Halas helped save Packers

Halas helped save Packers

Respect – and animosity — define this storied rivalry

David Haugh In the Wake of the News

More than animosity, respect defines the NFL's oldest and best rivalry.

To grasp this fully, you have to go back to one day in 1956 when it wasn't Bears legend George Halas coaching against the Packers. It was Halas coaxing the people of Green Bay on behalf of the home team considered his nemesis.

With the Packers facing the threat of NFL relocation unless city residents approved a new football stadium, Halas boldly sought to keep his field enemies closer to Chicago. Everybody in Wisconsin knew Halas despised the Packers for two Sundays every football season.

But less publicized was the honorable way Halas treated the Packers organization the other 363 days of the year, best illustrated when the Bears founder showed up to push public funding for what is now Lambeau Field

"While the NFL and other people were telling Green Bay what needed to be done, George Halas went up there and made an impassioned plea about how important the Packers were to the community,'' incoming Bears chairman George McCaskey said.

At that rally in '56, heavily promoted on local radio, Halas preached to locals used to booing his Bears. When voters responded April 3, 1956, by passing the stadium referendum to issue bonds that green-lighted more pro football in Green Bay, Halas received a share of the credit.

McCaskey, named for his famous grandfather, chuckled when recalling the irony of a story that still makes him proud.

"I'm biased, of course, but in my view that example gives you some idea of the measure of the man,'' McCaskey said.

It also reveals the true spirit behind the Bears-Packers series that peaks Sunday at Soldier Field when the two teams meet for the 182nd time in the NFC Championship game.

Sure, it can get nasty when the Bears and Packers play.

Halas and Curly Lambeau, the Packers vice president and head coach from 1919-49, set the tone for generations to follow by regularly engaging in intense gamesmanship that nearly crossed the line of sportsmanship. Dozens of players over the years have recalled the way Halas' demeanor would transform from professional to possessed after kickoff, when he was known to heckle Packers tackled near the Bears' sideline.

"I always kind of felt Halas was a friend of the Packers but when it came down to game day, I know he screamed like heck at them,'' said Art Daley, 94, a former sportswriter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "It wasn't dirty. But, boy, it was intense.''

We've also seen enough replays of cheap shots in the post-Halas Era to have a continuous loop running in our memories. The bitterness between Mike Ditka and Forrest Gregg helped produce regrettable incidents such as Charles Martin slamming Jim McMahon in 1986 and Ken Stills clocking Walter Payton out of bounds in 1985. Surely nails-for-breakfast linebackers Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke, among others, had their outbursts too. It happens.

But, generally speaking, since the first time these two franchises played almost 90 years ago, most of the vitriol exchanged comes from fans more than players and coaches. These days most of the trash-talking comes from talk-radio callers or tired comparisons of the cities. No, the modern-day Bears-Packers rivalry isn't as edgy as Steelers-Ravens or as petty as Jets-Patriots — and thank goodness.

Lovie Smith didn't sound very convincing Monday when he claimed, "We don't like each other.'' Did he? About the same time Smith was paying lip service to manufactured hostility, Packers coach Mike McCarthy sounded sincere calling his Bears counterpart a fine coach and gentleman. Heck, Sunday's opposing quarterbacks, Jay Cutler and Aaron Rodgers, regularly exchange texts and things are so chummy this week you imagine one of them ending a message "XOXO.''

Documented and anecdotal history suggests, beneath the game-day edginess, Halas occasionally showed a soft spot for the Packers going back to the NFL's infancy. Read "Papa Bear,'' by author Jeff Davis and it's clear Halas always recognized how both teams needed each other to grow their respective franchises — and the league.

As noted in the Packers media guide, it was Halas who was instrumental in persuading league partners in 1922 to allow Green Bay and Lambeau back in the fold after the Packers were banned for using college players illegally. Though it's interesting to note that it was Halas who originally discovered the Packers used the players and the Bears signed one of them, Hunk Anderson, after the hubbub.

