THE OFFENSIVE LINEMAN is a paradox: He’s the largest person on the field and yet the most invisible. The linchpin of the offense who never scores a touchdown.
The position seems suited to Revie Sorey, a larger-than-life figure who lacks greed for glory, an unmistakable presence who doesn’t mind surrendering the spotlight to someone else. It suited him for the eight seasons he played right guard for the Chicago Bears, leading the sweep for Sweetness, Walter Payton. It has always suited him during years of charity work and football camps, in which he is the main attraction but wants youngsters to steal the show.
Which is not to say that Sorey, 51, is shy. A telling incident occurred when he was a 6-year-old growing up in Brooklyn. One day he was visiting his father, a janitor in the office of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, when the governor entered his office to find the young Sorey sitting regally in his chair. Rockefeller asked the intruder who he was, but Sorey threw the question back to Rockefeller. When the governor identified himself, Sorey exclaimed: “Wow! There are two Nelson Rockefellers!”
The governor was so charmed by the young impostor that he took an interest in Sorey, told him to get a good education and helped him get a job to save up for college at the University of Illinois, where he played football and basketball and caught the eye of the Bears.
Like Rockefeller, Sorey has been paying it forward, doing random acts of purposeful charity. He was a paper boy in Brooklyn, and a few years ago he told his own paper boy he would buy him a new suit for the boy’s 8th-grade graduation if he got all As. The paper boy delivered, and so did Sorey. Now Excell Williams is an academic-support specialist at the University of Wisconsin, helping to find scholarships for the high schoolers Sorey works with as education director of Ada S. McKinley Community Services.
Sorey’s years with the Bears, from 1975 through 1983, have never left him, not in his memories and not in his offensive-lineman belief that glamour is born from grit.
He raves about running back Walter Payton, of course, but not for his late teammate’s fancy moves as much as for his tireless work ethic.
“He was the hardest working man in practice,” Sorey recalls. “He was always working on his game, his moves. His mediocre practice was like an All-Pro practice for most running backs.”
Sorey doesn’t seem to mind that while we were all watching Walter, Sorey was usually out in front of him clearing tacklers out of the way.
“You could listen to the pitter-patter of his feet, and you would sense that he was behind you,” Sorey says. “It was almost like he was mirroring everything that you did. He had that natural ability to do that, to utilize his blockers very well. He made athletes better than they really were.”
And he admires Payton for his dignity, for seeing how much more to life there was than football, for leaving the game on his own terms, as Sorey did himself before the 1984 season, before mediocrity set in.
He also talks about what he considers an unwritten code of conduct for pro players, a way to honor the privilege of being a professional athlete. As Mike Singletary put it in his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech in 1998, it was Sorey “who taught me the etiquette of the game.”
Sorey sounds fully satisfied with his decision to retire before the 1984 season, but he insists he could have made a contribution to the Super Bowl-winning squad that took the field in 1985. “Trust me, I would have played for free,” he says. “First of all, I knew the offense. I was ready to go. If you want to run some sweeps, I’m right there.”
Even without a ring, Sorey is a Bear-for-life, especially now that his cousin, Justin Gage, is an up-and-coming wide receiver for the team. “To have my cousin playing for the same team I played for is kind of an interesting concept,” Sorey says. “It’s kind of a legacy.”
He says he’s involved in Gage’s life “to the degree where I need to be. If he needs me for anything, all he has to do is pick up the phone. I give him all the space he needs.” But he adds: “Now, I’m not going to sit back and let him make a mistake. I’m going to be on him like a cheap suit in the rain.” He moves his mammoth hands in front of him as he holds forth, as though he’s fending off another linebacker.
Gage, who had never met Sorey until after the 2003 NFL draft, says he’s lucky to have a relative who knows the pressures of being a pro athlete. “It’s real, real rare. It feels good having that support behind you,” he says.
This past summer was Gage’s second as guest instructor at Sorey’s annual football camp, which he has run since his playing days. The camp assembles a handful of current and former pros and picks up the tab for the campers who can’t afford the registration cost.
“One of the benefits of this camp is that these kids are getting the opportunity to see guys that have been through the league or are in the league now,” Gage observes. “The football camps and basketball camps I went to growing up had high school coaches, maybe a college coach. Hearing it from someone who has that [pro] experience, who has been there before, that’s real big, especially for young kids.”
When he wasn’t running his summer camp, Sorey was working for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northwest Indiana and the Special Olympics of Chicago, and organizing charity events through his business venture, Innovative Concepts. In 2000, he took the job with Ada S. McKinley, helping high school students find a college.
The next year, he began studying for a master’s degree in social work at Dominican University in River Forest, the school that was hosting his summer camp at the time.
“I wanted to feel like I had accomplished something off the field,” he says. “I wanted to see if I could be a better student not playing football than [when I was] playing football. I think I’ve accomplished that.”
Sorey was hard to miss in the classroom, and not just because he was 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 285 pounds. “Revie has just an amazing presence,” says Elizabeth Talbot, assistant professor of social work at Dominican. “He was always happy, always glad to be there, glad to talk to people. And he always made a very significant contribution to class discussion.
“He was not there just to get [a degree],” she adds. “He was there to learn what he needed to learn to be a good social worker.”
But in the fall of 2002, midway through his third semester of part-time study, Sorey was sitting in his office at Ada S. McKinley when he felt a strange sensation. “A hot wave hit me; it flashed,” he recalls. “I fell down, and I couldn’t get up. I thought I was in some kind of shock or something.”
A custodian saw Sorey on the ground and took him to the hospital. He was told he had had a stroke. “I really was nervous,” Sorey says. “The first thing I thought of was not being able to walk or speak. I didn’t know whether or not I was going to be OK.”
Stefan Humphries, a former teammate and doctor who flew in from Denver, helped get Sorey admitted to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and flew back in for his release three months later.
He said Sorey’s stubborn, steady rehab work paid off. “I was impressed how well he had done. I can’t say enough about the fortitude and commitment that he showed.”
Sorey says his athletic background helped him battle back.
“I think there’s an advantage to an athlete being sick, being given those rehab opportunities. You’re used to working hard with pain,” he explains. “A regular, everyday patient is not used to putting so much pressure on himself, physically and mentally.”
Within six months, Sorey was back at work full-time; within a year, he resumed classes at Dominican. But things weren’t quite the same.
“I noticed that it was more difficult for him,” Talbot says. “I could see that walking was more difficult. He needed a little more time to study. But he continued to do well in the program. He was not going to let that stroke keep him from doing the things he wanted to do in life.”
Sorey graduated from Dominican last May. The night before graduation ceremonies, he spoke at a dinner for social work graduates. His topic: perseverance.
“It was good to see him graduate,” Talbot says. “There are not many people who could bounce back after a stroke like Revie had.”
Sorey, who lives in Glen Ellyn with his wife, Susan, and adolescent son, Trace, continues to work as education director at McKinley.
“I’m challenging myself to give somebody else an opportunity to do a wonderful thing,” he says. “I think I’ve been counseling for the last 30 years; now I can do it officially. I’ve always thought that I was a change agent. I was always in a situation where I could provide opportunities to others.”
He says there’s no such thing as a full recovery from a stroke, and his football, basketball and racquetball days appear to be over. But he works out every day, swimming and running. He has resumed a regular life-assuming one could call his life “regular” to begin with.
“I don’t take anything for granted,” he says. “I don’t take walking for granted. Each step is an important step.”
