George S. Halas

George S. Halas was one of the most enduring figures in sports history, leading the Chicago Bears for more than a half-century as the team’s founder and head coach for 40 years. Active with the Bears from 1920, when he founded the team as the Decatur Staleys, Halas was born and raised on Chicago’s West Side, attended Crane Tech High School, and then the University of Illinois, where he earned a B.S. degree while lettering in football, basketball, and baseball. After graduating in 1918, he joined the Navy for the first of two tours of duty, was named Player of the Game in the 1919 Rose Bowl while playing end on the Great Lakes team that defeated the Marines 17-0, left active duty in 1946 as a commander, retired as a captain in the Naval Reserve, and received the Distinguished Citizens Award, the highest honor the Navy can bestow on a civilian. After leaving the Navy, he played right field for the New York Yankees, but a hip injury shortened his baseball career. He then worked for a Decatur, Illinois, corn products firm owned by A.E. Staley, who sponsored a semi-pro baseball team and later had Halas organize an independent football team. As a player, Halas set an NFL record that stood 49 years, until 1972, when he returned a Jim Thorpe fumble 98 yards for a touchdown in a 26-0 win over the Dorang Indians at Cubs Park on 11/4/23, and he played for the Bears from 1920 to 1929 and was named to the NFL all-pro squad of the 1920s. Three times he voluntarily interrupted his coaching career, first handing leadership to Ralph Jones from 1930 through 1932, then leaving for the Navy in 1942 while Luke Johnsos and Heartley “Hunk” Anderson shared head coaching duties through 1945, and later yielding the job to John “Paddy” Driscoll in 1956 and 1957. When Halas resumed coaching in 1933 and again in 1946, his Bears won world championships, and during the 1940s his teams reached their greatest power with four straight Western Conference titles, three world championships, a four-season record including preseason games of 62-7-1, 2,164 points scored, and 842 allowed. The 1940 team, which defeated the Washington Redskins 73-0 for the world championship, was voted the greatest professional team of all time by the National Academy of Sports Editors in 1963. Returning to coaching in 1958, Halas developed another champion in five years as the Bears won their eighth championship in 1963, and The Sporting News, AP, and UPI named him Coach of the Year after the 1963 and 1965 seasons. He retired from coaching on May 27, 1968, with a career record of 324-151-31, a win total that remained the best in NFL history until Don Shula broke it in 1993, and he was a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Chicago, Illinois · United States