Still, a mutual respect developed and the Packers returned the favor during the Great Depression when hard financial times left Halas scrounging for money to meet payroll expenses. "He had to borrow money from his mother and his mother-in-law and to me it speaks to his vision that he was able to keep things going,'' McCaskey said.

Halas also accepted a $1,500 loan from the Packers in 1932, according to Green Bay Press-Gazette archives. Some football historians believe it was that gesture by the Packers that drove Halas to get so involved in '56 when the NFL deemed old City Stadium and its 24,000-seat capacity too small.

But perhaps Halas' biggest contribution to his football neighbor 185 miles to the north went beyond supporting stadium projects that kept afloat teams in small markets such as Green Bay. When the Packers needed to hire a coach at the end of the 1958 season, team president Dominic Olejniczak sought Halas' opinion.

"Vince Lombardi's your man,'' Halas told Olejniczak.

Indeed he was. No wonder when Halas died in 1983, Olejniczak was quoted in newspapers as saying, "The Packers could not have had a better friend than George Halas.''

And this about the only coach to ever beat Lombardi five times.

"The story I heard was George Halas also was the only coach Vince Lombardi addressed by the title, 'Coach,' '' McCaskey said. "I think that's the measure of the type of respect they had for each other.''

It's also another measure of what makes this respectful rivalry unique.

I love this story, every time it comes up, almost every time we play the Packers.

But when you bring up this story, they bring up the story of how the packers loaned the Bears $1,500 when the Bears were broke.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Benjamin

I love this story, every time it comes up, almost every time we play the Packers.

But when you bring up this story, they bring up the story of how the packers loaned the Bears $1,500 when the Bears were broke.

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actually that wasn't a loan technically.. the reality is back then happened all the time- Teams SPLIT the gate revenue and if a team was hurting at the time, they would KEEP all the revenue for their home game and give an account receiviable that the other team would then keep all their home revenue and take the cut out of that.. So since since the money just came from gate receipts it isn't a loan, as the packers never gave the bears any money( a lon would ahve involed the packers giving the bers money), just an account receivable that next game in greenbay , the packers keep all revenue. .. Though the story of a laon for packers sounds better

another good storie from halas's old partner( he used to own 3.8% of team):

Ex-partner recalls last Bears-Packers playoff game

NEIL HAYES ON THE bears .hideTime { DISPLAY: none}Jan 19, 2011 02:34AM ''

His memories of watching Red Grange in 1934 are fleeting, which is natural because he was only 5 at the time.

His first indelible memory of watching the Bears takes on added significance this week as the team he and his father once owned a stake in prepares to meet the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday at Soldier Field.
The storied rivals haven’t met in the postseason since 1941. Charles Brizzolara’s memory, however, reaches back even further.

“My first really good recollection is in 1938, when my father took my older brother and me to Green Bay for the opening game,” Brizzolara said from his 15th-floor law office above Union Station. “We went up on the train with the team on Saturday afternoon and stayed at the team hotel. It was a whole new experience for me.”
Brizzolara, now 81, remembers how Bears players were given rooms above the hotel ballroom, where parties raged late into the night, making it difficult for them to sleep. Outside the hotel, Packers fans banged on garbage cans and whatever else they thought might keep the Bears awake.

Because City Stadium, which was the Packers’ home before Lambeau Field, had no locker rooms, Bears players dressed in the hotel ballroom before defeating the Packers 2-0.
“Everything was jubilation on the train coming home,” Brizzolara remembered. “George Halas even allowed the players to have beer, which was generally forbidden.”
Brizzolara is the son of the late Ralph Brizzolara, who was Halas’ lifelong friend and business partner. The Bears’ founder entrusted Brizzolara’s dad to run the Bears while he served in the Navy during World War II. Brizzolara inherited his father’s stake in the team before selling his interest in the late 1980s, but he has maintained his affection for the Bears.

Although he avoids most late-season games because cold air irritates his emphysema, no doctor could keep him away from a game as historically significant as the one Sunday, especially for someone who not only remembers the 1941 season vividly, but who considers that team the most dominant in franchise history — even better than the 1985 Super Bowl champions.

