Creepy. Wicked. Intimidating. Vicious. Savage. There is no shortage of adjectives to portray one of the wildest linebackers the NFL has ever known. If grizzly bears reign supreme (or almost) in the forests of Eastern Canada, Dick “The Bear” Butkus sows terror on professional grounds. The Illinois Bear.
Little Bear will grow up
The last offspring of a pack of nine cubs of Lithuanian origin, Dick Butkus was born in Chicago, while the war was still raging on the other side of the Atlantic. As a good South-Sider, he quickly discovered a passion for the Cardinals. With his father and his brothers, he became a regular at Comiskey Park. Ironically, it was under the colors of sworn rivals from the north, the Bears, that he made his name. A 6-foot-1 mountain of muscles and a die-hard Illinoisan, he attended the University of Illinois after high school. Like a good homebody. Home Sweet Home. On both sides of the ball, he takes advantage of his mammoth measurements: center on offense, linebacker on defense. And it won’t be long before he makes his name known well beyond the borders of his native Illinois. It must be said that the kid does not lack ambition. In his last year of primary school, he already knows what he wants to do.
“Being a professional football player,” he would later explain. “I worked hard to achieve this, as society demands. They say it makes you be fierce, I was. Tough, I was. »
From then on, all his choices are dictated by this dream. High school, summer job, university and even friends. They all have one goal: to take him to the NFL. If he decides to walk a few extra miles each day to go to Chicago Vocation High School, it’s not by chance. The football program there is run by a Notre Dame alumnus. A recognized fullback across the state, he’s already starting to inspire fear on the other side of the ball. In defense. His meadow. From high school, he learned to snatch the ball from his opponents’ arms. A talent that he will continue to perfect throughout his apprenticeship.
Once high school is over, it’s time to find a college. If he is seduced by the program put in place by new coach Pete Elliott at Illinois, it is probably more for non-sporting reasons that he chooses the University of Illinois. Once is not custom. Dick plans to marry his childhood sweetheart. The only problem is that Notre Dame does not show overwhelming enthusiasm towards married players. Goodbye Figthing Irish. Hello Fighting Illini. If he shines on the pitch, the same cannot be said in the classroom. And the person concerned knows it perfectly.
“If I was smart enough to be a doctor, I would be one,” he says. “But I’m not, so I’m a football player. »
Quite simply. And in this little game. He’s doing pretty well. All-American in 1963 and 1964, best player in the Big Ten in ’63 and best player according to the American Football Coaches Association the following season, he was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy those two years. A small feat for a lineman/linebacker. His dream is getting a little closer. All his talent exploded in front of the world during his junior year. 145 tackles, 10 forced fumbles. The Big Ten title in his pocket, a 3rd place nationally and a success over Washington in the Rose Bowl. Rarely has Butkus combined personal and collective success so well. After three seasons defending the honor of the Fighting Illini, he left college with no less than 374 tackles on the clock. His number 50 placed under glass for eternity, he still remains today one of the greatest players to have graced university fields. In 1985, the Dick Butkus Award was created, rewarding the best linebacker in the country at all levels. From high school, all the way to the big leagues.
“If every college team had a linebacker like Dick Butkus, it wouldn’t be long before every fullback would be under 6 feet tall and have soprano voices,” Dan Jenkins wrote in Sports Illustrated. “Dick Butkus is a very special breed of brute whose talent is to reshape runners in funny ways… Butkus doesn’t just punch, he crushes and compresses opponents with arms that are not only large, but extremely long.
Dick Butkus, the man of one franchise
Drafted in the first round by the AFL Broncos and the NFL Bears, the choice was quickly made. Choose the enemies of your beloved Cards or leave your windy Chicago, a difficult choice. But not so much. Dick Butkus chooses The Windy City. He will never wear any color other than the midnight blue of the Bears. Tackle machine Butkus and Kansas Comet Gale Sayers, the Bears make a double play and ensure good years on both sides of the ball. At least we think so. Because if the two players will shine individually, the Chicago franchise will not do the same. However, with Butkus she has what it takes to build a formidable team.
