Football: The Parting of Papa

It is not quite accurate to say that George Stanley Halas invented pro football. He was, after all, only seven months old in 1895 when the first pro game was played. But after almost five decades as player, coach and owner, “Papa Bear” of the Chicago Bears does have a couple of impressive credits in the football record book. One is the longest run (98 yds.) with a recovered fumble (the fumbler: Jim Thorpe) in the history of the National Football League. Another is the National Football League.

Halas organized the N.F.L. in 1920, after a hip injury and a .091 batting average freed him from playing right-field for the New York Yankees (his replacement was named Babe Ruth) and allowed him to concentrate on his first love, football. Last week the aftereffects of that same injury finally ended one of the most flamboyant careers in U.S. sport. Complaining that the arthritis in his hip “has progressed to the point where I simply cannot move about quickly enough on the sidelines,” the most successful head coach in pro football retired and turned the job over to Jim Dooley, 38, his No. 1 assistant.

Over 39 seasons as Chicago’s coach, Halas led the Bears to six N.F.L. championships and eight divisional titles, compiled a record of 321 victories against 142 losses and 31 ties. A master strategist, he perfected the T-formation, initiated the man-in-motion and the use of spread ends, was the first coach to employ movies for spotting mistakes and plotting plays. A superb judge of talent, he gave the game some of its brightest stars: Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, Sid Luckman, Gale Sayers. A tightfisted businessman, he was known to wrestle fans for the ball after extra-point kicks, and a player once complained that Halas provided only two bars of shower soap for 36 men. To a Bear player who pleaded for an advance “to buy my kid milk,” Halas replied: “What’s his address? I’ll send him a quart.”

Boot Off the Bench. Halas’ sideline pyrotechnics will be missed most by Chicago fans. Teeth clenched, hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets, he raced up and down the field, bellowing at his players, badgering officials, blatantly coaching from the sidelines. Trying to lend moral assistance to a Bear field-goal attempt, he once booted a 240-lb. guard right off the bench. Another time, he curtly ordered a rookie: “Taylor, we’ve run out of timeouts. Go in and get hurt.”

Those days, Halas insists, are over now; he has promised to let Dooley have complete charge of the team. But he still owns 91% of the Chicago Bears, and nobody who knows him is convinced that George Halas, 73, can ever be simply an investor.