Not until Kimo the hat weaver stopped Tom Thayer on a Maui beach a few years ago did the former Bear realize the extent of the 1985 team’s appeal.
“This guy sits on a mat on the beach weaving hats from palm fronds that he sells to the tourists,” Thayer said. “I remember walking by him and all of a sudden he says, `You know, I’m a Minnesota fan, but I’ve got to tell you, there will never be another defense better than that ’85 Bears team.’ I had to laugh.”
Thayer, a guard for the ’85 Bears and now one of the team’s radio analysts, spends much of the off-season in Hawaii. Even there, the ’85 Bears’ resonance “never goes away.”
It is particularly so at Super Bowl time, when some great defense, a jumbo ballcarrier, a gifted running back, a charismatic coach or a particularly colorful character with a great nickname invariably evokes a comparison with the 1985 Bears. Seventeen years later, they are the team that will not go away, resonating not just with Chicagoans who rarely allow a week to go by without a talk-radio reference to Mike Ditka but with a global audience of football fans who have not forgotten.
“It’s a constant thing,” former tackle Keith Van Horne said. “I’ve been in Europe, in the Caribbean and people will come up and want to talk about the ’85 Bears. It was a magical year, I think the last time you’ll ever see anything like it.”
The theories behind the ’85 Bears’ incredible staying power are fairly obvious:
– The team was stocked with intriguing personalities, including the head coach and the defensive coordinator, who either struck a chord with sports fans or simply were too entertaining to ignore.
– They hit their peak during a bygone era before free agency, when it was possible to assemble that much talent on one club and keep it around long enough to establish a familiarity with fans that enhanced the team’s popularity.
– They were not only very good, they played an entertaining brand of football and were not afraid to talk about it, so confident were they that they could back it up. That characteristic that is either uncommon or simply unappealing in higher-priced athletes of today.
– It was easy to root for a Chicago team, given the sad history of the city’s sports franchises.
– The fact they never returned to the Super Bowl, as talented as they were, served to heighten their mystique.
– Who ever could forget Mayor Harold Washington dancing with the Fridgettes?
And then there are other theories.
“It was an era when John Madden was in his prime and he really embraced the Chicago Bears, for that brief moment, as America’s team,” former Bears safety Gary Fencik said. “That elevated us.
“Also, the `Super Bowl Shuffle’ really personalized people on the team. We were no longer just a collection of people in uniforms under helmets, and that broadened our appeal as well. I can’t tell you how many women know who we are more from the `Super Bowl Shuffle.’ It helped identify individual players.”
Fellow safety Shaun Gayle agrees that the Bears’ appeal went beyond football.
“The ’85 team had so many diverse individuals who were not afraid to express themselves,” he said. “That really struck a chord, to the point where even people who weren’t really football fans started to pay attention because there was something special about those guys. There was the feeling that something’s going to happen, someone is going to do something, maybe childish, maybe off-the-wall, but always in fun, never malicious. I think that touched the child in all of us.”
John Bostrom, the Bears’ director of community relations, says more than 25 players from the ’85 team still live in the Chicago area, at least part-time, and most of them seem to have radio or TV gigs. That “staggering” number no doubt contributes to the group’s enduring appeal.
“When people call for appearance requests of former players, automatically they think of the Super Bowl Bears,” Bostrom said. “Not to say other high-profile players are not sought after, but people still seem to think of the Super Bowl Bears. This week I’ve noticed a trend of requests for Super Bowl parties and speaking engagements.”
In many cases, it was simply good business for players from the ’85 team to remain in the area. Hall of Fame defensive end Dan Hampton recently moved back to Chicago from his farm in Arkansas, in part for business opportunities. But his take on why so many of his teammates stayed after their careers were over is an interesting one.
“Watching the [WTTW-]Ch. 11 special recently on Chicago, they talked about the attitude of the people who started this city, how they built it from nothing and didn’t let anything deter them from what they wanted to do,” Hampton said. “It’s part of Chicago’s personality, and it’s interesting how its football team had that same kind of charisma–loud, brash, bigger than life.
“More than us coming here to make Chicago home because of the opportunities, this place is what we’re about, this is who we are, and you’d have to be crazy to not think this is a natural place for us to live our lives.”
Thayer contrasts that attitude with those of Vinson Smith, Joe Cain and other free agents who would never think of staying in town.
“These guys aren’t going to settle in Chicago because there’s no association with Chicago–they were guys who just played in and played out,” he said. “But guys like Emery Moorehead and myself, Jimbo Covert, Jim Morrissey, Keith Van Horne, etc., we developed roots because we played with the team for so long.”
Former players have no problem acknowledging that their championship status still opens doors. Van Horne, who lives in Riverwoods, is a real estate developer in the Chicago area and an investor in two California restaurants.
“Certainly I have had opportunities that wouldn’t have come as easily or come at all,” he said. “The recognition and opportunities provided is a huge reason why a lot of guys stayed. Seventeen years later, Jim McMahon opens a restaurant that still draws people.”
Fencik said he remembers Ditka saying you can go to numerous Pro Bowls, but go to a Super Bowl and win “and people will never forget you.”
Fencik, a financial analyst, said he recently did a presentation in Pittsburgh, and the president of the company introduced him as a “really outstanding football player.”
“I’ve been amazed at the name and even face recognition in the oddest of places,” Fencik said. “I was once on a Hertz bus in Cleveland going to the airport and the guy next to me said, `Hey, I really enjoyed the way you played.’ I just assumed he was on the same flight as I was back to Chicago, but he said, `No, I live in Florida.’
“I was incredulous. I asked him, `How could you have possibly known who I am?’ And he just said, `I was a fan.'”
Surely it helps enhance the legend of the ’85 Bears that their successors have won just three playoff games and played in only one NFC championship.
“I went out for a bite to eat and a young guy came over and was looking at me,” Gayle said. “He said, `Sorry to bother you, but I have to know what your name is because you look so familiar.’ I told him my name and he kind of figured it out. And I’m thinking that if five of the draft picks from this year’s Bears walked in here, I don’t think many people would recognize them.”
Will the ’85 Bears fade if the team wins another Super Bowl? Hard to say.
Morrissey, a financial consultant who settled in Lincolnshire after his Bears career, was a rookie linebacker on the ’85 team, a reserve. He’s still asked to speak at banquets, football clinics and other events in the area.
“Every day football comes up, which I enjoy,” Morrissey said. “I just don’t see it ever going away.”
