On February 2—Super Bowl Sunday—we celebrate the 125th anniversary of the birth of one of the founders of the National Football League. George Halas, an Illini Hall of Fame three-sport athlete and a 1918 graduate of the University of Illinois, was born on this date in 1895. Many little-known facts about his life and career are uncovered in our profile about the man who would come to be known as "Papa Bear."
A sweeping array of words and titles that span the spectrum might be offered to describe the life of George Stanley Halas.
Passionate. Tough. Intimidating.
Leader. Visionary. Survivalist.
Halas ruled with an iron fist on the gridiron, but under that tough exterior was an individual who possessed unique warmth and sensitivity. He was a man of principal, of integrity, of optimism, of compassion, and a man of wit and charm.
Still, the question remains: who and what shaped the character of the man who would become an icon for professional football?
Halas's hometown of Chicago was experiencing extraordinary growth in the 1890s, increasing by 600,000 during the decade to a population of 1.7 million. The youngest of four surviving children (four others died as infants), George lived with his parents, Frank and Barbara, on Ashland Avenue, about two miles southwest of downtown.
His dad was multi-talented, serving initially as a reporter on a Bohemian-language newspaper, then becoming a tailor, and then the owner of a grocery store and dairy. Each week, young George would hitch the family horse ("Lucy") to the wagon and drive his father to the South Water Street market to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
In his 1979 autobiography, "Halas by Halas", George wrote about his parents' dream for his brothers (Frank and Walter) and his sister (Lillian).
"Almost daily, Mother or Father would speak of the importance of a good education," he said. "The family dream was a university degree."
Despite weighing only 110 pounds when he entered Crane Technical High School in 1909, young George feasted on sports, participating in football, baseball and track. Baseball was his best game, helping the Cougars defeat Lane Tech for the city championship his senior year while serving as the team captain.
When George's father died on Christmas Eve of 1910, the family moved to a flat on 23rd Place and Washtenaw. Still, achieving a college education remained his mother's most important objective for her children.
After George graduated from Crane, he had intended to immediately enroll at the University of Illinois where brother Walter was completing his second year studying architectural engineering. Oldest brother Frank, however, urged him to work for a year before going to college, so George joined the payroll department at Western Electric Company in Cicero.
Finally, in the Fall of 1914, Halas packed three shirts, three pairs of socks, and three sets of underwear and headed south to Champaign-Urbana. Budgeting himself $25 per month, the civil engineering major joined Tau Kappa Epsilon.
On the athletic fields, the now 140-pound Halas went out for Coach Bob Zuppke's football team and Ralph Jones' Illini baseball club, but spent most of his time as a reserve.
Halas returned home to Chicago in the summer for his job at Western Electric. It was on July 24, 1915, the date of the company's big summer picnic, when Halas had a serious brush with fate.
The company had chartered five Great Lakes passenger steamers to take several thousand of its employees across Lake Michigan to Michigan City, Indiana. Anxious to arrive early at the picnic, travelers began to board the first departing ship, the S.S. Eastland, at 6:30 a.m. By 7:10, the ship had reached its capacity of 2,572 passengers. With many of them standing on the open upper decks, several rushed to the port side as the ship departed, causing the vessel to roll completely over on its side. Many other passengers were below deck and were among the 844 passengers and crew who ultimately perished. The 20-year-old Halas was thought to have been one of them, being listed among the victims in the afternoon newspapers. He told his story in the book.
"The payroll department had a (baseball) team and we were due to play in a game (at the picnic). It so happened that I was delayed at home and so I missed the first boat. I was going to catch the second. Lo and behold, when I arrived at the dock (on the Chicago River near La Salle Street), there was the (S.S.) Eastland turned over on its side. I was originally scheduled for that particular boat."
