RIP Gale Sayers

[2muchcoffeeman]

Just now breaking.

 

[maumann]

RIP. He was like improvisational jazz in an era of big band. Barry Sanders long before Barry Sanders. Hope Brian Piccolo was there to greet him.

 

[DanOregon]

People need to stop asking if 2020 can get worse. One of the great thrills of my time as a sportswriter was running out to meet Sayers who was at a book event to get a quote about an NCAA story that broke (he used to be an Assitant AD at Kansas and an AD at two other stops). Brian's Song, his running, his too short career. He was a phenom. The legendary Sayers.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

Goddammit.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I love Gale Sayers. I’d like all of you to love him, too. And tonight when you hit your knees, ask god to love him, too.

RIP

 

[Songbird]

Wish I could have seen him play.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

I remember reading his autobiography I am Third when I was a kid. RIP.

 

[garrow]

I remember reading his autobiography I am Third when I was a kid. RIP.

That is how I first learned about him. My sister did a book report on him when we were in elementary school.

 

[User 150927]

RIP.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

Gale Sayers is not trending on Twitter. But Gayle Sayers is.

SMDH.

 

[DanOregon]

I watched every Sanders game I could because I was convinced the Silverdome turf would be unkind to his tendons.

 

[heyabbott]

I remember reading his autobiography I am Third when I was a kid. RIP.

That was the first sports biography I ever read.

I’m old enough to have watched Brian’s Song when it first aired and young enough to not know how it turned out in advance. Cried like a baby.

RIP

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Before my time, but I became aware of him when I got one of those books that profiled multiple NFL stars. If fantasy football had been around in the 60s, he would have been a legend for the 6 TD game against the Niners.

Didn't see Brian's Song until a few years ago, and I knew how it would end when I read "A Short Season" by Jeannie Morris about Piccolo. The part that always gets me is the end, when his wife is reminded that she can't cry because it's a league rule.

RIP to a Hall of Famer whose career was cut way too short.

 

[heyabbott]

And for those who don’t know, Brian’s Song was not a theatrical movie. It was a Made for TV ‘Movie of the Week’. Networks made these one-off shows regularly and aired one or two every week during the TV season which ran September to May. Billy D Williams and James Caan were just a working actors with some good roles but weren't movie stars. Billy D was a TV actor and wouldn’t hit it in the movies until after Brian’s Song. This movie was a perfect storm of a great story with great actors at the right time to become a classic.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I don't know how old I was the first time I saw Brian's Song. Probably 5 or 6 years old. I have watched it dozens of times since then.

I still get all misty during several scenes, but where I get really choked up is when he is receiving the George S. Hallas Courage Award and he gives the speech. The acting isn't really that great. It has the production values of a 1970s made-for-TV movie. But it's still perfect.

 

[Alma]

One of the greats. He had equals, over the years, in the punt/kick return categories - Dante Hall, Devin Hester - but those guys weren't remotely his equal as a running back. And of course there have been dynamic running backs who weren't his equal as a returner. At his best, there haven't been many better, ever.

 

[maumann]

"Brian's Song" and "Something For Joey" are two of the best made-for-TV sports biopics. Chuck Norris makes somebody else cry for him for either one of those speeches.

 

[Starman]

He was different than Sanders; Sanders was a jitterbug, with short choppy steps.
Sayers flowed to the open space, then he was gone like the wind.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Not apropos of anything, but Something For Joey introduced a young Steve Guttenberg to the world.

 

[Starman]

Lions fans of course are well used to seeing great players' careers piddle down the drain, but it had to be murder for Bears fans to have two all-time titanic HOFers like Sayers and Butkus arrive almost simultaneously, then both have their careers cut short by pretty much the same injury.