“George Halas always thought it was his best team, and it was always his favorite team,” Brizzolara said of the 1941 squad.

The Bears were coming off their 73-0 shellacking of the Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL championship game, which might have been the most dominant performance by any team in any championship event in sports history. It also prompted Jerry Downs to pen the iconic fight song “Bear Down, Chicago Bears.”

Halas’ team wore new uniforms, featuring navy-blue jerseys with three orange stripes on the sleeves, white numbers and white pants with blue-and-orange piping, when they took the field for the 1941 season opener against the Packers in Green Bay. It’s the same uniform they wear today.
The Bears defeated the Packers 25-17 en route to outscoring their first five opponents by an average of 42-10.

The Bears were undefeated when the Packers came to Chicago for a midseason rematch. The Packers’ lone defeat was to the Bears. A crowd of 46,484 packed Wrigley Field, only to see the hosts fall behind 16-0 before losing 16-14. Brizzolara still remembers Clarke Hinkle’s wounded-duck field goal dripping over the crossbar, which was located on the goal line then.

“The Packers won every game after that, and the Bears did, too, until they played the Cardinals on Dec. 7,” he said. “The Cardinals were winning, and things looked grim.”
That’s when Brizzolara noticed the flags being lowered to half-staff. Although Brizzolara said no public announcement was made, the shocking news spread quickly through the crowd.

“We found out halfway through the game what happened at Pearl Harbor,” he said. “It was eerie, but then the game was at old Comiskey Park, which was an eerie place anyway.

“My guess is a lot of people didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was. I didn’t. I knew it was a naval base, but it could’ve been in the San Francisco Bay, for all I knew. I was young and focused on the football game more than anything. It was a stunning thing.”
George McAfee sparked a Bears rally that resulted in a 34-24 victory, setting up a playoff rubber game against the Packers as the nation was being thrust into World War II. As unlikely as it seemed even during those uncertain times, it would be seven decades before the two charter franchises would meet in the postseason again.
The Packers used the same seven-man front that proved so effective against the Bears in their only loss of the season. The Bears responded with 277 rushing yards en route to a 33-14 victory before another standing-room-only crowd at Wrigley Field.
The power of the rivalry was such that only 13,000 fans showed up at Wrigley Field the next week to watch the Bears defeat the New York Giants 37-9 for their second consecutive NFL championship.

“To most football fans, that game was anticlimactic,” Brizzolara said. “The Bears-Packers game was the real championship game to most people.”

What people forget was how young the 1941 team was, making it more like 2010 Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks than the 2011 Bears. In hindsight, Brizzolara said the war breaking up that team might have been a good thing for the NFL because the Bears likely would’ve dominated for the next five or six years, which might have made the league less popular in other markets.

As it was, the Bears averaged 36 points per game in 1941, which translates to 576 over a modern 16-game schedule. Only the 2007 New England Patriots (589) have scored more in a season.

“After the championship game, my father went into the dressing room,” Brizzolara said. “He told me about George Halas saying it was his greatest team and it was going to be broken up and he was sad about that.

“Indeed, most of the players lost their best physical years during the war.”

The story you posted though, even called it a loan. In fact, it was said to be a likely reason Papa Bear helped keep the packers in cheese land

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Benjamin

The story you posted though, even called it a loan. In fact, it was said to be a likely reason Papa Bear helped keep the packers in cheese land

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I know as with many things even though incorrect the "myth" gets repeated enough to becomes a defacto truth even when not really true and writers waaaaay to lazy to research pr look up the actual situation .. like most urban legends..

I’m not gonna go old fogy here, but history does count for something, all you Twitter-blinded young’uns.

On Sunday, the Bears will play in what is being widely hailed in our town as ‘‘the biggest game in Bears history!’’ (exclamation mark included) and I — hellfire, I’m old and mean and still vicious in a small circle — just can’t abide such nonsense.

