TOP 10: FUN FACTS ABOUT GEORGE HALAS
1. Halas, a great American, served in two World Wars. As an ensign in the Navy in World War I, he was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, where he joined the football team and starred in the 1919 Rose Bowl victory against the Mare Island (Calif.) Marines.
2. In World War II, Halas left the Bears in the middle of the 1942 season, when they were 6-0 and two-time reigning NFL champions. He was determined to see action and eventually reached the rank of lieutenant commander. He served 20 months in the Pacific under famed Navy Adm. Chester Nimitz and received the Navy’s Distinguished Service Cross in 1956.
Halas, a left-handed hitter, went 1-for-4 in each of his first two games in the big leagues with the Yankees in 1919. He went 0-for-5 against the great Walter Johnson in his next start — claiming he hit two balls over the wall but foul — and never got another hit in the majors. He finishing his career 2-for-22 (.091) in 12 games.
4. In 1922, Halas recommended the American Professional Football Association be renamed the National Football League. It was, in part, a nod to his roots as a Cubs fan. ‘‘If I had been a White Sox fan, I guess it would have been the American Football League,’’ Halas once said.
Desperate for newspaper coverage and publicity in the early days of the NFL in the 1920s, Halas used to write articles and provide complimentary tickets to newspapers in hopes of getting them published. It paid off with the first banner headline in the Tribune in 1925, but the signing of Red Grange later that year proved a better source of the newspaper coverage Halas desperately needed for the fledgling league.
6. Halas gave up coaching duties three times in his career and made an impact each time he returned. In 1933, the Bears (10-2-1) won the first official NFL championship game. In 1946, the
Bears (8-2-1) won their fourth title in seven years. And in 1958, the Bears improved from 5-7 under Paddy Driscoll to 8-4, one game behind the Colts for a berth in the NFL championship game. 7. Facing impending competition from the fledgling American Football League in 1960, Halas — at a time when he was losing strength as an NFL power broker — pushed through expansion to Dallas and Minneapolis to strengthen the NFL. He even drafted SMU quarterback Don Meredith in the third round of the 1960 draft for the new Dallas franchise, which had yet to be voted into the league when the draft was held on Nov. 30, 1959.
8. In 1999, Halas was ranked 14th on The Sporting News’ list of 100 Most Powerful People in Sports — one spot ahead of Babe Ruth and six ahead of Michael Jordan. 9. Though the Associated Press didn’t issue the NFL Coach of the Year Award until 1957, when Halas was 62 and retired, he won the award twice. He captured it in 1963 and again in 1965, when the Bears bounced back from a 5-9 season in 1964 to finish 9-5 after an 0-3 start in road games made necessary by the Cubs’ occupancy of Wrigley Field.
10. Halas often was accused of strong-arming referees into favorable calls. When one went the Bears’ way in 1958 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, a 33-year-old fan rushed onto the field as the first half ended and took a swing at the 63-year-old Halas. Son Mugs Halas and assistants Phil Handler, George Allen and Sid Luckman pulled the fan away from him and got their own licks in. The Bears won 27-14. ✶