Papa Bear : The Life and Legacy of George Halas

Rating:
Summary: Is it accurate?
Review: As a Bears season ticket holder and lifelong fan who attended the same grade school (St. Emily's in Mt. Prospect, IL) as the McCaskey children and grew up their neighborhood, I was really looking forward to reading this book. Then, right on page 3 it says the McCaskeys lived in Arlington Heights when they actually lived in Des Plaines, and I am left wondering how many other inaccuracies this book contains. It seems very anti McCaskey.

Rating:
Summary: Just a marvelous biography
Review: Pros: Everything you should know about Papa Bear (including everything the McCaskeys have spent years trying to hide from you)
Cons: None

I think it's safe to say we've finally seen the
definitive literary work on George Halas. It did take
more than two decades after his death for it to be
published, but that's fitting. To truly grasp
everything about the man and his legacy, you need to
have lived through it and it's aftermath. Finally,
one of us who has experienced it all first hand has put
it out in the open for all to see. It's the most
captivating sports book I've read in years, easily.


Rating:
Summary: "Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it."
Review: Some men stand on the shoulders of giants to get a good look at God. Not football legend George Halas. He was a God, and here's 534 pages of proof in Jeff Davis's stunning biography Papa Bear. Halas could play the game. Oh, man, could he play. He was an MVP at the Rose Bowl AND an outfielder on the New York Yankees in the same year. As offensive end with the Bears, he stripped Olympian Jim Thorpe of a ball, recovered the fumble, and ran it back 98 yards for a touchdown, a record that would stand for almost fifty years.

He could coach, too, an understatement Halas certainly would appreciate. During his forty-year tenure, he perfected the T-formation, won an astonishing 8 NFL titles and 324 games (second best record in football history), and pioneered innovations like holding daily practice sessions and broadcasting games on the radio.

If Jeff Davis's Papa Bear were simply a laundry list of Halas's accomplishments, it would still be a fascinating read. Fortunately, it's a lot more. Davis spoke first hand with Jerry Vainisi, Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka - the gang's all here - and what develops is a gripping narrative of a taciturn man who could be surprisingly philanthropic. He was a miser during contract negotiations, yet covered Brian Piccolo's astronomical medical bills during his tragic bout with cancer. Davis's skillful command of a story that virtually spans an entire century is an impressive feat.

Davis is a native Chicagoan and long time sportswriter. The Bears are his turf, and what you get is an unvarnished yet articulate summation of Halas's contributions to football, along with the tragic way Halas was unable to defend his legacy from the barbarians in the front office. In football's version of the Corleone saga, George Halas said on his deathbed, "Anybody but Michael (McCaskey)." Look at the way the Bears played for years after their triumphant Super Bowl Season in 1985 and you'll understand why. He knew the poetic simplicity of directness, and why his grandson Michael, a former Harvard Business School professor, was too flaccid and indecisive a leader to follow in Halas's gargantuan footsteps.

Halas's story is, in essence, football's story, and by extension the story of professional sports in America. How did the NFL become, in Davis's words, the "richest and most powerful sports organization on Earth"? Read this and learn why you go to two churches on Sundays.



Rating:
Summary: King of the Grizzlies
Review: This is one of two books which I have read recently, the other being Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game, John Feinstein's account of his close association with Arnold ("Red") Auerbach. Both Halas and Auerbach were obviously great coaches but also outstanding CEOs, each building a successful and profitable franchise while playing a key role in a multi-billion dollar professional organization. In this instance, the National Football League. Born and raised in Chicago, I was especially interested in what seems to be the definitive biography of Halas, the longtime owner and coach of that city's NFL team, Duh Bears. It must have taken someone with both his most attractive qualities (e.g. vision, generosity, perseverance, self-confidence) and his most unattractive qualities (e.g. duplicity, arrogance, stubbornness, and -- at times -- paranoia) to accomplish what he did...which was indeed a great deal.

For example, Halas played as a right fielder with the New York Yankees until replaced...by Babe Ruth. He then concentrated on a career in football, playing for as well as coaching the Decatur (IL) Staleys which he organized in 1920. It was one of the 11 original teams in the American Professional Football Association, of which Halas was a co-founder and its driving force. The APFA became the National Football League in 1922. Thirty-five (35) franchises folded during its first ten seasons. It was also in 1922 that Halas relocated his team to Chicago and re-named it the Bears. From 1920 until 1929, he was a coach/player and then concentrated entirely on coaching during three periods (1933-42, 1946-55, and 1958-68), during which the Bears won seven NFL championships and Halas was credited with a then league-record of 325 wins. Only Don Shula has won more.

With all due respect to his achievements as a coach, Halas deserves much (if not most) of the credit for keeping professional football alive. At least until the emergence of television, baseball really was the national pastime and college football was much more popular (and credible) than was the NFL and the All-American Football Conference which challenged it after World War Two. It is debatable when all this changed. Many cite the the Baltimore Colts victory in overtime against the New York Giants in the NFL championship game (December 28, 1958), others Pete Rozelle's leadership as commissioner (1960-1989 and especially during his first years in that office), and still others a program which CBS televised in 1960 as part of its Twentieth Century series, "The Violent World of Sam Huff." Having personally observed the NFL's exceptional growth throughout the 1950s and 1960s, my own opinion is that there were many factors which certainly include these three. Point is, there would have been no NFL as we now know it without the contributions which George Halas made.

That said, there are many (including several who played for Halas) who would agree with then Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko that Halas was "a tight-fisted, stubborn, willful, mean old man...[adding that] there isn't a famous Chicagoan in or out of jail who generates such intense dislike." Unlike Arnold ("Red") Auerbach who frequently claimed that he could forgive but never forget a perceived grievance, Halas often seems incapable of either. Davis examines this in several of Halas' relationships with various assistant coaches and players as well as with several owners. However, it is most evident in his relationship with son-in-law Michael McCaskey who married daughter Virginia. Near death, as Halas considered who would next head the franchise, he sighed "Anybody but Michael." That deathbed wish would be denied.

Davis cites numerous examples of Halas' generosity, notably the fact that he paid for nearly all of the immense medical expenses during Brian Piccolo's losing battle with cancer. In the Foreword, Gale Sayers observes, "I love George Halas. When I talk about George Halas on speaking tours, I always say that. I thought that way about him. He made me a better person. He made a young man a better man just by talking to him, offering his advice. I always listened to him. I will always remember him. I appreciate him." Many others share their own fond memories as well appreciation of Halas' often concealed kindnesses.

Davis's research seems exhaustive. He conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with those who were most closely associated with Halas, including many with whom Halas had serious, at times rancorous disagreements (e.g. Dick Butkus) This is probably the definitive biography of the Old Man but it also offers a wealth of information about the process by which professional football evolved to its current place in American society. As Davis asserts and I agree, no one played a more prominent role during that process than did Papa Bear.