This story was originally published in Chicago Tribune Magazine on Aug. 31, 1975:
It is raining on Lake Forest. A gentle, steady shower drips from the sheltering branches of the abundant trees, nourishes lush lawns surrounding sumptuous houses, collects into riverlets on curving drives. At 6:45 in the morning the air is heavy, wet, and silent.
At Lake Forest College, certified public accountants, there for a seminar, are nestled all snug in their beds when a voice very like that of God in “The Ten Commandments” rends their slumber. “Wake up,” it booms from a dorm across the quadrangle. “Let’s go!” The sound of fist against door alternates with the shouted command; the astounded, awakened CPAs have been touched by the training camp of the Chicago Bears.
The voice belongs to Al Howard, an assistant trainer, and the objects of his reveille are the residents of McClure Hall and Roberts Hall: coaches, public-relations men, personnel men, trainers, ball boys, and 52 players (rookies, free agents, selected veterans) — the Bears of summer.
Today, Monday, July 14, will be the first day of real training. Yesterday, Health Evaluations Programs Inc., an outfit operating out of a huge mobile unit, had run players thru their physicals. On Saturday, most of the players had reported, and uniforms and equipment had been issued. On Friday afternoon, Joe Harris, a linebacker out of Georgia Tech, had arrived from his Fayetteville, N.C., home and parked his Volkswagen in the lot next to the practice field, becoming the first player to report to camp — a day early. He slept in one of the rooms reserved for visiting press. Harris’ Volks was joined by cars from all over the country as players from schools big (U.S.C., Notre Dame, Ohio State) and small (Alcorn State, Albany State) came to share Harris’ stated quest — “My goal is to be a Chicago Bear.”
Eddie Sheets, a linebacker who was with the WFL’s Florida Blazers (as were the Bears’ new head coach, Jack Pardee and five of his assistants), arrived in a silver Continental Mark IV with wide whites, sunroof, and a fitted canvas cover that he meticulously kept on the car whenever it was parked. The cover was emblazoned “Fast Eddie — Just TOO Fast!” Also in the lot were the orange Eldorado of Noah Jackson (a guard from the Canadian League), a VW wagon, license number NFL 52 (Bears veteran Rich Coady’s jersey number), and Revie Sorey’s white T-Bird with sunroof, telephone, and the word “Hollywood” painted in an arc across the trunk. Sorey, a rookie out of Illinois, calls himself “Rock Hollywood.” What the veterans might say and do about Sorey’s car when they reported at the end of the week was already a subject of gleeful and malicious speculation.
A figure moves slowly thru the rain toward Durand Commons, the mess hall. Larry Ely, a linebacker from the Blazers, sloshes in and out of puddles in a yellow Adidas T-shirt, green shorts, and sneakers — the basic off-field uniform (with variations of color and motto) of all the players. Coaches were blue shorts and blue or white knit shirts with the Bears insignia. Ely is followed by a parade of squat running backs, lanky ends, lithe defensive backs, towering tackles — all plodding in the athlete’s characteristic flat-footed gait like racehorses awkward at anything less than a flat-out run. Everyone seems oblivious to the rain.
Feeding the Bears is done cafeteria-style. This Monday morning there is a choice of blueberry pancakes, sweet rolls, eggs scrambled or to-order, bacon, sausage (five links to a serving), grapefruit, blueberries, cantaloupe, cold cereal, cheese. Apple juice and orange juice flow from spigots, as do whole, skim, and chocolate milk. Despite the unlimited portions there is no feeling of a Roman banquet here. The mood is businesslike, not so much a break from training as a part of it, a fueling stop. Tackle Jeff Sevy, from the University of California, stands watching a pitcher being filled with milk. It’s all for him.
Food service is catered under direction of Bears trainer Fred Caito. The overall menu was adopted from the Minnesota Vikings three years ago.
Breakfast is mandatory. A player who doesn’t show up is fined. There are also fines for being overweight (moderate), curfew violation (large), and loss of playbook (huge).
