Was Gale Sayers the “best gridiron dancer ever?”
By James Rodrigues
Bill Cosby claims he once saw ex-Chicago Bear running back Gale Sayers
run straight at a tackler, split in two, leave the tackler behind and then
merge back into one again. If it had been anyone else but Sayers,
I would have thought that the “COS’ was exaggerating a bit. But
having watched Sayers run over, through and around my San Francisco 49ers
in the 1960s, I’m not so sure it didn’t really happen.
Sayers breaks free and is "gone."
I recall the game in Chicago when Sayers put six touchdowns on the scoreboard against the “Niners.” He scored via pass, run and kick return. The field was a swamp of mud posing as a football field. Somehow the muck and mire bothered the 49ers, but it was an absolute playground for Sayers.
One of his scores came when he took a pass out of the backfield and danced across the middle. As the 49er defensive backs came up to make the tackle, Sayers used the same head and shoulder fake to individually send three of them backstroking into the windy city mud.
The ex-University of Kansas star not only ran like the wind but he escaped like Houdini. I saw a highlight film recently. It was the Bears against the then fearsome Rams. The radio call would have sounded something like this, “Wade takes the snap and pitches to Sayers sweeping to the right. He’s jammed up for no gain! No!! Gale Sayers breaks a tackle and spins away. He reverses his field…Rams are everywhere! He fakes left, goes right! He’s in the open!! I don’t believe my eyes! He’s at the 40, the 30, the 20, he’s gone!! Touchdown Bears!!
Not that I was always pleased with Sayers ability to baffle my 49ers. I screeched and groaned plenty. “Get him!” was as polite as I got with number 40 in the black and red when he faced my cardinal and gold.
Sayers excelled in Pro Bowl games in which facing the best
brought out his most amazing qualities.
In 1965 (the year he scored six touchdowns in a single game) he rushed for
1,231 yards. That was a very impressive total because, at
that time, they only played 14 games in a season.
Maybe it was a tragic “comes around goes around” that took over on that 1968 autumn afternoon in Chicago. It was the same town and against the same team that Sayers scored his six touchdowns. The play was “sweep left with blockers out front” when 49er cornerback Kermit Alexander torpedoed under the blocking and knocked Sayers to the ground. It was a great defensive play but as they put Gale Sayers on a stretcher, Alexander wasn’t happy.
The gazelle in Sayers disappeared into major surgery and a difficult rehab.” When he returned in 1969, the greatest gridiron dancer had been reduced to a straight-ahead power-runner. But as a final gesture of greatness by “The Kansas Comet,” he reached a thousand yards that way too.
When I reflect upon Sayers, I realize that watching him was the same kind of honor as watching Sandy Koufax or Michael Jordan. Legends haunt forever!