Word: butkus
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Dave Rysky went to Our Lady Gate of Heaven, an ancient Catholic grammar school with nuns who beat wrong-doers and sinners and then Chicago Vocational School; CVS where Chicago Bear linebacker Dick Butkus went; a 5,000 pupil vocational school with print shops, auto shops, welding shops. Dave took auto shop, always wanted to, ever since I first met him in June...
...played in the same league that produced All-Pro Dick Butkus, and we played rough and hard. Fundamentals were our watchword; no fancy suburban passing, no exotic option plays, just a hard-nosed ass-kicking running game between the tackles. We played ghetto schools and working-class white schools where the kids still grassed their hair. Our furthers were painters and policemen, and most of us thought of college merely as four more years of football. "I'm lower middle-class just like you are," Coach Hegener would scream at us. "I could make more money coaching in the suburbs...
Rending Limbs. To help the evolution along, more and more top athletes who traditionally would have wound up on the striking force suddenly found themselves channeled into the defensive crews. Examples abound. Many observers feel that Dick Butkus, 29, the ferocious middle linebacker of the Chicago Bears, has year in and year out been the finest football player in the N.F.L. Bruce Taylor, the No. 1 draft choice of the San Francisco 49ers in 1970, had been Boston University's leading scorer-as a defensive back. Most impressive of all are the incredible giants who toil in the trenches...
...pros, is "a good journeyman linebacker who reacts like a bird dog." Able to sense sweeps and reverses, he consistently cracks through for the play-breaking tackle. A speedster, he blocked four punts while at Penn State. Robertson is known as "the black Dick Butkus." Like the Chicago Bears' star, he is a ferocious charger who is in on nearly every play. This season alone he accounted for 112 solo tackles and 45 assists. Weaver is regarded by many observers as the quickest man at his position. "Against any ordinary option," says U.S.C. Coach John McKay, "Charlie Weaver...
...really wonder about football giving you all those virtues. I don't think the big stars are such admirable people. Look at Dick Butkus. After the amount of football he's played, you'd think he'd be one of the most virtuous guys around. Instead, he's an animal...