Bears have coped with generational events before

[Staley Da Bear]

The duo of Hunk Anderson and Luke Johnsos took over coaching duties while Halas communicated with his team via telegraph. They won another championship in 1943 before 19 of 28 players joined the war effort, including star quarterback Sid Luckman.


Luckman, a merchant marine, was present at D-Day, the battle that became the symbolic justification of the generational moniker "Greatest."


Like the rest of the country, the team celebrated the end of the deadliest war in human history. Halas' return restored the Bears to a state of normalcy, which, in those days, meant winning a lot of games. However, after the team's 1946 championship season, 17 years would pass before the next time the Bears won it all.


The 1963 team was primed for success, filled with some of the Silent Generation's most incredible talents, forged in that era's hardships. Veteran linebacker Bill George was born the same day the Bears defeated the Minneapolis Red Jackets in 1929, while young tight end Mike Ditka was born the month after Germany invaded Poland a decade later.


The Bears were well on their way to ending the championship drought when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963.


There was no template for what the NFL should do in the event of a presidential assassination. The NFL didn't exist in 1901, the most recent time such an event had happened. Commissioner Pete Rozelle decided to play games as planned with the encouragement of White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger and the deceased President's brother Robert.


"It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great personal tragedy," said Rozelle.


While Rozelle would continue to lead the NFL for 26 more years, the decision to play games 48 hours removed from the most jarring event of the post-war era would become his most criticized decision.


The Bears tied the Steelers that day. On the bus, the team listened to live coverage of another shocking event: the shooting of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. For a tie, the game was memorable for its context and Ditka's 63-yard reception to set up the field goal that saved the team from a costly loss. Still, the memory of the game caused Chicago radio personality Chet Coppock to write 50 years later: "The question begs to be asked: Just why was the game and the rest of the NFL's Week 12 schedule played, period?"


The Bears went 23 years before winning another championship. The franchise broke through on January 26, 1986. The cultural sensation around the team peaked the day after, when the Bears held their victory parade on Monday morning in Chicago. One day later, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart shortly after launch, killing all seven crew members, including teacher Christa McAullife.


"It's kind of weird because you don't mean it selfishly," said Thayer. "It's just a reaction to it, but it took the Bears off the front page of the newspapers. That was such a disaster that overwhelmed the entire world."


Thayer notes one thing that separates 1986 from every other event previously discussed: by two days, the tragedy didn't occur during football season. The Bears had to delay their visit to the White House for 25 years, but the team didn't need to play through national grief.


The players that would face that challenge were on the 2001 team.


James "Big Cat" Williams arrived in Chicago as an undrafted defensive tackle. He switched sides of the ball to replace an injured Keith Van Horne, at a time when the young offensive line that paved the way for Walter Payton in 1985 began to age into retirement. By 2001, he was an established starter, months away from his first and only selection to the Pro Bowl.


"I remember us thinking that we were going to be pretty good," said Williams. "I remember thinking as a team, we had found something to rally behind as far as the threat of Dick Jauron losing his job."


Jauron came into the year with an 11-21 record, but he had reason to be optimistic.


The 2001 team was a meld of Gen-Xers. The team wouldn't add their first millennial, cornerback Charles Tillman, for another two years. While the team may have all fit within the same generation, there was a gulf between the young, budding superstars that would form the foundation of the defense that eventually would go to the Super Bowl and the assortment of veterans, like Williams, who were looking to make one last run.


The Sept. 11 attacks happened on a Tuesday morning: the players' day off. Williams woke up to news and took several minutes to comprehend that he wasn't seeing clips from a movie. Quarterback Jim Miller remembers being glued to the television all day. When he returned to Halas Hall, he found that there was no escape from the catastrophe.


"Everybody was talking about it," said Miller. "Your mind was always on it. Even then, the Bears had a cafeteria. When you got your workout done, you were going into the cafeteria where a TV was set up to get any bits of information that you could."


The 2001 team found themselves in a similar situation to what the 2020 team faced in August during the aftermath of the shooting of Jacob Blake in nearby Kenosha and the ensuing week of chaos. The question is implicit: what are we doing here?


"Let me say this: football is a game," said linebacker Robert Quinn after the team canceled practice on Aug. 27. "What we're talking about is real life."


Even if the coaching staff had tried to carry on, the 2001 Bears found little value to a practice when everyone involved is distracted.


"We were going through this walkthrough," said Miller, "and Dick Jauron called everybody up as a team. We started to go through it, but nobody's head was in it. Nobody was focused on that practice. I remember coach Jauron said, 'Hey, we're not getting anything accomplished today. Our work is done here today. Everybody go home.'"