Nobody hit as well as Dick Butkus. Nobody before, nobody since. Given the evolution of the game he symbolized, it’s safe to say it will never be the same again.
His intensity and desire were unmatched. It seemed like he was bigger than everyone else. Also meaner and harder.
In a video for NFL Films, John Facenda said in typically dramatic fashion that Butkus “played with religious fervor, with a relentless obsession not only to excel, but to dominate and demoralize.”
Maybe it was an understatement.
Butkus died on Thursday at the age of 80. His family issued a statement through the Bears saying he “died peacefully in his sleep overnight at home in Malibu, California.” The Butkus family meets with Dick’s wife Helen. They appreciate your prayers and support.”
Bears chairman George McCaskey issued a statement that said, in part, “Dick was the ultimate Bear and one of the greatest players in NFL history.” He was Chicago’s son. He exuded what defines our great city and, not coincidentally, what George Halas looked for in a player: toughness, smarts, instincts, passion and leadership. He refused to accept anything less than the best from himself or his teammates.”
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement: “Dick Butkus was a fierce and passionate competitor who helped define the linebacker position as one of the NFL’s all-time greats.” Dick’s intuition, toughness and athleticism made him an exemplary linebacker whose name will forever be associated with this position and the Chicago Bears.”
Considered by many to be the greatest linebacker in football, Butkus was a product of Chicago’s South Side, but he could have been given to us by Marvel because it was hard to imagine what he was capable of.
At Chicago Vocational High School, he played fullback, punter and kicker in addition to linebacker and made 70 percent of his team’s tackles. He was so dominant during his college years that the NCAA’s annual top linebacker award was named after him. A 12-foot-tall, 1,000-pound bronze statue in his likeness stands outside the University of Illinois football center.
In the NFL, Butkus played in the golden age of linebackers, when he shared the field with Joe Schmidt, Ray Nitschke, Sam Huff, Chuck Howley, Chris Hanburger, Bobby Bell, Dave Robinson, Tommy Nobis, Mike Lucci, Nick Buoniconti and Lee Roy Jordan, Willie Lanier, Ted Hendricks and Jack Ham, among others. But Butkus towered above them all: He was selected twice all-decade, made eight Pro Bowls in his nine-year career and was selected first-team All-Pro six times. He was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year twice, including in 1969 when the Bears won a game. Toward the end of George Halas’ life, the founder of the NFL’s oldest franchise called Butkus “the greatest player in Bears history.”
Richard Marvin Butkus was the youngest of seven children of Lithuanian immigrants John and Emma Butkus. John was an electrician; Emma worked in a laundromat.
The Butkus family lived in a 1,000-square-foot, four-bedroom home at 10324 South Lowe Street in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood. Dick shared one of the 8×10 rooms with his brothers Ronald, Donald, David and John, all of whom except John were taller than Dick.
At birth, Dick weighed 13 pounds, 6 ounces, which explains why he stood 6 feet tall and weighed 245 pounds. His head, hands and feet were huge. His shoe size – 12EEE – often caused his feet to break through the sides of his shoes. His shirts had 37-inch sleeves.
From an early age, Butkus was known for his shyness.
“He was looking down the whole time,” said Rick Bertetto, who met Butkus when they registered for kindergarten and was nicknamed “Butkus’ mouthpiece.” “He didn’t look anyone in the eye.”
When Butkus was eight years old, he got a job running errands for a bakery. “I was paid with fresh rolls and bread, which for me was better than money,” he wrote in his 1997 autobiography “Butkus: Flesh and Blood.” “I was proud to carry these big warming bags home and put them on the kitchen table.”
During his teenage years, Butkus and his brother worked for a moving company, where they strapped refrigerators to their backs, lifted cabinets over their heads and carried pianos up stairs.
He became stronger by pushing a car up and down a dead-end street.
“I spent hours pushing the car and trying to build up my legs,” he wrote in “Stop-Action,” the 1972 book about a week in his life. “I always wanted to push it further, faster and longer than anyone else. I could see myself pushing entire teams up and down the field.”
At 14, he met the love of his life but was too shy to do anything about it. His friend Rick Richards had to ask Helen Essenberg if she would go on a scooter ride with Butkus. He took her on several scooter rides without ever saying a word. Rick then asked Helen if she wanted to go to the movies with Butkus. There he finally spoke.
“Would you like some popcorn?” he said.
In high school, he bought a green 1949 Plymouth with a tear in the fabric roof for $50. During soccer practice, he parked on 87th Street next to the Chicago Vocational field and Helen was in the car.
