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Gale Sayers R.I.P.


TexasAg1969

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Wow, Gayle Sayers the "Kansas Comet" one of the best I've ever seen in the NFL.  Only 77.

Died from football injuries.

In 2017, Sayers' family opened up to the Kansas City Star about his battle with dementia. He sued the NFL in 2014 over concussions that led to "loss of memory, dementia, Alzheimer's, neirolohical disorder, depression, sleep problems and irritability" in his life after football. 

RIP.

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I did not think his style and short career set him up to for concussion related dementia. Can't recall ever seeing him take a big hit, but then I mostly saw highlights plus a few full games sprinkled in...

 

Certainly one of the best "mudders" I've ever seen. Dangerous on any day, but give him a sloppy field and fugeddaboutit.

Read report once that besides having big feet he also ran flatfooted... and thus his mud advantage.

 

 

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I didn't realize that he led the league twice in rushing.  I knew he was great, particularly on special teams, but I thought he was more specialty,  STs/catching the ball etc.  But, no, he was not "specialty"....he was special. 

He is tied for 4th all time in Kickoff returns for TDs.....Josh Cribbs is the leader there. 

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4 minutes ago, The Gipper said:

No, you must have, because whatever it was that you tried to post did not show up. 

Nope. I only use a desktop here. Not smart enough to reply with cell phones. I lament the old days when they were only cell phones and then got too smart for me.

BTW in reading your original quote from me I can clearly see the emojis.

Here are two more.  😘😂

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As a pro motocross racer I have had 4 big hits to the head. For 2 of them I looked like a boxer taking a standing 8 and was able to get to my feet, find my bike and get back into the race. The other 2, I was out cold... nite-nite.

The short one was about 7-10 seconds before 1st movement (still have the video that my mom took.... never taking the camera off me) and the worst - and ultimately last one, I was out for close to 12 minutes.....  Long enough for a car on the 14 freeway to see me laying unconscious in the SoCal desert and exit 2 miles up and work their way back to help me.

(I still wonder how many people drove by and saw me laying there but didn't want to go out of their way to help.... I was only 17 years old and easily seen about 150yds from the freeway) 

The 1st hit I was 12 and the last I was 17. I remember nothing before or after the 2 big hits and I remember most everything before and immediately after the 2 smaller hits, but what I remember isn't what my mom and dad remember, so I'm not 100% sure if I or my 80 year old parents are correct. 

I'm now 52 and have been battling anxiety for the last decade. My therapist (I go see help and am damn proud to admit it) thinks it is because of my daughter first going away to college, and then moving to Melbourne Australia for Grad school, but I worry that it is something else, and stories like this scare the shit out of me. 

 

RIP Mr. Sayers, and thank you for the highlights that will live on forever.  

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37 minutes ago, TexasAg1969 said:

Nope. I only use a desktop here. Not smart enough to reply with cell phones. I lament the old days when they were only cell phones and then got too smart for me.

BTW in reading your original quote from me I can clearly see the emojis.

Here are two more.  😘😂

They don't come through on my computer.  No clue why.   The reason I thought it was a phone thing is that I have put emojis on here when I have been on here on my phone, and they would not show up on my desktop.   I do have a quite old computer, so maybe therein lies the issue. 

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6 hours ago, D Bone said:

(I still wonder how many people drove by and saw me laying there but didn't want to go out of their way to help.... I was only 17 years old and easily seen about 150yds from the freeway) 

That was you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

;)

  1. KO'd twice here... auto wreck (I was stopped at a light and a drunk hit me doing an estimated 50 mph)... out maybe a minute*.
  2. Hit in temple with a chunk of frozen horseshit in the temple when a friend decided to whiz over my head as I was picking something off the ground. I stood up unexpectedly. This was the weird one as I could not move, but could hear him and a couple others run to me, calling my name, etc.

Close one other time when a hot-grounder softball took a big hop and connected with my jaw. Went down that time, but not out and could move. My jaw still "cracks" to this day.

=========================================================================================

* ... but could have been a several minutes. Was "awakened" by a man shaking me from outside the driver side door and asking, "Buddy, are you all right?"

My first thought... "How is this guy shaking me? My window is up." The window had exploded on impact... along with every other one in my Chevy Monza 2+2 Hatchback excpting the front windshield and the passenger door.

Thought #2... "Whoever is shaking me smells like a distillery."

I've always believed it was the driver, but don't know for sure to this day.

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'Brian's Song' is the one movie I refuse to ever watch with anyone again. 

Saw it the first time when I was 10 and my uncle in Chicago was dying of lung cancer. 

I can't think of a more entertaining RB in the history of the NFL than Sayers. 

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6 hours ago, Tour2ma said:

KO'd twice here... auto wreck (I was stopped at a light and a drunk hit me doing an estimated 50 mph)... out maybe a minute*.
 

  1. Hit in temple with a chunk of frozen horseshit in the temple when a friend decided to whiz over my head as I was picking something off the ground. I stood up unexpectedly. This was the weird one as I could not move, but could hear him and a couple others run to me, calling my name, etc.

Close one other time when a hot-grounder softball took a big hop and connected with my jaw. Went down that time, but not out and could move. My jaw still "cracks" to this day.

