Just Politics

[blackhawks]

I watched his record setting 6 TD game his rookie year, in Dec of '65.

My brother was in training at New River and I was nearing completion of my 6 months of USMCR training, infantry course at Camp LeJeune.

He and his wife picked me up for the weekend and we watched the game in amazement. Rainy Wrigley field; every juke by Sayers put a Forty-Niner defender down in the mud. It was unfair.




Gale Sayers (right) races out of the reach of a 49ers defender en route to one of his record six touchdowns in the mud as the Bears won 61-20 at Wrigley Field. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)

https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-gale-sayers-chicago-bears-died-20200923-4lv2wfxcangajgbcaiyiwbcnna-story.html

Gale Sayers, the dazzling Chicago Bears running back and kick returner whose injury-shortened career made him the youngest player ever inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died after a yearslong decline in health that included dementia. He was 77.

The Pro Football Hall announced the news Wednesday morning.

The “Kansas Comet,” as Sayers was nicknamed, was one of the most agile and elusive ball carriers ever.

“If you wish to see perfection as a running back, you had best get a hold of a film of Gale Sayers,” Bears founder George Halas said in 1977 when he presented Sayers for Hall of Fame enshrinement. “He was poetry in motion. His like will never be seen again.”

Sayers' dynamic running ability helped him earn All-Pro recognition in each of his five full seasons. It also left teammates, coaches, fans and pundits to wonder what he might have accomplished in football had knee injuries not ended his career in 1971 after only seven seasons (68 games).

In fact, Sayers' legendary athleticism was a bittersweet topic at the Bears100 Celebration in June 2019, as former teammates tried to make sense of how the electric running back they revered could be the same frail, wheelchair-bound man who appeared on stage.

“If I wanted one (running back) for a season, I’d take Walter Payton. But if I wanted a player for one play, I’ll take Gale Sayers above every running back I’ve seen — whether it be Jim Brown or O.J. Simpson or anybody” said Johnny Morris, a teammate of Sayers' for three seasons in the mid-1960s.

“He had a knack of being in the air and he’d swing his leg over and come down in a different direction. That’s the best way I can put it.”

Sayers rushed for 4,956 yards and scored 56 touchdowns in his career. The four-time Pro Bowler is No. 4 on the Tribune’s list of the top 100 Bears players of all time and fifth on the team’s list. He was named to the NFL 100 All-Time Team last year.

“I had a style all my own,” Sayers is quoted as saying by the Hall of Fame. “The way I ran, lurchy, herky-jerky, I kept people off-guard so if I didn’t have that much power when I hit a man, hell, he was off-balance and I could knock him down.”

Sayers amassed 9,435 all-purpose yards, which ranks fourth in Bears history behind Payton, running back Matt Forte (12,718) and return specialist Devin Hester (10,196).

“Just give me 18 inches of daylight,” he once told NFL Films. “That’s all I need