Chicago: The Once And Future Bears

The bastardization of the adjective "ethnic" into a noun in itself refutes the great American dream of the melting pot. Poles remain Poles, Czechs Czechs, Italians Italians, not only in Chicago but in many cities. "Ethnic" is simply an acceptable (to them) way to describe people who once were denigrated as Polacks, Bohunks or Guineas. If ethnics respond to tough, mean guys on the football field, it is often because their own lives have been constricted to tough, mean work. They have been attuned to a fundamental rhythm, survival. "That's why Dick Butkus was so important," Royko adds. "Anybody with an Eastern European name—he's Lithuanian—who is tough and mean is a natural. I doubt that he would have meant so much if he had been named Bill Jones."

Not everyone agrees. Gerry Robichaud, another Chicago newspaperman, guesses that "50% of Bear tickets go to corporate block buyers and well-fixed suburbanites," and Studs Terkel, who has interviewed hundreds of working people for his classic studies Hard Times and Working, feels ethnic lines have been blurred, partly by population shifts, partly by television, expressways, politics. "The old Studs Lonigan country has changed," Terkel says. "Not in location so much as in means. The Irish aren't poor the way they were in the '30s. They live where they do because the mayor does, too, and because he's put a lot of them on the payroll. And of course blacks and Puerto Ricans have moved into many of the bad neighborhoods."

To which Royko rejoins, "So now you have ethnic suburbs—but the people who live in them are still Bear fans. There are two generations of Bear fans in some of the old cemeteries on Grand and Milwaukee Avenues, and a third generation goes by them on the way to the game. Do I think Halas was glad to get Jim Finks? Sure. You think Finks isn't an ethnic name? Huh! Since the '50s this has been a Halas-hating town. The old man has shown poor judgment in a lot of ways. He let some of his best men go. Not cheapness, just bad management. His son Mugs [ George Halas Jr.] was part of it, and he's been more of it in the past few years when he began to run things. George hasn't wanted to side against his son, but Mugs hasn't got the touch the old man has."

Despite Royko's dispassionate appraisal of Halas, a good many Chicago newspapermen have been openly antagonistic to the Bears' owner. "In the '20s," says Royko, "when he was just starting, Halas had to go around and kiss a lot of behinds to get the Bears mentioned on the sports pages. When he became king of the hill, they say he tried to get writers' jobs if they knocked the Bears."

Over the years William Barry Furlong, a onetime Chicago sportswriter who is now a columnist on the Washington Post , was fiercely critical of the Bears and Halas, and once described the crusty owner as having "all the warmth of broken bones." Another persistent and unforgiving critic is Bill Gleason, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist. When Halas hired Jim Finks, Gleason wrote, "the Bears have always had a couple of finks in management. Thursday they signed a man who spells it with a capital F," and added later in his column, "even the Machiavellian machinations of the medieval front office of the Bears will not dismay Jim."

Finks certainly seems anything but dismayed. A trim, handsome, smiling Irishman who does not look his 47 years and whose unmarred features dispute his seven years' service as a defensive back and quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Finks radiates Celtic charm and answers questions with such warm candor that it sometimes takes a day or two to realize he hasn't said very much about his plans for the Bears. "At first I was pleased with Gary Huff at quarterback," Finks says, for example, "but that does not mean I was down on Bobby Douglass." Huff, a second-year man, is a classic quarterback who stays in the pocket, whereas Douglass, a scrambler, has sometimes been accused of deliberately breaking pass plays he has called in order to run with the ball. "Did you ever hear of another quarterback who does that?" Finks asks. "We weren't exactly against scramblers where I come from."

Where Finks comes from is Minnesota, Fran Tarkenton country, although he was born in southern Illinois and played college football at Tulsa. In 10 years as general manager he took the Vikings from nowhere to two Super Bowls. Before that he was with the Calgary Stampeders after a year and a half at Notre Dame as a backfield coach for Terry Brennan. "I left the Steelers," Finks says, "because I was not an outstanding quarterback, and I knew the future lay elsewhere." He is best remembered in Pittsburgh as the quarterback the Steelers kept when they cut Johnny Unitas.

Early on Finks said that he planned no immediate changes in Bear personnel but instead would spend most of the season "evaluating" people, presumably everybody from clerks in the front office to Head Coach Gibron. Gibron won only seven games in his first two seasons. This year the Bears look about the same. What Finks is evaluating is another dreary season. One Chicago fan shuddered with sympathy and said, "Poor Abe. First the phlebitis and now a general manager who's still at his playing weight."

Poor Abe indeed. Gibron, a Lebanese, does not have much of an ethnic constituency in Chicago, while Finks—whose paternal grandparents were born in Ireland's County Sligo—should be able to command the support of every displaced Celt from Mayor Daley to the South Shore garbage men, not to mention the Halases, father and son.

Finks is confident that he has the free hand he was promised when he took the job and that sufficient money will be available to make whatever moves he recommends. But he is not naive. "I expected to be tested on that," he says, "and probably more than once. But I have solid assurances from George and Mugs, and I propose to enforce them."