Scott Larson I acquired the majority of my values and life lessons in two neighboring rooms inside a modest building in LaGrange Park, Illinois. The first was my Sunday school classroom. It was there that I was taught how to live morally, help the less fortunate, and make a portrait of Jesus out of macaroni.
The second room was just one wall away. It was where the men gathered after service around a black and white Zenith television to watch the Chicago Bears. It was there I learned other life skills, like how grown men talk to each other, how they are motivated and unified by achievement, how a common interest can bridge strangers, and that no matter how hungry you get it is never a good idea to try to eat macaroni Jesus.
I really can’t overstate the impact the Chicago Bears had on my childhood years. On the Saturday before Superbowl XX my brother and I tore apart our Lego village and made a multicolored Soldier Field. I have had the same hairstyle my entire life, except for a one week period in ’86 where I spiked my hair (and wore sunglasses to school) a la Jim McMahon. On the playground the boys in my class all fought over who got to be Walter Payton, even if we were playing kickball or soccer.
Whenever I watch Brian’s Song I cry when Gayle Sayers says “I-i-i-i L-l-l-l-ove Brian Picalo.” Around 1987 or so I sent in five cereal box tops in exchange for a William Perry GI Joe action figure. I can still recite every verse of the Superbowl Shuffle. And when I made the freshmen football team in the autumn of ’92, I asked for Neal Anderson’s number. But my love affair with the Bears did not end with my childhood, though it would have saved me a lot of suffering if it did.
My favorite story back in those Sunday school days was always Daniel in the Lion’s Den. But in retrospect, he didn’t have it so bad. A move to Detroit would have been easy in comparison to what I was in store for. Where Daniel found himself exiled in Babylonia, my college years took me to Wisconsin during the height of the Brett Favre Era. As glorious as the mid 80’s were for a Bears fan in Chicago, the next 15 years would be equally miserable for those of us transplanted to Wisconsin. During one particularly agonizing stretch, the record between these two teams was 14-2 in favor of the Packers – a result more one-sided than Dave Wannstedt’s mustache.
Between 1994 and 2004 few organizations were more successful than the Packers. They won their division six times. They won Superbowl XXXI, and narrowly lost another. They mastered free agency by replacing stars like Reggie White, LeRoy Butler, and Sterling Sharpe with young prospects that would develop into Pro Bowl players. Green Bay management simultaneously kept a winner on the field and worked the public and state government for massive stadium upgrades.
GM Ron Wolf did better in the fourth and fifth rounds of the draft than the Bears did in the first and second. And worst of all, while Chicago trusted their offense to guys like Steve Walsh, Cade McNoun, and Kordell Stewart, the Packers trotted out Brett Favre 240 straight times. That’s right: 240 straight NFL games without injury; 240 games of his crooked, stubble faced grin reminding me of my place on the NFL food chain.
So what was it like in Packer captivity? Oh I fought the good fight. I never stopped wearing my favorite cap. A 1985 commemorative poster hung defiantly in my dorm room. I made the pilgrimage to the old Soldier Field and stayed throughout the duration of a 37-6 Packer victory. I consider knocking computer Brett Favre into retirement my greatest John Madden video game football moment of all time. I always decline the free Packers mugs that gas stations give away upon fill-ups.
Misguided loyalty led me to use first round fantasy draft picks on Marty Booker. Twice. One year while Christmas shopping at the Fox Valley Mall, I taunted an elderly Ray Nitchke. And I perhaps violated the ethics of my job as an elementary school teacher by refusing entry into the recess football games to any child wearing green or gold. Now I realize that nothing in this paragraph is anything to brag about, but I am proud to have maintained the passion that the Wannstedt and Dick Jauron Bears did not.
One day it happened. On a glorious day in September 2004, the curse was broken. Coach Lovie Smith promised that the Bears would dominate Green Bay. And unlike the previous two regimes, his team delivered. At one point in the game, the Packers were deep in the red zone and threatening to pull away with a touchdown.
But just as I was prepared to settle into yet another year of NFL passivity, Brian Urlacher crushed Ahman Green and caused a fumble that Mike Brown returned 90-plus yards for a touchdown. A Tribune photo of Mike Brown crossing the goal line still hangs by my desk. It represents six points and my dignity. Though we finished that injury ravaged season 5-11, it was a success in my mind. The Bears had finally shattered the Packers mystique.
Skip to a year later, the first year Chicago ever beat Brett Favre twice. Lovie Smith is now 3-1 against Green Bay. More significantly, the entire organization is putting up the good fight. The Bears finally have a general manager with a football background. A refurbished stadium is generating revenues that management is reinvesting in the team. Our best players are signed to long term contracts.
The fan base has returned, wearing their Zubaz in full 1992 glory. Our drafts are getting better. And recent off-season talk centers around Superbowl aspirations. There is no longer shame in following the Bears. But best of all, for three hours a week, I am reconnected to that little kid who grew up watching his team proudly. Now I might very well be fated to spend the rest of my life as a Bears fan in the state of Wisconsin. But that’s far better than where I spent 94-04 – in the state of depression.
Born in Chicago and raised on a steady diet of Harry Caray game-calls and Michael Jordan Nike commercials, Scott Larson recalls this as a magical period, one which peaked during the Bears ’85 Super Bowl season.
A steady stream of older cousins’ Notre Dame and U of I sweatpants kept him clothed throughout adolescence. Every pair of which was perpetually grass stained at the knee from trying to beat the Brubaker twins at various playground sports each afternoon.
He did not make the seventh grade basketball squad, but got his revenge by simulating the entire season on a Nerf hoop in his bedroom, shattering several school records and the plaster on the dining room ceiling in the process.
In short, he loves sports. A young lifetime of playing them and watching them at every opportunity has left him with no regrets – except for those sweat pants.
He can be reached at scott.larson@atomicsportsmedia.com.
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