(b. 30 May 1943 in Wichita, Kansas), running back for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) who was the youngest player elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after a career that spanned just sixty-eight games and included only five full seasons.
Sayers was one of three boys born to Roger Winfield Sayers, a mechanic, and Bernice Ross Sayers, a homemaker. After living in Wichita for several years, the Sayers family moved to Speed, a small town in northwest Kansas. The life in rural Kansas, as Sayers remembered, was "big rains, putting up fences, killing snakes, and going to an outhouse." In 1957 after less than two years in Speed, the family moved to Omaha, Nebraska. About this time Sayers received his first sports award—marble champion of seventh grade of the Howard Kennedy Elementary School. Soon afterward Sayers moved to the football field, although at first he wasmiscast as a linebacker. As a sophom*ore at Omaha Central High School, Sayers finally got to do what would make him one of the game's immortals—run with the football. His brilliance earned him All-State honors as a halfback in both his junior and senior seasons. In addition to football, the speedy Sayers was something of a one-man track team, piling up points in the sprints and the jumps. Graduating from high school in 1961, Sayers caused quite a stir when he chose the University of Kansas over the University of Nebraska. He did so simply, he said, "because I liked the Jayhawks' coach Jack Mitchell."
The Chicago Bears, who eventually drafted and signed Sayers, had a glowing scouting report on Sayers before he even played a varsity game at Kansas. It said, "Sayers, half-back, great speed, great prospect. He should be graded in 1 Category. The "1 Category" translated into "a player who should become a starter as a rookie in the NFL."
When Sayers became eligible for varsity play as a sophom*ore, he proved all the ballyhoo was justified. Sayers gained 1,125 yards in a 10-game schedule, averaging a nation-leading 7.1 yards every time he carried the ball. One of his early games that season was a 283-yard effort against Oklahoma State. He became a marked man; defenses were geared specifically to stop Sayers. Despite a dwindling percarry average—6.9 as a junior and 5.2 as a senior, he was a consensus All-American in both years. Inexplicably, Sayers finished out of the top ten in Heisman Trophy voting.Professional scouts, however, were very much aware of his ability and unlimited potential. Both the Bears and the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League (AFL) tapped Sayers as their first draft choice for 1965. Even though the Chiefs oil millionaire owner Lamar Hunt offered more for his services, Sayers accepted an offer from the Bears George Halas.
Sayers exploded onto the NFL scene in 1965. He was NFL Rookie of the Year and set a still-standing rookie record of twenty-two touchdowns. He was the talk of the town in nearly every NFL franchise city. Nothing caused more of a buzz than his performance against the San Francisco 49ers on 12 December 1965. Sayers scored six touchdowns that day—no one has ever scored more in a single NFL game—on scrimmage runs of twenty-one yards, seven yards, fifty yards, and one yard; an eighty-yard pass reception; and an eighty-five-yard punt return. Someone asked the outspoken Ditka if he thought the muddy field that day hampered Sayers. Ditka said, "Yeah, on a dry field, the kid woulda scored ten touchdowns." There was no sophom*ore jinx for Sayers. He led the NFL in rushing in 1966 with 1,231 yards. He was well on his way to another 1,000-yard season (the benchmark for all great running backs) in 1968 when disaster struck. In the ninth game of the season (he had accumulated 862 yards at that point), he injured his knee—the worst injury a running back can sustain. He was still named to the All-Pro team, regardless of the truncated season.
Sayers was determined to come back. A grueling rehabilitation program prepared him for the 1969 season. He became the first NFL running back ever to gain 1,000 yards or more (1,032) in the first season back after a knee injury and the ensuing surgery. Again he was All-Pro and was voted the NFL's Most Courageous Player. Those who were not aware of Sayers's special relationship with his Bears teammate Brian Piccolo, who was suffering from what would prove to be fatal lung cancer, were aware after Sayers's acceptance speech. With all sincerity, he said, "I accept this award tonight, but tomorrow it is Brian Piccolo's. He has the heart of giant and a rare form of courage." Their friendship and Sayers's compassion for Piccolo during his illness inspired the best-selling book A Short Season (1971), by Jeannie Morris, and an enduring television movie Brian's Song (1972). The film was remade in 2001.
During the 1970 preseason, Sayers suffered an injury to "the other" knee that limited him to just two games. The next year, 1971, was no better, when he again played just two games. Sayers realized his glittering career was over and retired during the 1972 preseason. His name still dots the NFL record book: most touchdowns as a rookie (22), most touchdowns in a game (6), highest career kickoff return average (30.56 yards per return), second-best season kickoff return average (37.69 yards in 1967), third-best career per-carry average (5.0 yards—trailing only Jim Brown's 5.2 average).
Sayers made All-Pro in each of his five full seasons with the Bears. He played in the Pro Bowl four times (his first knee injury prevented him from playing in a fifth) and won Player of the Game honors in three of them. Fans were probably more upset about Sayers's shortened career than he was. He said, "It really wasn't as difficult as some people think. I was prepared to play and I was prepared to quit. I had something to turn to and that made it a great deal easier."
After his playing career, Sayers served as athletic director at the University of Southern Illinois and then settled into a career in his own computer supplies business in the Chicago suburb of Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Sayers married his high school sweetheart Linda Lou McNeil on 10 June 1962. The couple had two children, but their marriage ended in divorce. Sayers married Ardythe ("Ardie") Elaine Bullard on 1 December 1973. They live in Chicago.
In college Sayers was known as "the Kansas Comet." He truly had cometlike qualities—he blazed across the NFL sky briefly, and was gone. Steve Bisheff wrote of Sayers, "He was nonpareil, an artist with his own unique brushstrokes. Others may have been stronger and more durable, but nobody ran in the open field like Gale Sayers." It was an appropriate description in 1977, when at age thirty-three Sayers became the youngest player ever inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sayers explained his ability, saying, "It was instinctive—God-given. I never planned those moves. All I needed was eighteen inches of daylight."
Sayers wrote an autobiography, I Am Third (1970), with Al Silverman. His life and career are also discussed in Hal Higdon, Pro Football, USA (1968); Murray Olderman, The Running Backs (1969); Berry Stainback, How the Pros Play Football (1970); Jeannie Morris, A Short Season (1971); and George Sullivan, The Great Running Backs (1972).
Jim Campbell