The sun is shining now, but there is no joy for Brian Doherty, a kicking specialist out of Notre Dame. He — more precisely, his left knee — has flunked the physical. Carl Marasco, player personnel director, will thru a Western Union terminal in his room, alert other NFL teams that Doherty is on waivers. There will be a 24-hour period in which a claim can be made on him by another team.
After the loss of Doherty, there will be 51 players in camp, to be joined by 37 veterans July 19 and three All-Stars Aug. 2 for a total of 91. Under league rules, that number will have to be reduced in stages, reaching 43 by Sept. 16.
From 8:30 ‘til 9, there are meetings, usually broken down by group — defensive line, backs, etc. — to discuss specific plays to be introduced at that morning’s practice. Sometimes there are general meetings. One such on Saturday night outlined the camp rules. They state that “hair is not a big issue, but it should be presentable”; that the purpose of playbooks is “to establish a common language that we may speak on and off the field so that we may improvise at the slightest provocation”; that there is to be no “association with students or working girls at this campus”; that a player should be neither a “loudmouth” nor a “wiseguy.”
Sportswriters would, in the next few weeks, note a more relaxed atmosphere than in Bear camps under previous regimes. Players could smoke in the dining hall, drink with moderation, spend time with their families. “It’s not normal to be away from your family,” Coach Pardee would be quoted. “You can’t put the players in jail. After an exhibition game, they don’t have to go right back to camp. Let ‘em enjoy an evening at home. Then they’ll come back refreshed.” Another quote more revealing of Pardee himself would come later on the subject of the players’ free time. “They’re off if nothing’s scheduled. But there’s always something scheduled.”
It is 9:30. Truth time. The flashy car, newspaper clippings, praise from a college coach — all are no help now. Practice is a time for sweating intelligently, for the head to know what to do and the body to be able to do it. It is a time when jobs are won and lost.
Fifty-one job applicants jog around one of the practice fields. The grass is still wet from the early-morning rain, and backs and receivers are concerned that their best moves might end in embarrassing sprawls on the soggy turf. The day is cool, not the best weather, some observers note, for boiling players into condition. Pardee, however, likes it fine. “Concentration is easier in cooler weather,” he says, “and my idea of training camp is teaching and learning. These people should be in shape by the time they come in here.”
As the jogging juggernaut rounds the far end of the field, the ball boys lay out 18-inch lengths of rope at the near end, one for each player. There are six ball boys — one who worked for the Bears last season, five new ones, all sons of Bears personnel. Any boy can grow up to be President; the ball-boy job is not so open.
The players form ranks, do a few calisthenics, just enough to get blood to the muscles, then pick up the ropes. The ropes are used to stretch muscles and make players more limber, less prone to injury. A rope is, for instance, looped under the toe of a player’s shoe. When he bends and touches his toes, he can, by pulling upward on the rope, bring his body still closer to the ground, stretching the muscles of the back of the leg that much more.
The stretching exercises are led by Special Teams Coach John Hilton, a personable guy, quiet and businesslike while working with kickers or run-back specialists. The other coaches call him “Mad Dog.” Receivers coach Jerry Stoltz is the only member of the coaching staff retained from last season. He’s a native Chicagoan, a product of Fenger High.
The other coaches were with Pardee on the Blazers. Brad Ecklund, the defensive line coach, combines the bulk and walk and look of John Wayne with the voice and manner of Chill Wills. Ross Fichtner, secondary coach, was himself a defensive back for the Cleveland Browns.
The Kentucky drawl of Ray Callahan, offensive line coach, is often heard over the groans during stretching exercises. Walking between the ranks, Callahan will grin, saying, “Oh my goodness, I bet that hurts!” Fred O’Connor, coach of the offensive backs, is a short, lippy guy who played his college ball at East Stroudsburg State. His wife, Margaret, likes to watch practices. “She claims she comes out to watch our mortgage run around,” O’Connor says. “If it looks like the team will do well, she knows we’ll be able to live in our house a little longer.”
As the practice breaks into separate drills — backs running thru the “blaster,” a machine designed to give them the feel of being hit and knocked off balance; punt returners drilling on who takes the ball, calling either “me, me, me,” or “you, you, you”; defensive linemen giving Ecklund a ride on a blocking sled (Ecklund calls “hut” to go, “ho” to stop) — the appearance is that of a circus, a different act everywhere you look. In the center of the action, like a ringmaster, Pardee stands in as quarterback or center, coaches the linebackers, exhorts the tackles: “Ring the bell; ring the bell!”
