Top Ten Bears Moments Part 2
Here we go for part two of the top ten Bears moments.
5. The Big Change(s): Decatur Staleys -> Chicago Bears
In 1921, A.E. Staley, founder of the Decatur Staleys, handed the franchise over to George Halas, along with $5,000 to keep Decatur Staleys as the team name for the year. Halas moved the team to Chicago, where the Staleys became the Chicago Bears in January 1922.
4. The '63 Championship (Dec. 29, 1963)
This might have ranked even higher with Bears matriarch Virginia McCaskey if the win had been over the Packers. But intercepting Y.A. Tittle five times and downing a team with five Hall of Fame players was an epic just short of Nos. 2 and 3.
3. 73-0 (Dec. 8, 1940)
A tossup with Super Bowl XX for the most momentous single game. A team with six Hall of Famers established the standard for dominance in a championship game unmatched before or since, and transferred the «Monsters of the Midway» identity nickname permanently from the University of Chicago to the Bears.
2. Super Bowl XX (Jan. 26, 1986)
This gets a slight nod over the '40 title game for top one-game honors. Of all the Bears championships, none resonated with the nation, indeed, the world, the way the '85 Bears' 46-10 conquest of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX did. When the team traveled to London for a 1986 preseason game, one British commentator remarked, «It was like the Beatles coming to America, in reverse.» The team was a hood ornament in so many ways for the «Bonfire of the Vanities» 1980s, and was a cultural phenomenon as well as a football legend.
1. The Hupmobile meeting (Sept. 17, 1920)
This started it all. George Halas, Jim Thorpe and others founded the American Professional Football Association sitting on running boards around a Hupmobile showroom in Canton, Ohio. The Hupmobile didn't make it; the AFPA did, in the form of the National Football League.
