Illinois has produced many outstanding and game-changing athletes, so it’s a tough job to create any top 10 list.
The Illinois Press Association and Illinois Associated Press Media Editors enlisted longtime Chicago Sun-Times sports reporter Mark Potash for the job. Here is his list of the top 10 athletes from Illinois.
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CHICAGO — Illinois has produced many outstanding and game-changing athletes, so it’s a tough job to create any top 10 list.
The Illinois Press Association and Illinois Associated Press Media Editors enlisted longtime Chicago Sun-Times sports reporter Mark Potash for the job. Here is his list of the top 10 athletes from Illinois.
1. Red Grange, Wheaton
The early days of professional football were not pretty or promising — obviously not televised but also casually recognized. The Bears and Cardinals were relegated to secondary pages of the sports sections in Chicago, with college football dominant and even high school football more prominent.
And more than that, pro football was a second-class citizen in American sport — considered substandard to college football and to some, an unseemly, disrespected profession. The best college players didn’t automatically go to the National Football League.
Red Grange helped change all of that. The running back from Wheaton and the University of Illinois rivaled even Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey as an American sports star in the 1920s. When he signed with the Bears out of Illinois in 1925, he almost single-handedly changed the face of the NFL — giving it an instant credibility that was reflected in banner headlines and sell-out crowds.
Grange’s debut with the Bears on Thanksgiving Day drew 36,000 fans at Cubs Park — the largest crowd in the then-brief history of the future Wrigley Field. Ten Days later, Grange drew a record 65,000 to the Polo Grounds for a game against Tim Mara’s fledgling New York Giants — an event that without exaggeration is credited with not only saving that franchise, but leaving an impression on Eastern sports writers that further legitimized pro football. On a winter barnstorming tour following the season, Grange and the Bears drew a record 65,270 to the Los Angeles Coliseum.
As it turned out, Red Grange’s impact on the field would never match all of that. While playing for the New York Yankees in 1927 after a salary dispute with the Bears, Grange suffered a knee injury and missed the 1928 season. He returned to the Bears in 1929, but had lost the speed and agility that made him a superstar. He made his mark as an outstanding defensive back — most notably making a touchdown-saving tackle on the final play that clinched the Bears’ 23-21 victory over Giants in the NFL championship game. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.
All things considered, no player from Illinois has had more impact on a sport than Red Grange. He was a four-sport star at Wheaton High School who scored 75 touchdowns. He became a superstar as a three-time All-American at Illinois who famously rose to the occasion of the big game when he scored four touchdowns in the first quarter against Michigan in 1924 at newly dedicated Memorial Stadium — a 95-yard return of the opening kickoff, plus runs of 67, 56 and 44 yards. In those days he was a larger-than-life star, his No. 77 was almost as famous as he was. And even then, the best was yet to come.
2. Dick Butkus, Chicago
The greatest tribute to Dick Butkus’s fabulous NFL career is that as time passes and the linebacker position evolves arguably more than any in football — bigger, faster, greater athletes with triple-digit career sack numbers — his stature continues to grow. The former Vocational High School and University of Illinois star still is No. 3 in most linebacker rankings. Some still say he’s there greatest linebacker to play the game. The Butkus Award is given to the best linebacker not only in college, but in high school and the NFL.
Why? Because even with all-time greats such as Lawrence Taylor and Ray Lewis joining the best-of-all-time discussion, there always will only be one Dick Butkus. As the late Doug Buffone often said, “To play this game you have to have the Neanderthal gene — Butkus had two.”
But Butkus’ greatness lies deeper than that. It’s almost a shame that Butkus’ reputation as a mean, angry, dirty player overshadows the reality that he was one of the most instinctive, disciplined, fundamentally sound and opportunistic players ever. He had a knack for being in the exact spot to make that brutal hit. And he had great hands. It’s almost ironic that Butkus, despite his reputation, was one of the cleanest, surest tacklers of all-time.
He was named to the All-Pro team five times and the Pro Bowl eight times. In 119 NFL games, he had 22 interceptions and 27 fumble recoveries. And the ferocity with which he played was real. Buffone, who played next to Butkus for seven years, often recalled looking at a frothing Butkus on the field and thinking, “I’m glad he’s on my side.”
Chicago Sun-Times sports writer Mark Potash can be reached at mpotash@suntimes.com and on Twitter at @MarkPotash.
Editor’s note:
The weekly Illinois Bicentennial series is brought to you by the Illinois Associated Press Media Editors and Illinois Press Association. More than 20 newspapers are creating stories about the state’s history, places and key moments in advance of the Bicentennial on Dec. 3, 2018. Stories published up to this date can be found at 200illinois.com.