It’s hard to figure out how we won World War II, what with it being fought on the road and all. Not even a home-beach advantage on D-Day. How did we ever pull it off?
But forget about that. We have more important issues on our hands. The Bears have to play in Champaign eight times–eight times!–during the regular season while Soldier Field gets a facial and a liver flush, and if you’ve been paying attention to all the fretting, you know that what lies ahead makes a forced march look like a potato sack race.
After listening to people carry on about the rigors of getting to Memorial Stadium, about the nastiness of the playing surface and the unpleasantness of the local barnyard scents, you’d swear this was hard labor at Rikers Island. And you’d swear this was the most godforsaken place on the planet, if not Nebraska.
You might have thought the final cornrow controversy was Jerry Krause’s alleged opposition to Darius Miles’ hairstyle, but as it turns out, playing in the middle of farmland tops that.
All that interstate driving to arrive and the Bears were expected to play an exhibition game against the Denver Broncos on Saturday night? Who do we think these guys are, Supermen?
Sure some of you people have to work two jobs, arrange for day care and overdose on caffeine just to stay awake, but you haven’t had it tough until you’ve tried to get the wrapper off a pillow mint, slept in a hotel room, played in front of 50,000 cheering fans at a temporary home and taken a charter flight home.
I pity the person who has to tell Dick Butkus about all this wussiness.
The more the Bears make an issue of traveling to home games, the more of an issue it becomes. Or, to put it another way, the more this is made an issue for the Bears, the harder it becomes for the Bears. This is going to take on a life of its own, a tired, staggering life. A chronically fatigued sort of life.
Coach Dick Jauron, who should know better, is answering too many questions about turf and travel. He should politely tell reporters that while he appreciates the concern, he won’t talk about any difficulties associated with playing home games on the road.
Because, he should tell them, there aren’t any difficulties.
Wide receiver David Terrell reportedly was so repulsed by the smell of farm animals whenever his Michigan team played at Illinois that he’d wait in the locker room until the last minute. The only surprise Saturday night was that he didn’t slip on a cow chip at the 30-yard line.
This is going to turn into a convenient excuse if things start going poorly in 2002. How the travel got them down. How there are too many obstacles in a farm town. How now brown cow.
Change in routine can have a negative impact, no doubt. Handled properly it doesn’t necessarily have to be a total downer.
“It’s never very easy, but in spite of what you think it’s going to be, you have to make it as positive as you can because nobody else in the NFL cares about your problems,” Tennessee general manager Floyd Reese once said.
Reese should know. The Titans went 6-2 in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis in 1997 while waiting for a new stadium to be built in Nashville.
The best way to ignore the distractions is to create a temporary home-field advantage. And the way to do that is the way Brian Urlacher did it in the first quarter Saturday night. He sacked Broncos quarterback Brian Griese, recovered the ensuing fumble and brought the crowd to its feet. No one seemed to realize this wasn’t Soldier Field.
The season will come down to what it always comes down to: football. The ball looked the same Saturday night, and other than “Illinois” painted on the artificial turf, this looked just like an NFL field. That’s because it is.
During the regular season, the Bears will fly to Decatur, stay at a hotel there the night before games and bus to Champaign the next day. The horrors!
In 1920 the Decatur Staleys played nine of their 13 games on the road. That team, coached by George Halas, somehow went 10-1-2 and somehow had 10 shutouts. Two years later they became the Chicago Bears.
But forget that. We have more important issues. It was 85 degrees at kickoff Saturday night. How can players be expected to excel in that kind of heat?