Halas returned to classes at the U of I in the Fall of 1915. During the summer, he'd put on another 20 pounds and now tipped the scale at 160. Because of his speed and shiftiness, Halas tried out to play halfback, but he couldn't dislodge two-year veteran Harold Pogue. Instead, Zup and assistant coach Justa Lindgren instead made him an end.
During one of the early season practices, Halas broke his jaw when tackling Pogue. He recovered and in the Spring of 1916 he became a star for Huff's baseball club, played all the outfield positions, and batted .350 for the Big Ten champs.
Halas broke his leg in the Fall of '16, sidelining him yet again from gridiron competition, but by January he'd recovered. Knowing that George was eager for any type of competition, Ralph Jones encouraged him to play basketball. Joining standout brothers Ralf and Ray Woods, the gritty guard helped the Illini win a share of the Big Ten title. So impressive was George's leadership that Jones appointed Halas as captain for the 1917-18 season. When the season ended, George shed his sneakers for spikes and joined his brother Walt, a pitcher, leading the Huff "9" to the conference crown.
In Fall of 1917, George finally avoided injury and won his first varsity letter in football. World War I began to crowd sports from his mind and, in January of 1918, against the mother's wishes, George decided to enlist in the United States Navy at age 22. Navy made him a carpenter's mate second class, assigning him to the sports program at Great Lakes. And though he was six hours short of his degree, the U of I issued Halas his degree in June.
At Great Lakes, George was joined by football All-Americans Paddy Driscoll of Northwestern, Charlie Bachman of Notre Dame, and Jimmy Conzelman of Washington University. Buoyed by that talented contingent, the Bluejackets from North Chicago rolled to a 6-0-2 record in 1918, including a 7-0 victory over Halas's alma mater at Illinois Field. Great Lakes was invited to play in the 1919 Rose Bowl game against the Mare Island Marines and emerged from Pasadena as the champs, winning 17-0. Halas sparkled in the game, catching a 32-yard touchdown pass from Driscoll and returning an interception for 77 yards. His performance earned him Most Valuable Player honors.
It would turn out to be only the beginning of a magical journey for George Halas.
Following his escape without injury during his sterling performance in the 1919 Rose Bowl, George Halas returned to Chicago and reassured his worried mother that "football was over for me."
"I (told her) I still loved the sport, but would devote my athletic efforts henceforth to baseball," he wrote in his 1979 autobiography entitled Halas by Halas.
Initially, Halas lived up to the vow he'd made to his mother. He tried out for manager Miller Huggins' Yankees, impressing the club so much with his speed, arm and eagerness that he earned a position on New York's 1919 big league roster. His contract called for him to receive $400 a month and a $500 signing bonus. Unfortunately, a hip injury limited Halas's career to just two singles in 12 games. By the time he had fully recovered from his injury, the Yankees had signed Babe Ruth, "so that left me out and turned out to be a very fortunate thing for me."
From baseball, Halas found a job in the bridge design department of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. Still, his heart ached for the excitement of athletic competition. Disappointing his mother, Halas joined a semi-professional football team in Hammond. Though it deepened his love for the game, Halas assumed that his future was in the railroad business.
In March of 1920, Halas received a call from the general superintendent of Decatur's A.E. Staley Company. He was offered the opportunity to not only "learn the starch business", but also to play on Staley's baseball team and manage and coach the company's football squad. Once on board, Halas began to recruit players, including his old buddy Jimmy Conzelman, All-American Guy Chamberlain from Nebraska, plus Edward "Dutch" Sternaman and Burt Ingwersen from his alma mater. Halas eagerly devised plays he'd learned from Bob Zuppke in Champaign.
Next, Halas needed to assemble a schedule of Midwest competition. A meeting was called at Ralph Hay's automobile showroom in Canton, Ohio.
"There were only a few chairs, so we had to sit on the running boards of the automobiles (in the showroom)," Halas wrote in his book.
Within two hours, the American Professional Football Association was created. Olympic gold medalist and football and baseball star Jim Thorpe was elected the APFA's president.
