CHICAGO — Gale Sayers, the dazzling Chicago Bears running back and kick returner whose injury-shortened career made him the youngest player ever inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after a years-long decline in health that included dementia. He was 77.
The “Kansas Comet,” as Sayers was nicknamed, was one of the most agile and elusive ball carriers ever.
“If you wish to see perfection as a running back, you had best get a hold of a film of Gale Sayers,” Bears founder George Halas said in 1977 when he presented Sayers for Hall of Fame enshrinement. “He was poetry in motion. His like will never be seen again.”
Sayers’ dynamic running ability helped him earn All-Pro recognition in each of his five full seasons. It also left teammates, coaches, fans and pundits to wonder what he might have accomplished in football had knee injuries not ended his career in 1971 after only seven seasons (68 games).
In fact, Sayers’ legendary athleticism was a bittersweet topic at the Bears100 Celebration in June 2019, as former teammates tried to make sense of how the electric running back they revered could be the same frail, wheelchair-bound man who appeared on stage.
“If I wanted one (running back) for a season, I’d take Walter Payton. But if I wanted a player for one play, I’ll take Gale Sayers above every running back I’ve seen — whether it be Jim Brown or O.J. Simpson or anybody” said Johnny Morris, a teammate of Sayers’ for three seasons in the mid-’60s.
“He had a knack of being in the air and he’d swing his leg over and come down in a different direction. That’s the best way I can put it.”
Sayers rushed for 4,956 yards and scored 56 touchdowns in his career. The four-time Pro Bowler ranks fourth on the Tribune’s list of top 100 Bears players all-time and fifth on the team’s list.
“I had a style all my own,” Sayers is quoted as saying by the Hall of Fame. “The way I ran, lurchy, herky-jerky, I kept people off-guard so if I didn’t have that much power when I hit a man, hell, he was off-balance and I could knock him down.”
Sayers amassed 9,435 all-purpose yards, which ranks fourth in Bears history behind Payton, running back Matt Forte (12,718) and return specialist Devin Hester (10,196).
“Just give me 18 inches of daylight,” he once told NFL Films. “That’s all I need.”
Gale Eugene Sayers was born May 30, 1943, in Wichita. He was raised in Omaha, Neb., and starred in football and track at Omaha Central High School. He set the state long jump record of 24 feet, 11 3/4 inches. At Kansas he became a two-time All-American in football.
The Bears drafted Sayers fourth overall in 1965. Remarkably, it was only one spot after the Bears picked future Hall of Fame linebacker Dick Butkus, all All-American out of Illinois.
“Both had unusual running movements,” Halas wrote in his autobiography. “I’ve never seen anyone run with Gale’s agility. No one ever caught him from behind. Butkus was bow-legged. I learned later Butkus had knee injuries in high school and college. Both had rare abilities, supported by courage, desire and spirit.”
Butkus was unfamiliar with Sayers before they met in New York after the 1964 college season. They had gathered for a celebration hosted by the Football Writers Association of America and Look Magazine, which published the FWAA’s All-America team each year.
“I’m looking at this guy with the high-tops and he’s running back kickoffs and everything else,” Butkus recalled at the Bears 100 Celebration. “I didn’t know who in the heck he was, but he was amazing on that game tape.”
