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The Bears have had some players and coaches who stood above all the rest in the league. Some that were mean and scary and brutal. Some who were agile and quick. Some were touchdown scoreres. Some were touchdown stoppers. Some were contreversial and punky. However with these Bears stands one who is lovingly referred to as "Papa Bear" and is known as one of the greatest coaches the game has ever seen. He's a man who not only changed the Bears, but also changed the game of football and left an unreplaceable mark in the heart of all Bear's fans. He is George Halas.

George Halas

George Halas was a home grown Chicagoan, born on February 2, 1895 to two Bohemian immigrants. He learned self-discipline and other important attributes as a child by his family. Unknown by many football fans, Papa Bear's illustrious football career almost didn't happen, as when he was a young man he overslept and missed a company outing on the US Eastland, which later capsized in the Chicago River and took 845 lives.

He was a gifted athlete and and excelled in all sports, eventually attending the University of Illinois (which seems to be a Chicago Bear Great Training Ground, producing the likes of Halas, Dick Butkus and Red Grange) and played football and basketball with the Illini, leading them to a Rose Bowl win in 1919. His athletic career was interupted by World War I, however, and he joined the Great Lakes Naval Base football team, where he played with future Hall of Famer Paddy Driscoll, which was very successful and eventually led to the team's honorable discharge from the Navy. During the war Halas organized sports activities at the base.

Halas with the Yankees in 1919.

After the war he had a short stint playing professional baseball with the New York Yankees, where he played in the outfield for several games in 1919. A hip injury turned him away from the sport for good, however. Later, he would find, that injury would turn out to be a good thing.

In 1920, Halas was contacted by A.E. Staley of the Staley Starch Company and was given the job to coach the Decatur Staleys, a fledgling football team based in the central Illinois town of Decatur. Soon after Halas and his assistant coach Ed Sternaman headed to Canton, Ohio, and the Staleys became one of the founding members of the National Football League.

Halas created the teams colors, blue and orange, after his alma-mater Illinois, and brought in the first players that earned the Staleys an impressive 10-1-2 record their rookie season.

The 1921 Championship team. Halas is seated in the 1st row in the middle with the striped jersey. 

In 1921, Halas took total control from Staley and moved the team to Chicago, where they won their first championship that year. In 1922 Halas changed the team name to the Bears, as a sign of thanks to the Chicago Cubs and team owner Bill Veeck Sr who allowed the Bears to play at Wrigley Field, their home until the 1970's. Halas controlled all aspects of the team. He was a coach, a player and an owner, which meant he controlled the team financially as well, and legend has it he even sold tickets before the games. He did all these things will style and success, helping the Bears to a championship win in 1921, being named to the 1920's All-Pro Team and keeping the Bears in existance. He was inspirational and charismatic, not to mention he was a football genius.

Helping the team stay afloat may not seem like a big deal, but of the 14 teams that founded the league, only four stayed to finish out the season, and only two of the founding teams still exist today (the Bears and the Arizona Cardinals, who at that time played in Chicago)

Halas signed Red Grange, one of the most popular and influential athletes in the United States at that time, from the University of Illinois. This signing helped improve interest in a not-very-respected league for less-talented-athletes.

Halas, Grange and the Bears helped the interest in the league grow even more when they traveled all across the US in their "Barnstorming Tour", one of the first of its kind, in 1925. The Bears played teams from all across the US and posted a 11-4-2 record, generating more interest in the sport. A little known fact by most football fans is that this trip generated more revenue for some failing teams, such as the then near-bankrupt New York Giants. Who knows? Maybe if it wasn't for the Bears there would be no Giants.

Halas had an illustrious playing career as well.

Throughout the 20's and 30's, dozens of teams were created and fell apart in an unstable league, but the Bears were considered to be one of the best and most fierce teams in the league. By this time they had already begun fierce rivalries with the Green Bay Packers and the Cardinals (a crosstown classic until their move to Arizona in 1959, the oldest rivalry in pro football) and these three teams usually traded off championships year after year.

In 1930, Halas retired as a player (his #7 is retired by the team) , but still controlled the team. Halas was given much of the credit for the team's success, and in 1932 they won the league title again. Halas returned as coach in 1933 and helped the team to some great success, winning another title the following season.

Soon after he drafted quarterback Sid Luckman, who would be the centerfold of the game changing T-Formation, a feared and incredibly successful backfield lineup created by Halas and assistant coach Clark Shaughnessy. This formation earned the team championships in 1940 and 41, starting off the Bear's very successful decade to a great start with a 73-0 NFL Championship win over the Washington Redskins (a record for most points scored in a championship and largest margin of victory in a championship to this date)

It was also during this time that he established the motion. Yes, before him, there was no motioning before the snap.

Halas went to war again in 1942, along with many NFL players, and in 1943 the Bears won another championship thanks to Halas's brilliant offensive schemes and his created lineup. Halas returned in 1945 and won another championship in 46. This marked the 40's as the Bears' Dynasty Years that rival with the Steelers of the 70's, Cowboy's of the 90's and 49er's of the 80's but rarely ever is considered that prestigious. It was also the time when the Bears were cristened "the Monsters of the Midway".

Halas went on to produce future Hall of Famers like George Blanda, Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus and continued to lead the Bears to victory in the 50's and 60's. Though the Bears didn't win any championships in the 50's, he was essential to increasing football's popularity and helped bring it into the television era. He won his 200th game in 1950, followed by his 300th win in 1965, and was the first coach to reach those marks. He won one final championship with the team in 1963 and retired from coaching in 1967 as the league's oldest coach. He knew it was time to retire when, in his opinion, he, "couldn't chase refs fast enough to cuss them out anymore."

Halas with some of his players, including Sid Luckman, (42) who is seated on his left.

Halas finished his coaching career after 40 years of coaching with 6 championships (8 as an owner) and a fantastic 324-152-32 record. He would spend 63 years as the Bears owner, as well.

He had made significant changes in the sport, being the first to look over game film and hold practice every day. He was the only person to take a part in the NFL's first 60 seasons and during that time helped revolutionize the game to what it is today, one of, if not the, biggest sports in America. He also was the first to put assistant in the press box and play games on the radio.

He was elected into the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963 with football legends like former players Bronco Nagurski and Grange and Jim Thorpe and Curly Lambeau.

Halas passed the reigns onto his son, George "Mugsy" Jr, but after Mugsy's death at the young age of 54 in 1979 Halas resumed his duties.

He continued to act as owner of the Bears and one of his last important acts as owner was hiring Mike Ditka, an ex-player, as coach of the Bears in 1982. Ditka would later lead the Bears to their famous 1986 Super Bowl XX crown, a team considered to be one of the best ever.

George Halas was still playing a huge part with the club when he died on October 31, 1983 from pancreatic cancer. He was 88.

The Bears have great respect for their greatest ever coach, wearing his initials, GSH, on their jerseys and naming their training facility Halas Hall in honor of him.

Halas is perhaps one of the most loved and sacred coaches Chicago, if not America, has ever seen. His incredible career brought glory and honor to the City of Chicago and the game of football itself, and without a figure with a stature as big as his, the game would have been much much different. Things could have been much different had it not been for the great one they called "Papa Bear".