Fan turnout was sparse in Decatur during that inaugural season, so Staley suggested to Halas that he move the team to Chicago's Cubs Park (now Wrigley Field) to improve attendance. The crowds did grow a bit in year two when the Staleys won the league championship, but the team's profit margin was minuscule. The total season's profit was a mere $1,476.92.
Halas's obligation to the Staley Company ended following the 1921 season and he and co-owner Sternaman established the Chicago Bears Football Club with capital stock of $15,000. The team's nickname was a tribute to baseball's Chicago Cubs.
In February of 1922, Halas married Wilhelmina Bushing, who he called "Min". The new Mrs. Halas quit her job in the grain brokerage business and plunged into Bears' administrative affairs. Their first child—Virginia Marion Halas—arrived on January 5, 1923. In 2020, ninety-seven-year-old Virginia McCaskey serves as the Bears' principal owner.
Gate receipts for the newly named National Football League climbed ever so slowly over the next three seasons, but exploded on Thanksgiving Day of 1925 when University of Illinois star and Wheaton native Red Grange made his professional debut for the Bears against the Chicago Cardinals.
Said Halas, "We sold all 36,000 tickets that day and could have sold 30,000 more. I knew then and there that pro football was destined to be a big-time sport."
A week later, despite a major snowstorm, 28,000 fans came to Cubs Park for the season finale, then Grange and the Bears set off on a barnstorming tour that included 19 games in 66 days. The highlight was a December 6 game against the New York Giants that drew 70,000 fans to the Polo Grounds.
When the Great Depression began in 1929, it took its toll on the NFL, melting its twenty-two clubs in 1926 to just eight teams in 1932. In the summer of '31, co-partner Dutch Sternaman, facing bankruptcy, asked for and received a $38,000 buyout from Halas.
By 1933, behind legends Grange and Bronko Nagurski, the Bears were back on top, marking Halas's first title team in a dozen years.
Halas left coaching in 1942 to enter the Navy during World War II. He served for 39 months, was awarded the Bronze Star, and was released from duty in 1946 with the rank of captain.
The Monsters of the Midway dominated the NFL from 1933 thru 1950, winning an astounding seventy-five percent of their games. NFL championships were recorded in 1940 (73-0 over Washington), '41 (37-9 over New York) and '46 (24-14 over New York) behind stars like Sid Luckman, Clyde "Bulldog" Turner and George Connor.
Halas's '50s and early '60s Bears (minus 1956 and '57, when he handed the coaching reigns to Paddy Driscoll) had mixed results, but the magic returned in 1963 when the Orange and Blue defeated the Giants for Halas's final NFL Championship. Chicago drafted college superstars Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in 1965, but they failed to yield championship success.
Following the 1967 season, the 72-year-old Halas retired as coach of the Chicago Bears. He continued as the team's principal owner until his death from pancreatic cancer at age 88 on October 31, 1983.
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GEORGE HALAS: BY THE NUMBERS
7 Jersey number retired by the Bears in Halas's honor
8 NFL titles won by Halas-coached teams
40 Years as a head coach
63 Years as the Bears owner
104 Games played in the NFL
324 Coaching victories (stood as an NFL record for nearly three decades)
1963 Year inducted as a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
2016 Year inducted into the University of Illinois Engineering Hall of Fame
2017 Year inducted into the Illini Athletics Hall of Fame
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Red Grange: "When I joined the Bears, Halas was everything. He played right end. He was coach. He was in charge of the tickets. He was in charge of the ground crew. He put out the publicity. I've always said that if anybody ever made a dime out of football, George Halas is the one guy that deserves it more than anybody that ever lived because he put his whole life in it."
Doug Atkins: "Halas would do anything to distract the other team. I wouldn't put anything past him."
Gale Sayers: "Some say Coach Halas is tough or cheap, but I know better. He was a very warm person. You can't help but like George Halas."
