NOT ‘A NORMAL FOOTBALL GAME’
Ditka, ex-Bears look back on NFL’s decision to play two days after President Kennedy’s assassination
The Bears were concluding practice at Wrigley Field when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas 50 years ago Friday. But when equipment manager Bill Martell broke the news, Ed O’Bradovich refused to believe it.
‘‘We said, ‘What are you talking about, you little [pipsqueak]? Get the hell out of here, coming around with some insane thing like that,’ ’’ said O’Bradovich, then a 23-year-old secondyear defensive end. ‘‘But then somebody came and grabbed coach [George] Halas and told Halas. And then we were told.’’
Mike Ditka, then a 24-year-old tight end, remembers the confusion after hearing the horrific news.
‘‘We didn’t practice anymore,’’ Ditka said. ‘‘We went in. We didn’t have any meetings. Coach Halas talked to us. No- body knew what was going to happen.’’
The issue was whether the Bears would play their upcoming game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The president was assassinated on a Friday. The Bears were to travel to Pittsburgh on Saturday and play the Steelers on Sunday.
Kennedy’s death threw the nation into a state of shock and — as crass as it might be — interrupted the Bears’ best season since the glory days of Sid Luckman in the 1940s. The 9-1 Bears were riding the wave of a 26-7 victory over the defending NFL champion Green Bay Packers in a showdown of NFL Western Division leaders at Wrigley Field. It gave the Bears a sweep of the season series with the Packers and gave them a clear path to their first NFL championship since 1946.
But the pall that enveloped the nation in the wake of Kennedy’s death put everything on hold. Many sporting events were postponed or canceled. The American Football League postponed its games that weekend. So did the Big Ten and most college conferences,
except the Southeastern Conference.
NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle declared that all NFL games would be played that Sunday. So the Bears took a flight to Pittsburgh on Saturday and prepared to play the Steelers at Forbes Field.
‘‘We had no control over it,’’ Ditka said. ‘‘That’s what our job was. We played football. We didn’t make a lot of money. That was our job. So when they said play, we played. That’s all there was to it.’’
Said O’Bradovich: ‘‘I didn’t want to play the game. Christ, you’re 22 or whatever the hell I was and the president of the United States is assassinated? What planet is this? I didn’t want to play the game, and I can tell you a majority of the guys either didn’t want to or their heart wasn’t in it.’’
The NFL games went on. But by Rozelle’s decree, it was anything but a normal NFL Sunday. There were no radio or television broadcasts of any of the games. There were no player introductions, no halftime shows and no commercial announcements.
‘‘It was a very eerie feeling because the stadium — it just wasn’t like a normal football game,’’ Ditka said. ‘‘It was filled, but there wasn’t a lot of noise. I don’t know how to put it. It was crazy.’’
‘‘It was pretty somber,’’ said Bob Wetoska, a 26-year-old starting guard. ‘‘We were riding on the bus to the game, and somebody had a radio in the luggage rack. They had the news [coverage] of [Lee Harvey] Oswald being transferred [from the city hall basement in Dallas].
‘‘And all of a sudden, the man says, ‘He’s been shot. He’s been shot.’ The old man [coach Halas] heard that just as we were getting off the bus, and he knocked the radio over on the floor and said, ‘Goddammit, we’ve got a game to play. You’re not supposed to be listening to the radio.’ I’ll never forget that. It was kind of a scary deal.’’
The game was a struggle for the Bears. Despite one-yard touchdown runs by Willie Galimore and Ronnie Bull, the Bears trailed 17-14 midway through the fourth quarter. Needing at
‘‘It was a very eerie feeling because the stadium — it just wasn’t like a normal football game. It was filled, but there wasn’t a lot of noise. I don’t know how to put it. It was crazy.’’
Mike Ditka
least a tie to stay ahead of the Packers, Ditka bailed them out with a memorable 63-yard catch-and-run. Ditka took a short pass from Bill Wade and shook off five tacklers before being tackled — as much by exhaustion than anything else — at the Steelers’ 15-yard line. That set up Roger LeClerc’s 18-yard field goal that gave the Bears a 17-17 tie.
‘‘I’ll be honest — I was embarrassed because I ran out of gas,’’ Ditka said. ‘‘I was running as fast as I could, and it looked like I was running in mud.
‘‘The first guy that missed me [Clendon Thomas], he’s the guy that caught me — about 40 yards from where he missed me. But I ran out of gas.’’
(The Bears finished 11-1-2, a halfgame ahead of the Packers to win their first division title since 1956. They beat the New York Giants 14-10 for their eighth NFL championship.)
It was an exhausting weekend for the entire nation. Playing that Sunday was not an easy thing to do. But Ditka made the most of it — he caught seven passes for 146 yards, including a spectacular play that will live forever.
‘‘I don’t know whether it was right or wrong [to play the game],’’ Ditka said. ‘‘I think a lot of people thought playing the game would honor Jack Kennedy more than not playing the game because he was a great sports fan. I think Jack Kennedy would have wanted the games to be played. That was my only feeling.’’