Not without comment, anyway.

First of all, the Bears played a pretty big NFC Championship Game just four years ago. Anybody remember? Beat the Saints’ halos off 39-14 at Soldier Field.
Maybe fans weren’t off-the-charts frenzied because of concerns about hot-and-cold quarterback Rex Grossman, mainly. But the Bears were 14-3 going in, and Super Bowl XLI and the palms of Miami beckoned seductively.

Sure, the Bears beat the distant Saints and not the familiar-as-the-brother-in-the-bunk-above-you Packers. But as I recall — and it’s not that hard, really, if your mind isn’t gone — Chicago was pretty hopped up.
What I fear is a lot of you think four years ago is lint, nothing more than a deleted text message from a drunken frat bro, a zit on Mark Zuckerberg’s chin.

But remember, kids, it’s one thing to live in the present. It’s another to think the world started when you rolled out of bed this morning.

So I present you with something to think about in the feverish days before the BEARS AND PACKERS GO FOR ALL THE MARBLES! (Even though more and larger marbles exist in Arlington, Texas.)

On Jan. 12, 1986, the Bears played the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC championship, at home on the frozen artificial carpet then gracing the surface of Soldier Field.
Incredible atmosphere

This was no ordinary game, if any deep playoff game can be considered such. No, this was a game carrying such meaning, such repressed hunger, such symbolic and very real pride for a team, an organization, an entire city that you can scarcely conjure the quivering, conglomerate passion unless you were there with the chosen thousands in the stands that frozen day or watching on TV with family or pals as the awe-inspiring drama unfolded.

The Bears obliterated the Rams 24-0 the way sledgehammers obliterate front steps. Behind a crazed defense led by Mike Singletary, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Gary Fencik, Wilber Marshall and pals, the Bears scared Rams quarterback Dieter Brock into only 10 completions in 31 pass attempts for a total of 66 yards. Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson carried 17 times for 46 yards, and the Rams finished with 130 net yards and zero points.

On offense, Bears quarterback Jim McMahon ran for the first touchdown on a 16-yard keeper, threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Willie Gault and wore a self-lettered headband that said in big black print, ‘‘ROZELLE.”

Pete Rozelle was the NFL commissioner who had fined the “Punky QB’’ for wearing advertising headbands in previous games. Rozelle was at Soldier Field, half- amused and half-flabbergasted, which prompted McMahon to say to reporters after the game, “Bet you guys thought I left off a verb.”

You thought Jay Cutler was the first less-than-outgoing Bears quarterback?
At any rate, the 1985 Bears were in the process of dislodging a giant hairball in the great city of Chicago’s stomach.

The Blackhawks had not won a title since 1961, the White Sox not since 1917, the Cubs not since God created Earth, the Bulls (Michael Jordan had joined the year before) never. The Bears themselves had won nothing since their 1963 NFL championship. The city was tense, on edge. Chicago needed a ramrod, a defiant group of mayhem-makers, lunch-bucket tough guys to shove it all down the pipes and blow it out into the face of the world.


Ba-looey!

Cast of characters


After that NFC Championship Game, Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan was hustling through the parking lot when I caught up with him and asked what he had done while using the 46 short-yardage defense even on some first downs.
“That’s where we put Too Tall [6-7 Tyrone Keys] in for Fatso [315-pound William Perry],’’ Ryan explained. “Because we expected them to run.’’
Remember, Buddy begat current Jets coach Rex Ryan, cocky and toe-loving, so you can see decorum runs in the family.

But here’s the point.

The snow came down in the fourth quarter of that game as Marshall picked up a fumble and, behind a “Refrigerator” Perry escort, ran 52 yards for the final score. And many people there at the field cried. Cigars were lit in the locker room, courtesy of Jimbo Covert, and McMahon said, “F--k the champagne, I want a beer!’’ I kid you not.
If you’re younger than, say, 35, I guess you can be excused for knowing none of this.
If not, you’ll recall the old saying: Those who don’t remember history are condemned to repeat junior high.