Halas, George S.
Football
b. Feb. 2, 1895, Chicago, IL
d. Oct. 31, 1983
Halas played end at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1918, and was with the Great Lakes Naval Training Station team that lost to the Mare Island Marines in the 1918 Rose Bowl.
After playing briefly as an outfielder with the New York Yankees in 1919, Halas was hired in 1920 by the Staley Starch Company of Decatur, IL, primarily to organize a company football team.
The Decatur Staleys, with Halas as player-coach, joined the new American Professional Football Association (APFA). The team moved to Chicago in 1921. The Staley company didn't renew the franchise in 1922, but Halas and his partner Dutch Sternaman did. They renamed the team the Bears. At the annual league meeting in January of 1922, Halas suggested that the APFA should also be given a new name, the National Football League, and other owners agreed.
"Papa Bear," as Halas became known, was associated with the team until his death in 1983. He was player-coach through 1929. After he retired as a player, Halas hired Ralph Jones as coach for three seasons but, with the team losing money during depression years, he took over again in 1933 because, as he said, "I came cheap."
Halas entered the Navy during the 1942 season and returned as coach in 1946, after World War II ended. He retired for two seasons, 1956 and 1957, then took over coaching again and retired permanently after the 1967 season, remaining with the team as a consultant.
During his 40 seasons as the Bears' coach, Halas won 325 games, lost 151, and tied 31. The Bears won NFL championships in 1921, 1933, 1934, 1937, 1940, 1946, and 1963. They were also champions under Jones in 1932 and under co-coaches Luke Johnsos and Hunk Anderson in 1943.
Halas had an almost quixotic commitment to the T formation for a 20-year period when most other teams were using the single wing or Notre Dame shift. During the late 1930s, Clark Shaughnessy of the University of Chicago also worked as an advisor for the Bears, and he helped develop a modernized version of the formation, with one end split wide and a back going in motion to the other side.
Shaughnessy introduced this formation at Stanford University in 1940. That season, the Bears won the Western Division championship and beat the Washington Redskins 73-0 for the NFL title. The overwhelming victory, combined with Stanford's unbeaten season, began a revolution. Within a decade, virtually every professional and major college team was using some version of the T formation.
But Halas's success as a coach owed more to his personality than to strategy or tactics. He was a tough disciplinarian who expected his teams to play hard and physically punish their opponents. Because of that approach, the Bears were known as the "Monsters of the Midway" during their best years under Halas.