One afternoon as he was practicing stabbing, he noticed a car pull up next to his car and three boys talking to Helen. He ran from the practice field into the street. The driver tried to drive away as he approached, but Butkus jumped in through the window.
“It was a two-door car and there were two men in the front seat and one in the back,” Butkus wrote in Stop Action. “My lunge carried the car in front of me into the driver. I had it with my right arm. I kicked the guy in the back, put my left arm around the driver’s neck, grabbed the steering wheel and turned it to the left. We all labored and labored, driving over the curb and narrowly missing a lamppost, and the driver slammed on the brakes just before we went up the front steps of the school.”
Butkus got out of the car and went back to training without saying a word to Helen. “For all I knew, they could have been her friends,” he told Sports Illustrated.
It was no wonder he appeared on the cover of the magazine in 1970 with the headline “The Most Feared Man in the Game.”
He once said that football should be played with “controlled anger” and there is no doubt he played it that way. Butkus once had four personal fouls in a game — but that was just the preseason.
“He chews cement and spits out the pavement,” returning player Ron Smith, who played with and against Butkus, told the Los Angeles Times.
“I used to be afraid of Dick Butkus and he was on my team,” said former Bears wide receiver Johnny Morris.
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Playboy Magazine described him as “the meanest, angriest, toughest, dirtiest son of a bitch in football.” An animal, a savage, a subhuman.” Butkus was outraged by such depictions, but at the same time encouraged them through his playing style.
After Lions tight end Charlie Sanders used a crackback block to knock out the teeth of Butkus’ teammate and friend Doug Buffone, Butkus told Buffone that he would take care of it. And when Sanders came to the middle, So did Butkus.
“Caught me off guard,” Sanders said. “The worst thing that ever happened to me.”
In another game in which the Lions beat the Bears with time running out, an angry Butkus called all three timeouts for one purpose – so he could make a run and coach Lions center Ed Flanagan, his nemesis.
“We were almost scared to death of him,” Flanagan said. “If her number was called in the group, her eyes would look like two big marbles.”
Butkus’ tackles hurt more than most, partly because of his unconventional style. When he was a fullback in high school, he didn’t like it when a tackler wrapped his arms around him so Butkus couldn’t break his fall. Butkus then began to operate in this manner.
“I’m going to stick my head in someone’s sternum and it’s not going to be perfect, but I’ll tell you what – they’re not going to come back,” he said. “I put them on their back and somewhere along the line they cough up the ball and that’s the whole thing.” The idea of hitting someone hard is not for your ego. It’s supposed to make them forget about the ball.”
He knocked them down and didn’t help them get up again. Butkus didn’t exchange hugs, jerseys or congratulations with his opponents after games. At Pro Bowls, he didn’t even talk to specific rivals.
In “Stop-Action,” he wrote, “I don’t think I’m the most popular guy on the field. That’s fine. I’m not trying to be. I don’t want them to love me. No one ever sees me smile or pat an opponent on the back and say, “Good game.” Why should I? He is the enemy. I hate him for those 60 minutes. … When a guy puts a block on me, I want to kill him, not congratulate him.”
In an era that preceded concussion awareness and sensitivity training — as well as television cameras that recorded virtually everything that happened on the field — Butkus was the epitome of old-school football. After a game in Los Angeles in which the Rams used trickery against the Bears, Butkus told reporters, “If I had come here to dance, I would have worn heels.”
As stubborn as Butkus could be, he could also be playful. During his playing days, he once picked up teammate Brian Piccolo at his home in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood and lunged onto the lawn in front of his house, destroying the grass. He had a fart machine in his briefcase and golf bag.
And when he tried to get verified on Twitter in 2022, he sent a message to the Packers’ quarterback.
Bill George, an eight-time first-team All-Pro at middle linebacker, was in his 14th season when Butkus was selected with the third pick in the 1965 draft.
“When I saw him on the field (in training camp), I knew my playing days were over,” George said. “Nobody looked this good before or since.”
Butkus was voted one spot ahead of Gale Sayers, who edged him out for NFL Rookie of the Year. The linebacker and running back’s careers would be closely linked.
Butkus loved being a Bear like few players in his history. He showed up early to games at Wrigley Field to shank balls for kickers, earning an additional $25 per game. He said he would have played center and linebacker if he had been asked. He led the wedge in kickoff returns and was a blocker for field goals and extra points.
Butkus was already making more than most of his teammates and Halas told him not to talk about his salary with others.
