Legendary Football Player Gale Sayers Dies Following Battle With Dementia
His wife said she partly blames the repeated head injuries during his NFL career for his dementia. News is also on figure skating.
AP:
Gale Sayers, Bears Hall Of Fame Running Back, Dies At 77
Gale Sayers, the dazzling and elusive running back who entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite the briefest of careers and whose fame extended far beyond the field for decades thanks to a friendship with a dying Chicago Bears teammate, has died. He was 77. Nicknamed “The Kansas Comet” and considered among the best open-field runners the game has ever seen, Sayers died Wednesday, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Relatives of Sayers had said he was diagnosed with dementia. In March 2017, his wife, Ardythe, said she partly blamed his football career. (Seligman and Litke, 9/24)
Omaha World-Herald:
Even As Gale Sayers Battled Dementia, His Bonds Could Never Be Broken
From time to time, Roger Sayers finds the photograph and studies the marks that age can’t erase. Two old men — great-grandfathers — wearing the smiles of children. The man in back, one day before his 72nd birthday, wraps his arms around big brother and clenches his hands together. The man in front, 73, flashes the same grin. He and Gale might as well be flying down Grant Street on homemade skateboards in 1955. In May 2015, Roger knew that Gale’s memory was fading. He knew that Gale could be moody or disengaged, even nonresponsive. But they were still brothers.
That week, Gale was in town and their alma mater, Central High, invited them downtown for a photo shoot. Gale drifted in and out. Lucid one minute, lost the next. At one point, a stranger got him chatting about old times and Gale thought about mom and dad. He broke down. “Tears started flowing,” Roger said. Roger put a hand on his brother and eased him back to the moment. They started laughing, and, seconds later, the photographer snapped the picture. That’s about the last time he remembers Gale being Gale. (Chatelain, 9/23)
The New York Times:
Gale Sayers’s Balletic Runs Obscure Football’s Brutal Endings
It is perhaps no small irony that in 1965, the year that the Chicago Bears chose running back Gale Sayers fourth over all in the draft, George Halas, the team’s longtime owner, picked linebacker Dick Butkus one spot ahead of him. The tandem defined the team and the league for most of a decade. Both players ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But where Sayers was graceful, Butkus was brutal. Sayers eluded tacklers, Butkus slammed into ball carriers and threw them to the ground with glee. Sayers spent his years avoiding collisions. Butkus, the most fearsome player of his time, seemed to live for them. (Belson, 9/23)
In other sports news —
The Wall Street Journal:
Figure Skating Turns To Virtual Competition As A Covid-19 Fallback
U.S. figure skating champion Nathan Chen started his new competitive season with a videographer, a cluster of proctors and instructions to display a time-stamp before he performed his program in an empty training rink. Then he had to quickly upload the recording to his sport’s governing body. This is how the figure skating world is experimenting with holding competitions during the pandemic: by having skaters perform verified routines that are recorded and then judged from afar. (Radnofsky, 9/23)
