Once Immortal

I grew up watching Gayle Sayers and Dick Butkus; the one tried to escape what the other sought to mete out.  Sayers at his prime vs. Butkus at his prime—who’d be considered the prey in an open field?

Sayers played five full seasons, 1965-69, and parts of two others.  In his first four, he basically couldn’t be tackled; pursuit was futile.  Either desperation bred extraordinary grace, or grace was Gayle Sayers by any other name.  Pro football should kneel before as gifted an athlete as this.

And the NFL should pay every last cent the soon-to-be 74-year old will require for care now that his diagnosis of dementia has gone public.  No, on second thought, the Bears should pay it.  Without Sayers and Butkus, there isn’t that much of a legacy for this “storied” franchise to draw on.  Let’s see how the McCaskeys respond to this crisis in their “family.”

I try not to see the past in sepia tones, but that’s impossible for me with Sayers.  He filled my Sunday afternoons with demonstrations of godlike talent.  Mercury isn’t supposed to get dementia because he’s too fast to be caught, but time and the occasional tackle conspired against the Kansas Comet.  Life should not be this unfair.

I happened onto Sayers once at a mall, where he was doing a book signing.  How to say this?  He didn’t look like an ex-football player.  At six feet tall and not even 200 pounds, he was hardly immense, but more like an old golfer or baseball player who’d stayed in shape; that so much came from someone so relatively compact still amazes me.  There was also an intense expression on his face, which led me to think he didn’t suffer fools gladly.  Since foolishness can befall me from time to time, I thought it best to keep my distance.

That was a mistake, but what’s happened to Gayle Sayers is more than that.  Gods are not meant to turn mortal.