=========================================================================================

* ... but could have been a several minutes. Was "awakened" by a man shaking me from outside the driver side door and asking, "Buddy, are you all right?"

My first thought... "How is this guy shaking me? My window is up." The window had exploded on impact... along with every other one in my Chevy Monza 2+2 Hatchback excpting the front windshield and the passenger door.

Thought #2... "Whoever is shaking me smells like a distillery."

I've always believed it was the driver, but don't know for sure to this day.

My brother has a funny story about how he was up on a tall ladder painting the front of his two story Victorian home when he went backwards off the ladder onto

the ground. Says he didn't think much of it but wondered where the accident was when he opened his eyes and saw EMS with lights flashing out on the street

in front of the house. Took a bit to realize that he was the accident and a neighbor had called 911. He'd been out about 10 min. or so.😂

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8 hours ago, Dutch Oven said:

I can't think of a more entertaining RB in the history of the NFL than Sayers. 

Agreed. Given good health, my all time "dream backfield" was Jimmy Brown & Gale Sayers. Sayers was awesome to watch running a football.

RIP Gale.

Mike

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43 minutes ago, Canton Mike said:

Agreed. Given good health, my all time "dream backfield" was Jimmy Brown & Gale Sayers. Sayers was awesome to watch running a football.

RIP Gale.

Mike

In this film you can see the "mudder" that Tour was talking about. 👍

 

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Gayle Sayers was flat out a fantastic runner... For a guy who was a mudder he had deer like moves.... He was a total class act... I remember seeing the movie Brians Song when I was just 6 years old.... It was probably James Caan's best acting performance. That movie had a pretty powerful message especially because we had just come out of the riots of the 60's... It's strange to think we're reliving that all over with a whole different set of circumstances...

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4 hours ago, Tour2ma said:

Not even Barry?

Hell , I liked Emmitt Smith more than I liked Sanders..... Smith was a real baller... Sanders was great and very hard to tackle.. Trying to tackle Sanders was like trying to tackle a bowling ball...

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Well....yes! I had a good teardrop for my late father yesterday.. His 2nd love of a RB after Jim Brown..Spent most of yesterday, just enjoying watching Gale on youtube.. Never knew Gale actually played a game at Wriggly Field... It was hard viewing Gale, at age 5-7 living in Ohio? but,  I may have missed some of Sayers games bumping Berry Sanders above him Dad? Yeah, everybody has a formula?  but born in 63.. here's my top 11 list in order... JB//Sayers//Sanders//Payton//OJ//Emmitt//Campbell//AP//M.Allen//Dickerson//LT 

RiP to Gale Sayers & 🙏 go out to your Family & Friends.. and 1 great dad ya never met.. #glide          

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49 minutes ago, gumby73 said:

Well....yes! I had a good teardrop for my late father yesterday.. His 2nd love of a RB after Jim Brown..Spent most of yesterday, just enjoying watching Gale on youtube.. Never knew Gale actually played a game at Wriggly Field... It was hard viewing Gale, at age 5-7 living in Ohio? but,  I may have missed some of Sayers games bumping Berry Sanders above him Dad? Yeah, everybody has a formula?  but born in 63.. here's my top 11 list in order... JB//Sayers//Sanders//Payton//OJ//Emmitt//Campbell//AP//M.Allen//Dickerson//LT 

RiP to Gale Sayers & 🙏 go out to your Family & Friends.. and 1 great dad ya never met.. #glide          

The Bears played at Wrigley Field throughout most of Sayer's career I believe before jumping over to Soldier Field. 

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10 hours ago, Barry said:

I agree. Sayers was the original Sanders, and more entertaining to watch. In my book he comes in just a shade below J.B. for those too few years. He was that good. RIP

Problem is, its hard to judge generationally. nothing against Brown or Sayers, they were great, but lets face it..in the 60's you had a bunch of slow white guys chasing you around versus todays game

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2 hours ago, Footbalfan1962 said:

Problem is, its hard to judge generationally. nothing against Brown or Sayers, they were great, but lets face it..in the 60's you had a bunch of slow white guys chasing you around versus todays game

All you can do is judge the players by who they played against.

 

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4 hours ago, Footbalfan1962 said:

Problem is, its hard to judge generationally. nothing against Brown or Sayers, they were great, but lets face it..in the 60's you had a bunch of slow white guys chasing you around versus todays game

And that is actually a fallacy. If you knew anything and or would go back and look at it you would see that many black players were top notch during that. Time.

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5 hours ago, Footbalfan1962 said:

Problem is, its hard to judge generationally. nothing against Brown or Sayers, they were great, but lets face it..in the 60's you had a bunch of slow white guys chasing you around versus todays game

It definitely is an eyeball test, and how much that person dominated the other players at the time they played. But if you are going to compare players from different eras (which is just a guessing game, imo), I think running backs are probably one of the easier positions to do so. Sayers was 200 lbs and 6 ft. J.B. was 6'2" and 232 lbs. Both those stats would stand up well today as well as their speed. True, the opposition were smaller and slower. You go back as far as the 20s and there is Wilbur 'Pete' Henry, also known as 'Fats'.  He was one oft he NFL's largest and most dominant linemen in the 20s and was 5'11" and 245 lbs.

 

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