka’s—on East Chestnut Street in Chicago. He was wearing black—all black, nothing but black, in the way of Johnny Cash. He was as big as a bear and looked like a bear and it was clearly a struggle when he got up to shake my hand and look me over. He has an artificial hip, fake everything. Jim Morrissey had warned me about Ditka. He said he was tough and mean and would give me a hard time.

  “Tough and mean,” I said, “but with a heart of gold?”

  “No heart of gold,” said Morrissey.

  Ditka held my hand, looking down at me as a man looks down at something from a great height. The room was packed. I felt every eye, the eyes of a thousand fans. The walls were covered with murals. Halas, Grange, McMahon, Payton—they were there, too, looking down on him looking down on me. “Why the hell would you want to write about the ’85 Bears?” Ditka asked. “Do you know how many people have written about that team?” He was still holding my hand, enveloping it in his giant paw, challenging me.

  “Why did you run that same offense all those years?” I asked. “Presumably you believed you could win with it and could do it better than it had ever been done.”

  He thought for a moment, grunted, said, “Good answer,” and invited me to sit down.

  I asked him everything I had ever wanted to ask: about McMahon in Minnesota, and Sweetness, and the 46, and Plank, and Halas, and Luckman, and Aliquippa, and the steel towns, and the work ethic, and America, and my own life, and what should I do? And is it better to accept the world as it is and be happy or to struggle and be miserable? In a sense, life is nothing but a search for a coach: Ditka found his in Halas and I found mine in Ditka.

  He would never make it to the Hall of Fame as a coach. He’s too idiosyncratic, too particular to one moment and one team, but he was a great leader, not just for a group of players but for an entire city. For many years, I continued to follow the Bears mostly because I wanted to see Ditka succeed. By 1992, he seemed like the last survivor of an ancient order: all the old players had left or retired. It seemed McCaskey was merely waiting for the right occasion to get rid of Ditka, too. As long as Iron Mike was at the helm, the Bears would be Halas’s team.

  It happened in 1993. Playing in Minnesota, Jim Harbaugh called an audible that led to an interception. Ditka gave his quarterback the business on the sideline. He’d done the same with Avellini and Lisch, but it was a different age. McCaskey fixed on the incident: Who, after seeing that, would want to play for this team? A few days later, while participating in a call-in radio show, Ditka got in an argument with “Neil from Northlake.” Driven to the edge of his temper—he never could control his temper—Ditka told Neil from Northlake, “My office is at 250 Washington Street in Lake Forest, and if you care to come up there, I will kick your ass.”

  The Bears finished the season 5 and 11, Ditka’s worst since his first years with the club. Mike McCaskey took the coach aside, told him to pack his stuff, clear out. It was over. Ditka had another year on his contract. He asked if he could finish it. McCaskey said no. The next day, the decision was announced at a press conference in Lake Forest. Extra police were on hand. The front office feared a violent reaction from fans. You don’t cashier General Patton. Ditka stood before reporters. His hair was combed flat, his knuckles were huge, his mustache perfect. His voice broke. “‘Regrets … just a few,’” he said, “‘but too few to remember.’” He paused. “I can’t sing it as good as Sinatra.” Even in the final moment, Ditka botched the line. He walked out the front door of Halas Hall, where fans stood, heads down, crying. He scanned the crowd. Was he looking for Neil from Northlake?

  When the news reached Aliquippa, the town went into mourning. People said th
e mood was the same as it had been the day that President Kennedy was shot. I was in Manhattan, in a meeting at Rolling Stone. An old reporter told me in that gleeful way of old reporters: “Did you hear about your buddy, Ditka? They fired his ass.” The blood rushed into my face. I asked to be excused and went down into the street, veins pounding in my head. I sat on a curb at 51st Street and Sixth Avenue, dropped my chin in my hand, and cried. Never had I felt so far from home.

  NOTES

  1: THE SUPER BOWL SHUFFLE

  In addition to my memory, sources for this chapter include interviews, DVDs of old Bears games, and several books, including Chicago Bears: The Complete Illustrated History by Lew Freedman; Da Bears: How the 1985 Monsters of the Midway Became the Greatest Team in NFL History by Steve Delsohn; and The Chicago Bears and Super Bowl XX: The Rise and Self-Destruction of the Greatest Football Team in History by John Mullin. I interviewed many players and coaches from the Bears and other teams. The Steve McMichael quotes here and elsewhere come from his book—Steve McMichael’s Tales from the Chicago Bears Sideline—as well as newspaper stories and books. Especially helpful was an interview McMichael did with my friend Mark Bazer, whose monthly live interview show at the beloved Chicago club The Hideout airs online at The Huffington Post. I spoke to McMichael on the phone, but he would not sit for an interview. He told me he was done with reporters, his gripe being Jeff Pearlman, whose Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton had just been published. Its portrait of a depressed, suicidal Payton infuriated the running back’s teammates. Asked what he’d do if he met Pearlman, Ditka said, “spit on him.” In addition to my interview with Ditka, I made use of both his autobiographies, Ditka: An Autobiography, as well as its follow-up, In Life, First You Kick Ass: Reflections on the 1985 Bears and Wisdom from Da Coach by Mike Ditka with Rick Telander (Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, 2005). Ditka’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is recounted in Ditka. I did visit Tulane during Super Bowl weekend and wound up going there—another way the Bears shaped my life. I’ve not spoken to Matt Lederer in twenty-five years. We had a falling-out in college. I’m sure it was my fault.