Pardee has been variously described as brawny, ruddy, bright, firm, fair, likable, soft-spoken, even-tempered. He is all of these and, at 38, the youngest head coach in the NFL.
Melanoma, a form of cancer, had threatened to end his career as a linebacker and possibly his life, but an 11-hour operation in 1965 and a year spent rebuilding his right arm put him back in the game for another seven seasons of a 15-year playing career. He is now active in the American Cancer Society.
Rebuilding — not an arm but a team — is an undercurrent in conversations among spectators at the practice. There are a handful of kids at the gate hoping for autographs; 20 or so people in the stands outside the fence at one end of the parking lot; and half a dozen cars, a truck from North Shore Gas, and a Meadow Gold milk truck pulled over near the northwest end of the practice field. A very small boy in one of the backyards abutting the field sits shouting “kill ‘em” in a squeaky voice. Last season’s team is already being called “the old Bears” and is recalled whenever a center’s snap to a quarterback is dropped, a pass goes awry, a player jumps offsides.
In a scrimmage, Barry Brady, a wide receiver out of Mississippi’s Alcorn State, grabs a pass and darts into the end zone. “That’s their first TD n about a year and a half,” someone shouts. There is laughter, and the heady wine of optimism begins to pour thru the onlookers.
Those who had seen previous camps at Rensselaer, Ind., under previous coaches compare them with what they are seeing now. Lake Forest and Pardee win every time. Equipment Manager Bill Martell walks out to the sidelines to view the action, glances around the periphery of the practice field, and asks, “Where’s the corn?” Cornfields, it seems, were the main objects of interest at Rensselaer, the Bears’ training ground for 31 years. One sportswriter recalls Abe Gibron, the previous head coach, looking at the fields near the end of an afternoon and exclaiming, “I swear that corn’s grown four inches today.”
The smoothness and enthusiasm of the drills are also noted. All the coaches carry see-thru plastic folders containing schedules of what is to be accomplished at each practice. The flow of activities is monitored by Bob Bowser, administrative assistant to Pardee and another import from the Blazers. One of the rules laid down the day the rookies showed up at camp was, “In practice, always job from one group to another, NO WALKING.” Coaches harangue (”That play looked like a jailbreak!”), shout encouragement, explain how and why plays should work, even make players redo sloppy breaks from the huddle. Players keep up the chatter, one of them yelling from the sidelines, “Way to sacrifice your body, Revie!” It is said in earnest.
Near the end of practice, Pardee runs various units thru what he calls “perfect-play” drills. Linebackers, for example, run the first 15 yards of eight plays; if they do them perfectly, they’re finished; if they mess one up, they do nine plays; mess up two, they do 10, etc.
At the end of practice, before working out with barbells and dumbbells in the weight room and gulping Gatorade, players “warm down” with stretching exercises. This helps prevent muscle pulls. One exercise requires rocking back onto their shoulders while clasping their knees. Noah Jackson, 263 pounds and at the moment upside down, chortles, “Show that moon to the sky.”
Lunch begins, accompanied by the piped-in strains of “What’s It All About, Alfie?” The menu is BLT-plus-turkey sandwiches, hot dogs, chili, chicken-noodle soup, banana cake, with the salad bar, the juices, the milks, and a freezer chest containing half a dozen varieties of ice cream in five-gallon tubs. A college employee at the door checks names off a list of personnel eligible to eat at the cafeteria. When Coach O’Connor gets to the head of the line, he announces, “Knute Rockne.” The checker begins to run his finger dutifully down the list.
The only person in the cafeteria in a coat and tie is Jerry Vainisi, the Bears’ controller. He is handing out checks to players to compensate for travel expenses. Rookies and free agents get a salary of $200 a week during training; veterans get a percentage of their contracts.
In front of McClure Hall, Brian Doherty is packing his clothes into a friend’s car. It is not uncommon, later in the training camp, for a player who hasn’t been doing well in practices to leave in the dead of night. The writing has been seen on the wall. It’s almost like a suicide and is discussed in the same hushed tones.