“Football is everything to him,” Dan Jenkins said of Butkus. “When a training session is canceled because of bad weather or whatever, he gets angry, he’s almost discouraged. He lives for contact. »
If some observers think it will take time for him to adapt to a faster and more intense game, Bears middle linebacker Bill George, on his way to the Hall of Fame, doesn’t believe it. word. Butkus was close from day one.
“The second I saw him on the field (during training camp), I knew my career was over,” George recalled. “No one has ever looked this good before or since.” »
U so mean
For his baptism of fire against the 49ers, he set the tone with 11 solo tackles. From his first professional campaign, Dick established himself as the boss of his defense. The best tackler and best interceptor on his team, he also recorded the most forced and covered fumbles. A good habit that he will keep throughout his career. If bears love honey, Dick has a guilty pleasure: fumbles. He will also make it his specialty. If another iconic Bear, Charles “Peanut” Tillman, specialized in the art of forcing them, Dick has few equals when it comes to recovering fumbled balls. From his rookie season, he recovered 6. When he retired in ’73, he had 27 fumbles covered. A record then. But Butkus is also a master at ripping hides. This is also its greatest strength. Every time he put his hands on you, it was best to hold the ball tight to yourself or else it would squirt out of your arms. But no statistics on the subject existed at the time.
Pack leader of the Monsters of the Midway, he was the best tackler on his team for 8 seasons in a row. In ’67, he had 18 sacks. A personal best.
Dick Butkus quickly established a reputation as a formidable defender. Of an intimidating player. So much so that he appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1970 under the title “The Most Feared Man in the Game.” ” All is said. That year, he had one of the best seasons of his career: 132 tackles, 3 interceptions and 2 fumbles covered. Within a moribund franchise, another image, less rosy this one, sticks to him: that of a vicious player. Wicked. He destroys runners with unparalleled fury. He grabs them and throws them on the ground like common toys. Because after all, they are nothing other than that for him. Toys. Appetizers. He inspires fear. And it’s not the former Packers running back, MacArthur Lane, who will say the opposite.
“If I had the choice, I would rather come face to face with a grizzly bear,” he says. “I prayed that I could get up every time Butkus tackled me. »
Standing on its legs, knees bent, ready to pounce on its prey, its head buried between its immense shoulder pads, the Illinois Bear resembles an impassable mountain. But a mountain that moves. And quick. Very quickly. Too fast. Able to run from one side of the field to the other in a flash, he sticks to tight ends and running backs when he is sent into coverage. An instinctive player, a fierce and powerful leader, he seems imbued with an anger that makes him formidable. But an anger that owes nothing to chance.
“When I went on the pitch to warm up, I did everything I could to get angry,” he explained. “If a guy on the other team laughed, I made myself believe he was laughing at me or the Bears. I always found something to make me angry. And it worked systematically. »
In 1973, after only 9 seasons, the Illinois Bear called it quits. Injuries got the better of him. His knee injured two years earlier never really repaired. For the first time in his career, he left a match, overcome by pain that was too hard to bear. End clap. 7 times All-Pro, 8 Pro Bowls, 48 successes, 74 losses and 4 draws (!!), Dick has only too rarely tasted the scent of success. A hasty and shaky end to his career. Convinced that the Bears did everything to make him play even though he should have been on the operating table having a bad knee repaired, the linebacker is suing the franchise. George Halas’ team had taken the sneaky habit of preventing its players from consulting an independent doctor, outside the club, in order to obtain another opinion. As for Butkus, they did not hesitate to force-feed him painkillers to send him onto the field at all costs and ensure a full stadium at the same time. Business is business. But that’s not really to the person’s taste. His relations with the legendary owner will also become frosty. This did not prevent him from becoming a radio commentator for his Bears in 85 and seeing his number 51 disappear forever from the locker room.
From the press boxes to black screens and various TV shows, the Illinois Bear and his mustache may have left the field, but they are far from having gone into hibernation. However, the most formidable tackle of all time according to NFL.com has decided to retract his claws and soften up. Too late for his opponents for 8 seasons. The evil is already done.
Original article published in 2015.
