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When foreigners travel to the land known for its fierce defense, strong tacklers and intimidating linebackers, many will turn around and head for home. Some know they'll fail. Some fake injuries to escape. All are scared.

This land is known as Chicago, and throughout the ages no defense has been as feared as the Bears. However, throughout it's many years of intimidation and flat out domination, one man stands out above the rest for his unique combination of power, intelligence, speed and ferocity that had the opposition begging for mercy for nearly a decade. This man is Dick Butkus.

Dick Butkus

Richard Marvin Butkus was born on December 9, 1942 in Chicago and was the youngest of eight children. He had a passion for football as a child and decided in 5th grade that he wanted to go pro. He was dedicated and worked hard at it, and people began to take notice when he was a star center/linebacker at Chicago Vocational High School.

In 1961 he began his college career at the University of Illinois, where he further expanded his reputation as a fearless and powerful athlete. In his junior year he led Illinois to the Big 10 Championship and a Rose Bowl victory over Washington with 145 tackles and ten interceptions. That year he was voted Big 10 MVP and in 1964 he was the American Football Coaching Association's Player of the Year in 64. He was an All-American in 1963 and 64 (his junior and senior years) and finished near the top in Heisman Trophy voting both those years, an amazing accomplishment for someone who never touched the ball.

He and Red Grange, another great Chicago Bear, are the only two players to have their number retired by Illinois.

In the 1965 NFL Draft, the Bears were looking to draft a powerful defender to help out a defense that struggled the year before. With the third pick of the draft in the first round, they did just that by signing hometown hero Dick Butkus.

Butkus made an immediate impact with the team. In his first game he had 11 tackles, and in his rookie season he led the Bears in most major catagories including tackles, INTs, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries and would go on to do so for most of his career.

Butkus dominated the NFL and quickly became one of the most feared linebackers the sport has ever seen. Butkus, who was 6'3" and 245 lbs, had great speed, agility and strength and used his great power and eye for the ball to strike fear into the heart of the other team's offense. Some who have seen him play have compared him to a brick wall, or more fittingly a grizzly bear, as it was a rare occasion when a running back would be able to escape the grasp of his mighty claws, being helplessly thrown down into the mud and earth like it was his job.

He had a metaphorical anger light switch inside his head, and whenever he stepped onto the field, the lights turned on and he would run at you like you had just said something bad about his mother. He admitted himself that it was usually the anger that drove him to be such a fierce defender, saying "When I went out on the field to warm up, I would manufacture things to make me mad. If someone on the other team was laughing, I'd pretend he was laughing at me or the Bears. It always worked for me."

To give you an idea of the wide-spread panic and fear he caused, take a look at this Sports Illustrated cover from 1970:

On the side it says "Dick Butkus: the Most Feared Man in the Game"

He was fantastic in pass coverage and excelled in the secondary, having a total of 22 career interceptions. In other words, the entire field was Butkus's cave, and no one ever came into his cave and was able to come out alive, or at least extremely happy to be leaving, rather than walking in.

"If I had a choice, I'd sooner go one-on-one with a grizzly bear, I prayed that I could get up every time Butkus hit me," claimed former Packers running back MacArthur Lane.

He led the Bears in tackles for 8 of his 9 seasons, and when he retired he held the record for fumble recoveries with 27. The two players who are above him on the list, Jim Marshall and Ricky Jackson, needed 20 and 15 seasons to beat out Butkus, respectively.

He suffered his first of a series of knee injuries in 1970, but had surgery that wasn't very successful. (which is the reason why he would file a lawsuit the Bears in 1975 claiming they wouldn't allow him to get a second opinion about his knee from someone who wasn't the team doctor. Chicagoans were in love with Butkus and the Bears didn't want ticket sales, or the Bears' success, to go down the drain because of Butkus' absense on the field) Even with his bad knee he continued to wreak havoc onto opponents for two more seasons. The season after his surgury he recorded 117 tackles and 68 assists, all while still being in pain.

The pain finally got to be too much for Butkus and in 1973 he retired after only 9 seasons in the NFL. In all he finished with 1,020 tackles, 489 assists and 22 interceptions. He was an 8 time Pro-Bowler and was named to the NFL all-time team in 1994. Butkus only played nine seasons and is considered to be one of the best, if not the best, linebackers of all time. His command and dominance on the field is still the model for aspiring linebackers today.

After his football career he began his career in acting, appearing in a series of commercials and sitcoms from his retirement to the present, which I don't really feel like getting into right now.

Though he didn't achieve much fame as an actor, Butkus will always be remembered as one of the most feared players in NFL history and will remain to be known as one of the toughest linebackers in existance for ages.