Q-C resident honoring her Papa Bear
- Font Size:
- Default font size
- Larger font size
By Craig DeVrieze | Thursday, February 01, 2007 |
(Jeff Cook/QUAD_CITY TIMES) Judy Miller of Bettendorf holds a picture of her father, who played one season for the Chicago Bears. She and her brother will be among the Bears fans cheering for their team in Miami on Sunday.
MIAMI — You probably never have heard of Judy Miller’s favorite Chicago Bear.
Lou Gordon played two-way tackle for the Monsters of the Midway in 1938, the last season in an eight-year career that also saw him play for the Chicago Cardinals, the Brooklyn Dodgers and Green Bay Packers.
Gordon later settled down in Chicago, befriended Bears founder George Halas, became a college football referee and a successful businessman and fathered two children.
The children — Miller and her brother, Jim Gordon — will get together at Super Bowl XLI in Miami this weekend to celebrate their father’s Bears’ roots.
Miller moved to Bettendorf with her late husband in 1964 and is human resource director for the Bettendorf school district. She conceded she has not followed the Bears closely during their run to Sunday’s big game at Dolphin Stadium.
Her brother has, though. He inherited his father’s 18 season tickets when Lou Gordon died in 1976, and he won a pair of Super Bowl tickets in a lottery among Bears season-ticket holders last week.
When he found out he had two tickets, the Los Angeles-area junior high school assistant principal immediately knew who would accompany him.
“Being able to share this with my sister means a lot,’’ Gordon said. “We are very close, and the Bears are in our blood.’’
Since he moved away from Chicago in 1983, Miller said she sees her brother only once a year.
“I can’t think of a better way to spend some time together than at a Bears Super Bowl,’’ she said. “When he called and asked if I would like to go with him, I said I surely would. I had been hoping that would happen.’’
For Jim Gordon, Sunday’s game will be the first Bears contest he has seen in person this year.
His father accumulated the multitude of season tickets through his connection to Halas and other Bears over the years, Gordon said, and letting them go is not an option. Most games, Gordon said, a friend will sell the tickets to Gordon’s acquaintances, always at cost.
He has flown back to Chicago to see a few games since moving out of town, but there is a happy precedent to making a Super Bowl his first game of the year. Gordon saw the 1985 Bears live for the first time at Super Bowl XX in New Orleans, where the Chicagoans won handily.
“Hopefully, it will be the same thing,’’ he said of Sunday’s game vs. the Indianapolis Colts at Dolphin Stadium.
Although Lou Gordon also rooted for the Packers, with whom he won an NFL Championship in 1936, he rooted for his friend Halas’ Bears when the two bitter rivals met, and he raised his children to be Bears fans.
“His first love was always the Bears,’’ said Jim Gordon, 58. “My father always would take me to the alumni games and introduce me to these legendary players.’’
Lou Gordon played against Bears legends Bronco Nagurski and Red Grange and followed the latter to the University of Illinois, where he was an Illini All-American in 1929.
Standing 6-foot-4 and weighing 240 pounds, Lou Gordon then was the equal of a 350-pound lineman today. He was a four-time all-league selection as a pro and captained the Cardinals for three seasons.
Because the old leather helmets gave him headaches, Jim Gordon said, his father often played without a helmet. His career was ended by a badly broken leg in his only Bears campaign.
He was inducted into the Chicago Jewish Sports Hall of Fame before he died.
Jim Gordon inherited some of his father’s athletic skill. He played one year of football and four seasons of baseball at Syracuse University.
He said his sister, who is eight years his senior, was a constant supporter at his athletic events while he was growing up.
“We have always been close,’’ he said.
Jim Gordon flew to Miami this morning on the red-eye from L.A. His sister will join him Friday
“Being able to go with her and share this event and the whole weekend is special,’’ he said. “I will remember the time I spend with her as much as the game.’’
Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or
cdevrieze@qctimes.com.
del.icio.us
Digg
NewsVine
Fark
redditMore Stories By Craig DeVrieze
» More Local Stories
Highest Rated Articles from the last 7 Days
- Technology News Articles
- Millions of Products on Sale. Read User Reviews & Store Ratings.
- www.NexTag.com
- 2008 Diet Of The Year:
- Finally, A Diet That Really Works! Seen On CNN, NBC, CBS & Fox News.
- www.Wu-YiSource.com
- Cheap Airfare
- Compare multiple travel sites. Discount web fares made easy.
- www.LowFares.com
- Ads by Yahoo!