The schedules calls for “siesta” after lunch. Many players take the hint; some play records or read in their rooms. Because this is only the second day they have had their playbooks, many use this time for study. The campus seems strangely quiet.
Afternoon practice is like this morning’s except that now drills are done in full uniform; practice ends not with perfect-play drills but with “striders,” 40-yard wind sprints; and watching now from the last row of the bleachers, bent forward intently, chin resting on his fist, is Jim Finks, new general manager of the Bears.
Other eyes also watch with more than curiosity. Jim Parmer, the college scout, had graded 44 potential NFL players before the January draft, comparing his ratings with those of BLESTO, a national scouting combine to which the club belongs. Player Personnel Director Carl Marasco is often standing next to Parmer watching the hopes and hunches run around and bump each other. “The first two or three rounds of the draft, it’s not difficult to choose players,” Marasco says. “After that it gets tough. You go for a kid who shows you something — it’s hard to put your finger on — attitude, desire.” He shrugs. It is difficult to discuss one’s art.
Another duo whose interest is informed and intense is Trainer Fred Caito and Physical Coordinator Clyde Emrich. Emrich is a member of the Weightlifting Hall of Fame. In 1957 he became the first man weighing less than 200 pounds to life more than 400 pounds. Emrich is in charge of building up and slimming down, of increasing strength and speed, of customizing a body to best play a particular position, of preventing injury, of rehabilitation. He and Caito — working together with ice therapy, whirlpool treatments, diathermy (electric deep heat), ultra-sound, hydroculator (moist heat), and traction — are able to restore to playing shape by the Wednesday following a Sunday game players who a few years ago wouldn’t have been able to play again for more than a week. “The Monday after a game,” Caito says, “everybody should feel bad.”
Bill Martell watches not only the players but what they are wearing and what they are practicing with. Martell, the equipment manager, has among his charges 150 footballs (worth about $30 each), 250 shoulder pads, and a new, $1,500 seven-man blocking shed. Back when tear-away jerseys were popular and Gayle Sayers was the Bears’ premier runner, Sayers went thru six to eight jerseys a game, Martell recalls.
Dinner is like breakfast and lunch, only more so. There is, however, a more relaxed feeling in the room. A day of knocking heads together has broken down the tension. Also, the practices went well; Pardee was pleased. “It’s a pretty good start,” he allowed.
In one of the meetings following dinner, the “old Bears” of last season (4-and-10 in the won-loss column) flicker across a screen, executing some plays well, others abominably. The projectors run silently forward, backward, in slow motion and stop-action. There are some 200 training reels available, each on a specific aspect of the game.
At 10 p.m., the players are still watching films. The ball boys are watching the TV news, hoping to see themselves in some of the footage shot at practice. One boy is shown for a fraction of a second.
Players are out of their meetings around 10:30. They must be in their rooms by 10:45, lights out at 11. So much for carousing.
The players don’t know it, but Bob Bowser, whose administrative duties include checking on curfew, doesn’t yet have a master key to McClure Hall. “I can’t look into the upstairs windows,” he says with a gesture of helplessness.
Trainer Caito, as he does every night at 11, meets with Pardee to discuss injuries. Nothing serious today. Thirty-five minutes later, Pardee goes into his room to view film of this day’s practice.
Bowser’s eyes are red now and float atop dark semicircles. The practice schedules have been drawn up, and there is only one more thing to do before bed. In line with Pardee’s philosophy of camp as a teaching-learning situation, the Bears have 20 projectors — movie, opaque, overhead. Bowser is preparing for overhead projection acetate sheets on which Pardee’s goals for the coming season will be set forth — 23 interceptions made, 19 fumbles recovered, etc. Visuals, repetition, reinforcement — the techniques of Sesame Street.
At 12:45 Tuesday morning, Pardee’s light is finally out. In six hours, he and the others will wake and do it all over again, and again and again until camp ends Aug. 29. On Sept. 21, he and some of the now slumbering players will enter Soldier Field for the first of the regular-season games that will show how well the lessons of summer have been learned.
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