Windy City Gridiron
(Ed. note: the following column contains salty language.)
Johnny Lujack and George Connor had never heard such words. Certainly not from a head football coach.
When the two star rookies signed with the Bears in 1948, they learned immediately the preferred vocabulary of their new head coach, George Stanley Halas.
“Lujack and I joined the team in time to hear Halas lecture us about the ‘Cardinal cunts’ and ‘Packer pricks,” Connor recalled years later. Added Lujack: “When I was in the service, I never heard such words.” Lujack and Connor led Notre Dame to back-to-back national championships under legendary head coach Frank Leahy. Their move to the Bears taught them that there is no one way to coach a football team.
That’s something Ben Johnson’s players know well.
Much was made this week about Johnson shouting “Fuck the Packers! Fuck them! Fucking hate those guys” after the Bears’ mind-blowing playoff victory against those most bitter of rivals. Puritans outside Halas Hall said this was unprofessional. Perhaps they don’t know of that hall’s namesake.
“That was fucking horseshit, you cocksuckers!” Halas would scream, as reported by Jeff Davis in his biography Papa Bear — or “CACK-suckers,” as Davis noted Halas’s accent made it sound. In a 1960 game against the 49ers, Halas drew a 15-yard penalty for cursing out a ref. Davis reported a similar instance in his book (perhaps the same one), about Halas telling a ref, “You missed that (call), you fucking cunt! You stink!” The ref marched off a 15-yard penalty and responded to Halas, “How do I smell from here?”
“Leahy never used a swear word,” Lujack said. “Swearing was Halas’s cup of tea.”
This was true in his coaching days and it was true much later in life as an owner. In the 1977 season finale, the Bears went to Giants Stadium where a win would clinch their first playoff appearance since the 1963 championship. The Tribune reported the 82-year-old Halas at the stadium screaming at his players, his opponents, the refs… everyone.
“Rives, you (expletive)!” Halas shouted in a fury, cursing out Bears linebacker Don Rives. And later: “(Expletive), (expletive)! Get rid of that (expletive-ing) (expletive)!”
The Bears won in a thriller, 12-9 on a field goal in overtime. The win knocked Washington out of the playoff race, the final season as head coach for ex-Bears assistant and Halas foe George Allen. As Halas watched TV and saw Brent Musburger complimenting Allen and leaving out the Bears head coach, Halas screamed, “Let’s cut the (expletive)! How about something about Jack Pardee?”
Rivalries are serious business. Halas took them seriously. He gnashed his teeth at the Chicago Cardinals, and throughout title-game tussles with Washington and the Giants, and later in Western Division showdowns with the Colts, Rams and 49ers. None was more serious than the Packers. Take his standard sabotage efforts, for instance. A common Halas tactic was to sell tickets to fans to sit on the opponent’s bench at Wrigley Field. In November of 1947,...
