Pro Football: In Search of Excitement

To Chicago Bears Halfback Gale Sayers, 22, it all seems kind of humdrum.

He runs back a kickoff 96 yds., rambles 62 yds. with a punt, throws a 26-yd.

touchdown pass—lefthanded. So what else is new? He has scored as many as four touchdowns in a single game (against the Minnesota Vikings two months ago), averaged 4.4 yds. every time he has carried the ball, caught 26 passes for an average gain of 15.6 yds., broken a National Football League rec ord for touchdowns by a rookie (14), and virtually sewed up the N.F.L.’s Rookie of the Year award. But he hasn’t felt much excitement yet. “May be,” he says hopefully,”the excitement will come later.”

It is rare enough for a rookie to crack the starting line-up of an N.F.L.

team — let alone achieve star status in his freshman year. Exceptions are the rule this year. San Francisco’s Ken Willard is the third leading ground gainer in the N.F.L. Tucker Frederickson, a 220-lb. fullback from Auburn, is the man who makes the New York Giants go, and Bob (“Bullet”) Hayes represents the only real threat in the Dallas Cowboys’ offense. Sayers’ teammate Dick Butkus is the main bulwark in a brutal Chicago Bears defense that has allowed just 73 points in its last five games. But Willard, Hayes, Frederickson and Butkus are believable, at least.

Sayers is another story.

$150,000 from the Miser. Son of an auto polisher in an Omaha used-car lot, Halfback Sayers set a Big Eight rushing record by gaining 2,675 yds. in three years at the University of Kansas. Chicago Coach George Halas, a notorious miser, wanted him so badly that he laid out $150,000 to sign him for the Bears.

Late reporting to the Bears’ training camp (he had to play in the College All-Star game), Gale did not really get a chance until the third game of the sea son, against the Green Bay Packers. The Bears lost, 23-14, but Sayers scored both of Chicago’s touchdowns— one on a 6-yd. slant, the other on a 65-yd pass play.

Next time Chicago played Green Bay, Sayers scored one TD on a 10-yd. sprint around end, set up another with a 62-yd.

punt return— and the Bears clawed the Packers 31-10. Minnesota was leading Chicago 37-31 with only 2 min. 18 sec left when Gale gathered in a kickoff on his own 4-yd. line, set sail up the sideline, and simply outran everybody to the goal line. Against the New York Giants last week, Sayers demonstrated the perfect way to run one of pro foot ball’s prettiest plays: the halfback option. In the first quarter he started around end, stopped dead in his tracks, and flipped a pass to End Dick Gordon for 65 yds. and an apparent TD. The play was nullified by a penalty, so in the second quarter Sayers tried again—only this time he faked the pass, caught the Giants hanging back, and ran 45 yds. By day’s end, he had accounted for 113 yds. and 12 points; the Bears had their seventh victory in their last eight games, 35-14.

Shuffle & Away. That rarest of athletes, the pure natural, Sayers admits that he does not really know why he runs so well, or how he does it. “I have a lot of moves,” he says, “but I can’t describe them. They’re just instinct.” Opponents frankly marvel at Sayers’ tremendous speed (he runs the 100-yd. dash in 9.7 sec.), his fantastic acceleration, and his abnormally long stride—which deludes tacklers into thinking that he is traveling more slowly than he actually is.

“It’s amazing, the way Sayers moves,” says Green Bay Safetyman Willie Wood. “You think you have him penned in for no gain. But then he kind of shuffles his feet—and next thing you know, he’s away for a touchdown.” Unlike many backs, even among the pros, who unconsciously close their eyes as they hit the line of scrimmage, Gale runs with his head up and eyes open—”looking for daylight,” explains Bears Backfield Coach Chuck Mather.