Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football (41 page)

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 the 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.