Gale Sayers 1943

Professional football player

The Kansas Comet

Rookie Success

Life After Football

Sources

Gale Eugene Sayers, who would later come to be known as “The Kansas Comet,” was born on May 30, 1943, in Wichita, Kansas. His mother, Bernice, was set on the name Gail in the hopes that her second child would be a girl. When her second baby came along, it turned out to be a boy, and though the spelling changed slightly, the name Gale stayed. Sayers’s father, Roger, who worked as a mechanic, moved his family from the more urban Wichita to his father’s farm in Speed, Kansas. Sayers attended a two-room schoolhouse in Speed before his parents decided that they could not make ends meet as farmers. The family was forced to move again soon after, but Sayers’s father had sold almost everything before the family moved to Speed. Money was very tight in the family with Roger earning a limited amount of money as a car polisher and mechanic. The family changed residences nine times in eight years and both Sayers’s parents were drinking more as the family’s fortunes declined. The five Sayers eventually settled down in Omaha, Nebraska.

Sayers excelled in all sports as a child, especially baseball, basketball, football, and track. While other kids in his neighborhood got into trouble with drugs or with the police, Sayers and his friends played sports. He became a football star in high school earning All-America honors in his senior year. He visited many of the big football schools including the University of Notre Dame and Nebraska. Despite the pressure to attend the University of Nebraska, as an in-state star athlete should, in 1961 Sayers chose the University of Kansas. During the summer before going off to school, he also became engaged to Linda, his high school sweetheart. The two would remain engaged for one year and marry after Sayers’s freshman year at Kansas at the age of 19.

The Kansas Comet

Sayers’s first year in college did not go well. He did well on the football field, but he had trouble with other aspects of university life. The young man from Omaha found himself among more sophisticated students. Sayers became more introverted socially and would only talk about the one subject he knew well—sports. He had been a passive student in high school and found that college classes were a good deal more demanding than what he was used to. Sayers failed English and received poor grades in his other classes. He was

At a Glance…

Born Gale Eugene Sayers on May 30, 1943, in JUwichita, Kansas; son of Roger (a car polisher and mechanic) and Bernice Sayers; married Linda; children: Gayle Lynne and Scott Aaron.Education: University of Kansas, bachelor’s, master’s degree.

Career: Professional football player. Chicago Bears, 1965-72; University of Kansas, assistant athletic director, 1973-75; Southern Illinois University, athletic director, 1976-81; founded computer resale firm, 1982; Sayers Computer Source, President and CEO, 1982-.

Awards: University of Kansas, All-American, 1963, 1964; Rookie of the Year, Chicago Bears, 1965; Pro Bowl selection, 1965-69; led the NFL in rushing, 1966, 1969; the youngest man ever elected to NFL Hall of Fame, 1977; named to University of Illinois at Chicago’s Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, 1999; one of Ernst and Young’s Technology/Communications Entrepreneurs of the Year, 1999.

Addresses: Home —Chicago, Illinois. Office—The Sayers Group, 1150 Freehanville Drive, Mt. Prospect, IL 60056.

forced to attend summer school, but he would do so with his new wife, who worked while Sayers studied and went to practice. Being married settled the young star and Linda helped him with his studies.In 1962 Sayers rushed for 1, 125 yards and averaged an astonishing 7.2 yards per carry. Sayers gained 941 yards as a junior and 678 yards as a senior. Now known as “the Kansas Comet,” he set a Big Eight Conference career record of 2,675 yards rushing and was named All-American after his junior and senior seasons.

Perhaps more importantly, the scared young boy had matured into a confident young man who could deal with the press and did well in his classes. In his senior year Sayers was asked to participate in protest with some other students against discrimination in campus housing. Sayers took part in the protest and was eventually arrested. The two-time All-American said that his most important accomplishment in college was maintaining a B average in his last year at Kansas. Unfortunately Sayers lost interest in school after the football season. He was busy with college all-star games and was receiving all kinds of offers from both the National Football League and the old American Football League—which was to become the American Football Conference within the NFL but was a competing football league at the time. Sayers made it clear that he would go with the established league and was drafted by the Chicago Bears in 1965. Sayers signed a four-year deal that he negotiated himself for $25, 000 a year.

Rookie Success

The rookie took the NFL by storm. After learning to control his nervousness and use his blockers, Sayers piled up 867 yards and 22 touchdowns in his first season as a professional football player. Not only did Sayers win the scoring title, but he was also voted Rookie of the Year and named All-Pro. Though Sayers’s rookie season was among the best ever for a first-year NFL player, one game stands out above all of his efforts. On December 12, 1965 Sayers tied the NFL record for most touchdowns in a game. Against the San Francisco 49ers on a cold, muddy, Chicago field Sayers scored six touchdowns. The rookie runner equaled a mark set back in 1926. Sayers connected on an 80-yard screen pass, an 85-yard punt return, and runs of 21, seven, 50, and one yards. All told he single-handedly gained 316 yards and scored 36 points. “Yeah, the mud affected the kid,” Mike Ditka was quoted in an NFL Insider article. “If it had been dry out there, he woulc’ve scored 10 touchdowns.” The next year he led the league in rushing with 1, 231 yards.