“He didn’t have to worry about me,” Butkus wrote. “I would have done anything he asked. I was so damn proud to play for my hometown at Wrigley Field. Damn, they were the professionals! We were able to adapt because we were tough, because we were professionals. It wasn’t like college with fresh socks and clean underwear. It was South Side football, blue collar, ragtag, asshole football – just the way I liked it. Cheap uniforms and cramped conditions. Tough, run-down football. George Halas spits fire at us all the time. Man, it was great! I was in football heaven.”
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While Butkus was outstanding, the Bears were going through a dark period in the team’s history. Butkus was part of only two NFL teams with winning records and never played in a postseason game.
Butkus was at his best for less than six seasons before his knee problems subsided. In 1970 he underwent knee surgery, which was botched. After that, he had to change his playing style as he could no longer jump over blockers. He started using his hands more and protecting his knee.
“This new technique slowed me down by maybe a second on average and limited my range by up to seven or eight meters in any direction,” he said. “It also forced me to think differently. Instead of doing my best at running back, passer or receiver, I had to take care of myself first.”
Towards the end, Howard Cosell said on “Monday Night Football” that we were witnessing the “imminent demise of the greatest single force since Cyclops.”
Butkus knew he was done, but Halas insisted he play. Four independent doctors told Butkus they thought he should retire. Butkus retired and then filed a lawsuit against the Bears to collect the money they owed him for the remaining four years of his contract. Eventually the lawsuit was settled and the Bears agreed to pay him $600,000, but Butkus and Halas did not speak for five years.
It was a particularly poignant ending because Butkus was never motivated by money. In 2015, he told Virginia McCaskey, Halas’ daughter, that he had been playing for free.
In “Blood and Guts,” he wrote, “The greatest compliments I ever received were those little hits on my helmet after stopping a runner short of the first-down markers or breaking up a pass.” Like that A nod from my father as he came home from work, or a smile from my mother, or a wink from the old man as he roamed the sidelines – these private gestures were all the gold I ever needed.”
Dick Butkus on the sidelines at the Bears’ 2023 season opener. (Quinn Harris / Getty Images)
Butkus has said more than once that the ideal for him would have been to play his last game, then keel over and die on the field.
When he saw that wasn’t happening, his plan was to train and maybe do what Mike Ditka did. But his acrimonious departure from the Bears didn’t allow that to happen. Butkus wasn’t welcome on the Bears, and what’s not so mysterious, he wasn’t welcome on any other team either.
Even Bears fans turned against him. Butkus no longer felt at home in Chicago and moved to Florida, dismayed by his experience with the Bears.
When he retired, his wife kept memorabilia from his playing days, but they were stored in a barn in Florida and many of them were damaged. Butkus threw everything in a dumpster.
In the 1971 Piccolo film Brian’s Song, Butkus was cast as himself. Unbeknownst to him, it was a foray into his second act. A series of popular Miller Lite beer commercials starring Bubba Smith – “Tastes great!” Less filling!” – led to opportunities to act for Butkus. He appeared in around 250 commercials, 40 television series and several films.
Butkus loved life in Hollywood, moving to Malibu in the early 1980s and buying a house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. For a time he was neighbors with Cher and Olivia Newton-John.
At his core, however, he was a family man. He married Helen in college and their marriage lasted for decades.
“He’s crazy about her,” Buffone once said. “She was by his side every step of the way. And it’s really blue, always has been.”
Dick and Helen were parents to Nikki, Rick and Matt, who worked with his father at the Butkus Foundation, and grandparents to five children.
Butkus and Halas reconciled before Halas’ death in 1983, and Butkus asked Halas to present him for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. However, illness prevented this. In 1985, the team hired Butkus as a radio analyst, a job he held for six seasons. And in 1994, the Bears retired his jersey number, 51, along with Sayers’ number 40.
In 2001, Butkus agreed to do a radio commercial in exchange for a heart scan, which normally cost about $15,000. He expected a clean bill of health, but discovered he needed a quintuple bypass. His doctor told him that if the blockages had not been found, he would have died in 30 days.
The hospital where Butkus had his life-saving scan in Orange, California, now has a building called the Dick Butkus Center For Cardiovascular Wellness. He encouraged former athletes, retired military personnel, police officers and firefighters to take advantage of free demonstrations there.
He also initiated a campaign to warn young athletes about the dangers of steroids.
Despite all this, Butkus never stopped being Butkus.
In 1993, Butkus hosted a quail hunt for the ESPN series “Great Outdoors.” According to Sports Illustrated, a quail flew towards him. Butkus gave the bird a brutal forearm, doing what the shotgun at his side was supposed to do.
Many of Butkus’ opponents from the 1960s and 1970s could identify with the quail.
(Photo: Focus on Sport/Getty Images)