Remembering Dick Butkus

Whether the guy who thought (wrong, by the way) he would teach Nick Nolte’s Tom Jordache in “R.M.P.M.” a lesson or the name of Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky’s” dog, Dick Butkus, who sadly died at age 80 days back, epitomized toughness.

More important, he was an all-time great player, both in college at Illinois and with the “Chi” Bears, a now (1-4) team that “honored” Butkus, doubling (2-3) “Wash” on the day Butkus died.

What a draft for the Bears in ’65, though even getting Butkus and the great Gale Sayers never produced an ‘offs appearance, in those far better days of one team, from each conference in the ‘offs.

I met Mr. Butkus once and he was a friendly great, (not all are).

“Silly” talked of him yelling all night at Fran Tarkenton, another great who never titled though in more than his share of ‘offs games and I recall the Sunday night CBS News, then classy with little if any sports, showing Butkus scoring on a botched extra point to win a game vs you guessed it, Washington.

Great memories of a truly great player with whom I had a nice meeting.

Left to right, the great Dick Butkus and Andy B. some, now pretty many, years back.

Click below to view Pat Summerall’s narration on “This Week In Pro Football” of another Bears/Wash game (the two franchises have had so many big ones) in which Butkus and quarterback Bobby Douglass made great plays on the go ahead to stay extra point play in ’71.