A photograph of Dick Butkus sneering behind his facemask stuffed the quilt of Sports Illustrated’s 1970 NFL preview, topped by the headline, ‘The Most Feared Man in the Game’. Opponents who wound up on the enterprise finish of his bone-rattling hits may testify that wasn’t an exaggeration.
Butkus, a center linebacker for the Chicago Bears whose velocity and ferocity set the requirements for the place within the fashionable period, has died, the crew introduced Thursday. He was 80.
According to an announcement launched by the crew, Butkus’ household confirmed that he died in his sleep in a single day at his house in Malibu, California.
Butkus was a first-team All-Pro 5 instances and made the Pro Bowl in eight of his 9 seasons earlier than a knee damage pressured him to retire at 31. He was the quintessential Monster of the Midway and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979, his first yr of eligibility. He remains to be thought-about one of the best defensive gamers in league historical past.
“Dick Butkus was a fierce and passionate competitor who helped define the linebacker position as one of the NFL’s all-time greats. Dick’s intuition, toughness and athleticism made him the model linebacker whose name will forever be linked to the position and the Chicago Bears,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stated in an announcement. “We also remember Dick as a long-time advocate for former players, and players at all levels of the game.”
A second of silence honoring Butkus was held earlier than the Bears performed on the Washington Commanders on Thursday night time.
Trading on his picture because the hardest man within the room, Butkus loved a protracted second profession as a sports activities broadcaster, an actor in motion pictures and TV sequence, and a sought-after pitchman for merchandise starting from antifreeze to beer. Whether the script referred to as for comedy or drama, Butkus normally resorted to enjoying himself, typically together with his gruff exterior masking a softer aspect.
“I wouldn’t ever go out to hurt anybody deliberately,” Butkus replied tongue-in-cheek when requested about his on-field popularity. “Unless it was, you know, important … like a league game or something.”
Butkus was the uncommon professional athlete who performed his total profession near house. He was a star linebacker, fullback and kicker at Chicago Vocational High who went on to play on the University of Illinois. Born on 9 December 1942 because the youngest of eight kids, he grew up on the town’s South Side as a fan of the Chicago Cardinals, the Bears’ crosstown rivals.
But after being drafted within the first spherical in 1965 by each the Bears and Denver Broncos (on the time, a member of the now-defunct American Football League), Butkus selected to stay in Chicago and play for NFL founder and coach George Halas. The Bears additionally added future Hall of Fame working again Gale Sayers to the roster that yr with one other first-round decide.
“He was Chicago’s son,” Bears chairman George McCaskey, Halas’ grandson, stated in an announcement. “He exuded what our great city is about and, not coincidentally, what George Halas looked for in a player: toughness, smarts, instincts, passion and leadership. He refused to accept anything less than the best from himself, or from his teammates.”
Butkus inherited the center linebacker job from Bill George, a Hall of Famer credited with popularizing the place within the NFL. In 1954, George deserted his three-point stance within the center of the line of defense and began every play a number of paces eliminated, a vantage level that allowed him to look at performs unfold after which race to the ball.
Butkus, nevertheless, introduced velocity, agility and a scorched-Earth angle to the job that his predecessors solely imagined. He intercepted 5 passes, recovered six fumbles and was unofficially credited with forcing six extra in his rookie yr, topping it off with the primary of eight straight Pro Bowl appearances. But his popularity as a disruptor prolonged effectively previous the power to remove the soccer.
Butkus would hit runners excessive, wrap them up and drive them to the bottom like a rag doll. Playboy journal as soon as described him as “the meanest, angriest, toughest, dirtiest” participant within the NFL and an “animal, a savage, subhuman”. Descriptions like that by no means sat effectively with Butkus. But they had been additionally arduous to argue.
Several opponents claimed Butkus poked them within the face or bit them in pileups, and he acknowledged that in warmups, “I would manufacture things to make me mad.” When the Detroit Lions unveiled an I-formation towards the Bears at outdated Tigers Stadium, Butkus knocked each member of the “I” – the middle, quarterback, fullback and halfback – out of the sport.
And he didn’t all the time cease there. Several instances Butkus crashed into ball carriers effectively previous the sidelines. More than as soon as he pursued them onto working tracks surrounding the sphere and even into the stands.
“Just to hit people wasn’t good enough,” teammate Ed O’Bradovich stated. “He loved to crush people.”
Despite these efforts, the Bears misplaced loads extra video games throughout his tenure than they received, going 48-74-4. Dealing with tendon issues that started in highschool, Butkus suffered a critical damage to his proper knee in the course of the 1970 season and had preventive surgical procedure earlier than the following one. He thought-about a second operation after being sidelined 9 video games into the 1973 season.
When a surgeon requested him “how a man in your shape can play football, or why you would even want to”, Butkus introduced his retirement in May 1974.
Soon after, Butkus sued the Bears for $1.6m, contending he was offered insufficient medical care and owed the 4 years of wage remaining on his contract. The lawsuit was settled for $600,000, however Butkus and Halas didn’t communicate for 5 years.
Butkus, like Sayers, by no means reached the postseason. The Bears received the 1963 championship and by the point they made the playoffs once more in 1977, Butkus and Sayers had been lengthy gone.
The Bears climbed again to the highest within the 1985 season with their lone Super Bowl championship. But they’ve been again to the title recreation just one time since. Butkus couldn’t perceive why.
“There’s no reason why we can’t or shouldn’t be in the run all the time,” he stated on the Bears’ one hundredth anniversary celebration in June 2019. “I know you’ve got those draft choices or whatever when you finish first all the time. How can you explain New England being up there all these years. That’s not right. The Bears should be the ones.”
After leaving soccer, Butkus grew to become an immediate superstar. He appeared in The Longest Yard in 1974 and a dozen function movies over the following 15 years, in addition to the sitcoms My Two Dads and Hang Time. He additionally returned to the Bears as a radio analyst in 1985, and changed Jimmy ‘The Greek’ Snyder on CBS’ The NFL Today pregame present in 1988.
Through the Butkus Foundation, he helped set up a program at a Southern California hospital to encourage early screenings to detect coronary heart illness. He promoted a marketing campaign to encourage highschool athletes to coach and eat effectively and keep away from performance-enhancing medicine.
The basis oversees the Butkus Award, established in 1985 to honor faculty soccer’s finest linebacker. It was expanded in 2008 to incorporate execs and highschool gamers.
“Dick had a gruff manner, and maybe that kept some people from approaching him, but he actually had a soft touch,” McCaskey stated.
He is survived by his spouse, Helen, and youngsters Ricky, Matt and Nikki. Nephew Luke Butkus has coached in faculty and the NFL, together with time with the Bears.
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