Very Sad

"Father Time is undefeated." I've been hearing that said more often these days. That happens as you get older. When I first started paying attention to football in general and the NFL in particular Johnny Unitas was still throwing passes. He was in Charger blue, which was strange even to this little kid, but he was active. Dick Butkus was still playing. Sonny Jurgensen too. Red Grange, Bronco Nagurski, and Johnny Blood were alive. George Halas was still making football decisions. Paul Brown too. The NFL had just turned 50. The league was young. The history so brief. Now, the league feels so much older as we creep towards it's 100th birthday. I've thought about this a lot since I visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame for the first time in 2013. I've been thinking about the age of the league and especially the age of it's former players even more since the sad passing of Chuck Bednarik on Saturday.

When I first became aware of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Unitas and Butkus weren't even eligible for induction. Canton, Ohio was a distant, sacred place to me. They had only been inducting players for a decade. Most of those honored there were still alive and well. In middle age or younger. Many looked like they could still play some football. When I finally made it to Canton for Cris Carter's induction in 2013 it was the 50th anniversary of the Hall. A lot had changed. Not only were the busts of the greats right there in front of me so were a lot of the players. It was the largest gathering Canton had ever seen. They weren't the physical marvels that thrilled me for years with their football skills. They were human. They were much more like me than I could ever believe them to be. I love the idea of a world where Mel Hein could talk to Dwight Stephenson about the particulars of snapping a football. John Unitas and Raymond Berry together again. Lombardi and Lambeau having their first nice chat. Perhaps even an embrace. All of them frozen in time in their prime.

Charley Trippi and Y.A. Tittle are the last remaining Hall of Fame players to have started their NFL careers in the 1940s. Trippi in 1947. Tittle in 1948. Tittle never looked like a youngster. Even in 1948. My father attended the University of San Francisco at the same time as Gino Marchetti and Ollie Matson. Pete Rozelle too. Marchetti is 88. Rozelle died in 1996. Matson in 2011. All three are frozen in my mind as the 20-somethings that I saw in my father's USF yearbook. My father too. Time just keeps on moving. Sometimes it feels like only a year or two ago that Bud Grant was on the sideline coaching the Minnesota Vikings. Those great memories are always so fresh. It's actually shocking to think that Dennis Green coached the team more recently and that Grant is about to turn 88. It's easier to think of our heroes as immortal. Something other than ourselves. It's hard to accept them as mortal. As human. Chuck Bednarik played his entire NFL career before I was born. I've read so much about him. I've seen him damn near kill Frank Gifford and tackle Jim Taylor so many times that I feel like I was there. I think of him as "Concrete Charlie" the Philadelphia Eagles legend far more easily than I think of him as Chuck Bednarik the man. He's always been part of my football family. My football history. It's always sad to lose a member of your family. A part of your history.

Football is often handed down from generation to generation. My father handed me his experiences with Paul Brown, Marion Motley, Frankie Albert, Joe Perry, Bill Willis, Otto Graham, Bruno Banducci and the rest of the All-America Football Conference. That old conference was alive and well in the bright eyes of a kid in the 1970s thanks to my father's tales. He was a 49ers fan but greatly appreciated the football work of Paul Brown and his Cleveland Browns. So, I did too. I loved football's past before I truly understood football's present. If the 1950s Baltimore Colts had played in the 1970s I might have become a fan of that team before I fell for the Minnesota Vikings. I will always have those football talks with my father. My love of the game started then. I will always have my memories of Chuck Bednarik and the rest of my football family that are no longer here. And that isn't so sad.