RIP DICK Butkus

When I was 7 years old. I really got into the game of football. Played peewee league, HS, almost got to play for Penn State.
I played MLB mostly. So naturally the guys who played LB position were my idols.
Jack Lambert
Mike Singletary
Dick Butkus
These are the guys I tried to be like.
All I ever saw of Dick Butkus were highlight reels. He was the gold standard. He played like an angry freight train and would hit you hard enough to kill your family.
From what I know and read about, He played for love of the game and it showed. He had many nicknames “the animal” “the enforcer” “the maestro of mayhem” “the robot of destruction” to me he will always be the G. O. A. T.

RIP Dick Butkus
 
When I was 7 years old. I really got into the game of football. Played peewee league, HS, almost got to play for Penn State.
I played MLB mostly. So naturally the guys who played LB position were my idols.
Jack Lambert
Mike Singletary
Dick Butkus
These are the guys I tried to be like.
All I ever saw of Dick Butkus were highlight reels. He was the gold standard. He played like an angry freight train and would hit you hard enough to kill your family.
From what I know and read about, He played for love of the game and it showed. He had many nicknames “the animal” “the enforcer” “the maestro of mayhem” “the robot of destruction” to me he will always be the G. O. A. T.

RIP Dick Butkus
Unfortunately. Guys like Lambert, Singletary and Butkus paid the price for their hard play. For Butkus it was his knees. He destroyed them playing football. He spent the second 1/2 his life barely able to walk normally.
 
Unfortunately. Guys like Lambert, Singletary and Butkus paid the price for their hard play. For Butkus it was his knees. He destroyed them playing football. He spent the second 1/2 his life barely able to walk normally.
My son had a soccer coach , who at one time played linebacker for the Rams, and his knees were shot, and he had to use a golf cart to get around.
 
My son had a soccer coach , who at one time played linebacker for the Rams, and his knees were shot, and he had to use a golf cart to get around.
For Butkus, that was back in the day where a player would hurt themselves on a play and the team doctor would shoot them up with cortisone or painkillers and put them back on the field. Thank heavens sports take injuries way more serious today than.... frankly.... pre 1980s. or so.
 
I have a shoddy knee from playing also.
But, I don’t regret it. Sure it would be nice to not deal with the pain every morning. But the way I look at it is, it’s a trade off for a great many memories and it’s a risk I willingly took.
And for the pros, it’s got to be the same way.
I’ll bet if you ask them if it was worth it, a great many of them would say yes.
 
I have a shoddy knee from playing also.
But, I don’t regret it. Sure it would be nice to not deal with the pain every morning. But the way I look at it is, it’s a trade off for a great many memories and it’s a risk I willingly took.
And for the pros, it’s got to be the same way.
I’ll bet if you ask them if it was worth it, a great many of them would say yes.
For sure.
 
Dick Butkus was part of that 60s/70s old guard of pure, unadulterated hardass Linebackers, with dudes like Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Bobby Bell Willie Lanier and an early 60s leftover with the equally badass Chuck Bednarik ( the last 60minute man, who played both offensive and defense the full game).

Those guys weren't toned and jacked like body builders, they were just big framed brawlers and thugs. Those were the wild West days, when the refs didn't flag every play and let a LOT of stuff go on the field and it was pure carnage: and it was awesome.

Dick Butkus himself , was 6' 3" and 245 lbs which is still freakishly big for a Linebacker even by today's standards and his play style was best described by an equal badass of another position: the legendary Defensive End Deacon Jones" -Dick was an animal. I called him a maniac. A stone maniac. He was a well-conditioned animal, and every time he hit you, he tried to put you in the cemetery, not the hospital."

RIP, Mr. Butkus
 
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