In 1967 Sayers gained 880 yards rushing and was again named All-Prc. Sayers stayed busy off the field as well. He became a stockbroker and was active in many programs for the children of Chicago. He also solidified his famous friendship with his teammate Brian Piccolo. Sayers and Piccolo played the same position and instead of becoming rivals, the two men became friends. The Bears asked the pair of unlikely pioneers to room together before the 1967 season during preseason practice sessions in Alabama. Though the two worked and lived together, they still could not go out to eat together in a segregated state in 1967. When Piccolo got sick with lung cancer, it was Sayers who addressed the team on the club’s behalf and when Piccolo died in 1970 it was Sayers who helped carry his casket at the funeral. Their story was told in a 1971 made-for-television movie called Brian’s Song in which Billy Dee Williams played Sayers.

The next year would be a pivotal time in Sayers’s life. Off the field he solidified his presence in the community by forming the Gale Sayers Foundation to help young newspaper carriers. The 1968 season was important also. In a game against San Francisco, Sayers hit and twisted his knee badly enough to tear ligaments in his knee. His season was over. Sayers was forced to undergo surgery and endure a whole off-season of rehabilitation. Sayers started the next season very slowly and there were whispers among the Chicago press that the Bears’ star was washed up. It took Sayers until the sixth game of the season to gain 100 yards, but he averaged 100 yards in the next five games of the year. Sayers ended up leading the league in rushing in 1969 with 1, 032 yards. After the season Pro Football writers voted him the most courageous player in the league. Sayers accepted the award, but not for himself. He said the award would go to his friend Brian Piccolo, who would die a few weeks later.

After a triumphant comeback season, Sayers injured his other leg before the 1970 season. He tried to run through the pain, but in the end he would have another operation. He finished the year with just 52 yards on 23 carries. Though he did not realize it at the time, the surgery would be the first in a series that would steal his best years as a football player. In the next 15 months Sayers would have two more knee surgeries and have his leg put in a cast. Finally at the start of the 1972 season, Sayers announced his retirement from the NFL. “His days at the top of his game were numbered, but there was a magic about him that still sets him apart from the other great running backs in pro football,” Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter Red Smith was quoted on ESPN.com. “He wasn’t a bruiser like Jimmy Brown, but he could slice through the middle like a warm knife through butter, and when he took a pitchout and peeled around the corner, he was the most exciting thing in pro football.” Sayers ended his career with 6, 213 yards gained and 56 touchdowns. He averaged 5.0 yards per carry and set seven NFL records and 23 team records.

Life After Football

Though he had retired from playing football, Sayers remained active in the game, becoming a football analyst on CBS for two years. In 1973 he returned to Kansas to work as an assistant athletic director. Sayers soon became director of the Williams Educational Fund, the primary fund raising body for Kansas Athletics. Sayers also found time to earn his master’s degree in educational administration. After three years at Kansas, Sayers went back to Illinois to take the athletic director’s job at Southern Illinois in 1976. After five year in that job Sayers formed his own sports marketing and public relations firm which evolved into Sayers Computer Source. The firm began in 1982 as a computer supplies reseller. Since the company’s founding, Sayers Computer Source has grown to include ten branches across the United States with revenues of more than $150 million. The firm has also expanded its services to more than just selling computers. Sayers Computer Source offers operating systems, systems integration, and consulting services.

In 1999 Sayers was inducted into the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame. Then that summer Ernst & Young named Sayers as one of the Technology/Communications Entrepreneurs of the Year. Upon accepting the award Sayers said, as quoted on the Sayers Computer Source website, “This is more significant than my induction into the National Football League Hall of Fame because the latter was the result of God-given talents and the former is the result of my hard work and recognition of personal achievements.” Sayers capped off an eventful 1999 with a gift of $75, 000 to his alma mater, to be used to establish the Gale Sayers Microcomputer Center in the School of Education. While some former sports stars fade away into obscurity after a glorious athletic career, Sayers has continued to grow and prosper in whatever field he has chosen.

Sources

Books

Sayers, Gale and Silver man, AllAm Third. The Viking Press, 1970. Hahn, James and Lynn;Sayers! The Sports Career of

Gale Sayers.Crestwood House, 1981.

Other

Additional material for this profile was found on the worldwide web at: http://espn.go.com; the University of Kansas website, http://www.urc.ukans.edu; the Sayers Computer Source website, http://www.sayers.com; and the Pro Football Hall of Fame website, http://www.profootballhof.com.

—Michael J. Watkins