  2: THE WAR ROOM

  Ditka’s press conferences can be seen on YouTube. I’ve watched them over and over, and they only get better. I suggest you make a weekend of it. On Ditka and the gum throwing, see Mike Royko, “In California, It’s a Sticky Situation,” Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1987. The victim’s attorney told Royko, “We’re not attempting to turn it into a mountain. But you have to understand that my client has been going to games for years, and this kind of thing has never happened to her before.” I got the inside story from several Bears. Emery Moorehead’s version was the most colorful. He laughed as he remembered the police showing up at the hotel in San Francisco. I interviewed Ron Jaworski at the offices of NFL Films in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where I also interviewed several producers and broadcasters. NFL Films, started by Ed and Steve Sabol, is the house organ of the league. George Halas called the Sabols “the keepers of the flame.” The Sabols are partly responsible for how the game is watched today. For more on this, see my article “They Taught America to Watch Football,” The Atlantic, October 2010. The rest of the material in this chapter comes largely from interviews. I interviewed many of the ’85 Bears in greater Chicago, including Otis Wilson, whom I met at a Park District office on the North Side. He wore a silky track suit and was supercool. I interviewed Plank on numerous occasions, first by phone, then in Scottsdale. It was these interviews that convinced me to write this book. In describing his experiences, Plank made me understand football in a new way.

  3: THE OLD ZIPPEROO

  I’ve drawn on many sources for my portrait of Halas, including obituaries, newspaper and magazine profiles, and my own interviews. Especially helpful was the coach’s autobiography, Halas by Halas, as well as Papa Bear: The Life and Legacy of George Halas by Jeff Davis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004). See also Patrick McCaskey’s memoir, Bear With Me: A Family History of George Halas and the Chicago Bears. Patrick McCaskey is a Chicago Bears board member and the team’s senior director of special projects. On Pilsen and other Chicago neighborhoods, see The Encyclopedia of Chicago by James Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reiff. On Mayor Daley, see American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley—His Battle for Chicago and the Nation by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor. A great book. Also see Mike Royko’s portrait of political power, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago.

  On the history of football, see Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football by Robert W. Peterson; A Brief History of American Sports by Elliott J. Gorn and Warren Goldstein; and What a Game They Played: An Inside Look at the Golden Era of Pro Football by Richard Whittingham. An excellent primer on all this is How Football Explains America by Sal Paolantonio. Crane Tech: sadly, this is one of the schools Mayor Rahm Emanuel decided to close in 2012. See Noreen Ahmed-Ullah and Joel Hood, “CPS Planning New Neighborhood School to Replace Crane Tech,” Chicago Tribune, February 21, 2012. The school had been plagued by violence in recent years. Coach Robert Zuppke: in addition to books mentioned above, see The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend by Gary Andrew Poole. Before taking the job at the University of Illinois, Zuppke coached at Oak Park High School, where one of his players was Ernest Hemingway. After Zuppke was fired in 1941, he went to Cuba and spent quite a long time living in Hemingway’s house, the Finca Vigía. On Halas’s season with the New York Yankees, see The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive Record of Major League Baseball. Wally Pipp took himself out of the lineup, complaining of a headache. The Brooklyn Robins would later change their name, first to the Trolley Dodgers, then just the Dodgers. Bill Belichick and Wes Welker: Belichick’s Wally Pipp comment was captured on Hard Knocks, the NFL Films reality show, coproduced with HBO, where it airs. Iron Man Joe McGinnity: born in Decatur, he had several outstanding seasons with the Baltimore Orioles and New York Giants. Pitching for the Giants in 1904, he went 35–8 with a 1.61 ERA. Ralph Hay and the early history of the NFL: see Old Leather: An Oral History of Early Pro Football in Ohio, 1920–1935 by Chris Willis (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005), in addition to the books mentioned above.

  4: LEATHER HEADS

  The history of the NFL and the Oorang Indians: see Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football by Robert W. Peterson, as well as the books mentioned above. See also Passing Game: Benny Friedman and the Transformation of Football by Murray Greenberg (I love this book). On racism, George Preston Marshall, and the Washington Redskins, see Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins by Thomas G. Smith. On Jim Thorpe, Jim Thorpe: Original All-American by Joseph Bruchac; Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe by Kate Buford; and Jim Thorpe: World’s Greatest Athlete by Robert W. Wheeler. Some of this history is told at the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Some more is told at the Heinz Museum in Pittsburgh, which has a wing dedicated to the sporting life of western Pennsylvania. It opens with a life-size statue of Franco Harris making “the immaculate reception,” which was probably a blown call by the referee.

