The Chicago Bears were scheduled to play the LA Rams yesterday, January 18th at Soldier Field in Chicago. I am writing this article before the outcome of the game, so I cannot tell you the final score. I have had many thoughts going through my mind this weekend.
I have been a Chicago Bears fan since I was 5 years old. I remember back then squeezing the antenna wire on our family vacuum tube radio so I could hear Jack Brickhouse and Irv Kupcinet call the game. Later on in 1968, as a deacon at St. James in Arlington Heights, Illinois, I baptized George Halas’ first grandchild.
After the Saturday baptism, it was a thrill of a lifetime for me to go to Halas’ daughter’s home for the party. I sat next to George Halas on the sofa as we all watched the black and white films of the previous Sunday’s game. His commentary on Gayle Sayers and Dick Butkus on the 12×12 screen was priceless. He talked about how Butkus always liked to read comic books on the bus. And of course, Halas sat next to me with his famous hat on during all the shouting going on in Virginia McCaskey’s the living room.
I did not ask them about the famous “bathroom story.” Brian Piccolo and Gayle Sayers were the first interracial roommates on the Bears. When a reporter asked Piccolo how he and Sayers were getting along, he responded: “We’re O.K. as long as he doesn’t use the bathroom.”
Hope springs eternal for me this weekend as the Bears play the Rams at Soldier Field in front to 63,000 fans and millions who are watching the game at home.
This weekend I am also thinking back to June 21, 1964 when I was 20 years old. That day I joined over 70,000 people at the old Soldier Field on the Chicago lakefront who came to listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was there at Soldier Field to speak to the Illinois Rally for Civil Rights. Dr. King talked about slum housing, housing discrimination, economic disparities and segregation. In 1964 the Bears were still playing at Wrigley Field that they shared with the Chicago Cubs.
But as I look back to 1964, I recall that there were only a handful of blacks on the Bears, players like Bennie McRae and Charlie Bivins. Gayle Sayers was drafted late in 1964 for the 1965 season.
The NFL had had an unofficial “gentleman’s agreement” among its owners to ban black players from 1934 to 1946, a 12-year period following earlier integration in the league’s first decade. This ban ended due to public pressure, particularly from black newspapers and activists.
On Saturday, January 10, 2026, 31 million people watched the Bears-Packers game at Soldier Field on paid Prime TV. Of those 31 million people, I wonder who noticed or cared who was black or who was white on either team. It was all about winning the game and the color of a player’s skin meant nothing any more.
How did this come about? GREAT LEADERS CHANGE ATTITUDES.
“It requires a leader of great determination to carry out the most difficult task of all — that of changing attitudes. That is what you are trying to do, Mr. President.”
— Margaret Thatcher, speaking to Mikhail Gorbachev in London, 1989
“People want the church doctrine to change, want attitudes to change. I think we have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the church says about any given question.” Pope Leo XIV, September 17, 2025
Whether some people in America cared for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or not, one thing we know for sure – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. CHANGED ATTITUDES.
Two months before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke to his congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta about his death in what would oddly enough become his eulogy.
“Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral,” Dr. King told his congregation. “If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long.
“Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that’s not important. I’d like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.
“I’d like someone to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked. I want you to be able to say that I did try to visit those in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.”
Dr. King concluded with these words: “I won’t have any money left behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.”
Did Dr. King have that level of commitment when he first began his ministry? It’s doubtful. He had youthful enthusiasm to be sure. He had strong convictions. He was well brought up, with an outstanding Baptist preacher as a father. But people who are truly captured by the spirit of Christ do so generally after years of walking in Christ’s footsteps for a long while. Our faith is validated and grows as we walk with Jesus.
Are our leaders today changing attitudes? Are they changing them for the better or for the worse? GO BEARS!!
YOUR MIND WILL ALWAYS BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU FEED IT. FEED IT TRUTH! FEED IT COMPASSION! FEED IT INTEGRITY! FEED IT LOVE!
Please share my words today with as many people as you can. These are words America needs to hear today. Only YOU can reach out to others.