  5: THE EYE IN THE SKY

  On Halas and the move back to Chicago, see the books above, as well as “Then Ditka Said to Payton…” The Best Chicago Bears Stories Ever Told by Dan Jiggets; Chicago Bears: The Complete Illustrated History by Lew Freedman; Halas by Halas; Papa Bear by Jeff Davis; Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football by Robert W. Peterson; and Bear With Me by Patrick McCaskey. The story of Bronko Nagurski and the brick wall appears in many places, including What a Game They Played: An Inside Look at the Golden Era of Pro Football by Richard Whittingham. For more on Nagurski, see Monster of the Midway: Bronko Nagurski, the 1943 Chicago Bears, and the Greatest Comeback Ever by Jim Dent. For more on Wrigley, see Wrigley Field: The Unauthorized Biography by Stuart Shea. (Funny that a guy named Shea wrote a book about Wrigley.) Buffone’s comment on Halas’s coaching styles appears in Papa Bear by Jeff Davis. For the history of gridiron innovations, including the mode
rn T-formation, see Luckman at Quarterback: Football as a Sport and a Career by Sid Luckman; Halas by Halas; and Papa Bear. Also Return to Glory: The Story of the 1985 Chicago Bears compiled by the Chicago Sun-Times. On George Wilson: he was the head coach of the Detroit Lions when George Plimpton went undercover to train with the team, the result being his phenomenal book, Paper Lion. Plimpton described Wilson and the famous block. Great resources on Sid Luckman are the sports reports that appeared in the New York papers after most of his high school and college games, including the New York Times. See the Times obituary, William N. Wallace, “Sid Luckman, Star for the Bears, Dies at 81,” July 6, 1998. On Luckman’s college accomplishments, see the Columbia Lions website: gocolumbialions.com. I went to summer camp with Sid’s grandson. We had an epic fistfight in the rain—it’s still talked about in Eagle River, Wisconsin. Before Luckman died, a member of his family asked me to write a book about him. Stupidly, I said no; I worried I could not do him justice. I wrote an essay on Luckman in the recent anthology Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame edited by Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy. My chapter is “Sid Luckman: Hebrew Mind, Cossack Body.”

  6: THE QUARTERBACK

  I relied on many books for this chapter. On the emergence of the modern NFL, I found a handful especially helpful, including America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation by Michael MacCambridge (New York: Random House, 2004); Brand NFL: Making and Selling America’s Favorite Sport by Michael Oriard (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007); Blood, Sweat, and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook by Tim Layden; and How Football Explains America by Sal Paolantonio. Bob Snyder, who came back to play QB for the Bears during the war, told his story in Pigskin. On George Preston Marshall, the Redksins, and race in the NFL, see Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins by Thomas G. Smith. On Halas in the war years, see Halas by Halas and Papa Bear, as well as the official biography on the Bears’ website, according to which Halas “spent three years in the South Pacific with the Navy, mainly organizing R&R and entertainment for weary troops.” On Lombardi, see David Maraniss’s When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” The history of this phrase is fascinating. Reported in various forms over the years, it apparently comes from a football movie in which John Wayne played a broken-down football coach in need of a second chance. Lombardi was a big moviegoer. Ditka: “The past is for cowards and losers.” This quote is reported in “Then Ditka Said to Payton…” The Best Chicago Bears Stories Ever Told by Dan Jiggetts. On Namath, there is more ink than there is water in the Caspian. You might start with Namath: A Biography by Mark Kriegel. For the title alone, I recommend Namath’s autobiography, I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow…’Cause I Get Better-Looking Every Day. I made use of these books, as well as the profiles that Sports Illustrated published about the quarterback in the ’60s and ’70s, testaments to the New Journalism. Raiders v. Bears, 1984: this was featured as NFL Game of the Week in 1984, and a beautifully produced recap can be seen online at NFL Films.com. Mac’s kidney injury: my best sources on this were interviews with Jim McMahon, Kurt Becker, and Emery Moorehead. Peter Gent’s North Dallas Forty was published a few years after he retired from the Dallas Cowboys, where he’d been a wide receiver. It’s probably the best book written about life in the NFL. Gent died in 2011; he was sixty-nine. On Cutler’s injury, see Sean Leahy, “Jay Cutler Under Attack for Leaving Bears’ Loss with Knee Injury,” USA Today, January 23, 2011. Cutler’s injury was given a different resonance when an MRI showed he had seriously hurt his knee. Still more doubt came the following season when Redskins QB Robert Griffin III played on a wounded knee, the result being a perhaps career-altering injury in the playoffs. For a wild take on all this, see the website SB Nation skewer ESPN’s theory that “Jay Cutler is responsible for RGIII’s knee injury,” www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/1/10/3861430/jay-cutler-is-at-fault-for-rg3s-knee-injury.