Results tagged “walterpayton”

     

It's hard to believe more than 20 years have gone by since Sweetness last played for the Bears, and that a decade has passed since Walter Payton's untimely death due to a rare liver disease at age 45. On the ten year anniversary of his passing, the Bears held a halftime tribute to Sweetness at Soldier Field on Sunday afternoon. With his widow Connie, children Jarrett and Brittney and his mother Alyne in attendance the team showed a video tribute to Payton of his highlights on the field and his legacy off the field, as one of the greatest players to wear a Bears uniform and one of the greatest men to play in the NFL. The team also honored Payton by emblazoning both 34 yard-lines with Payton's #34 jersey number.

   

There are no box scores to link to today as none of Chicago's teams were in action last night. However, there's plenty of sports news to go around.

The family of Walter Payton wants to put up a statue honoring the Bears legend, but they've been met with resistance from the Chicago Park District. It seems the Park District is a-okay with a statue of Payton going up - it is, after all, being donated by the Payton family - but has adopted a hard line of not allowing the statue to go up in the one place it makes sense: Soldier Field.

George Turner was held in lieu of $275,000 bond yesterday after being charged with the sexual assault of one teenage girl and the sexual abuse of another. Turner was until Feb 29 the boys varsity basketball coach at Walter Payton College Prep.

Just days after Bears management redeemed themselves by locking up Lovie Smith for the next five years, they once again have us scratching our heads. They traded Thomas Jones, the team's starting running back, to the New York Jets along with their late second-round pick for an early second-round draft pick. Are we missing something? Jones ran for over 1,200 yards in 2006, carrying the ball 296 times and averaging 4.1 yards a carry. He...

Chicagoist admits that the game wasn't even over yet when we began searching StubHub and trolling Craigslist, hoping to find Super Bowl tickets that wouldn't require selling a kidney or moving back in with Mom & Dad -- especially since Mom replaced the shrine to MJ, Walter Payton and Frank Thomas with a proper guest room. At $3000+, sadly it looks like Chicagoist will be watching the game in front of the TV, just like the rest of you.

Last week in Seattle, brewmasters from around the world gathered together to have their frothy malts, potent elixirs, and hop-laden potions judged in the 2006 World Beer Cup. We found while reviewing the winners list that:

There's a lot going on in the world of sports, and we're busy working on our baseball season preview, so we'll just give you the quick shots:

What's even worse than stealing? When you don't steal from the dead. Or stealing from a local legend. And yet, somebody recently stole a replica of Walter Payton's Super Bowl XX championship ring from his eponymous museum in suburban Aurora recently. Not even the real thing, the ring was still valued at $3,500.00.

Chicagoist has been pretty clear that were we stand on the Cedric Benson holdout. His holdout has now reached 32 days, he's missed 3 preseason games and he hasn't even spoken to the Bears in 11 days. Late this afternoon, news broke that Benson had come to Chicago and met with Bears GM Jerry Angelo. Talks ended with no progress, however. The fact that Benson has put his new Lake Forest home on the market...

Chicagoist's best friend in New York used to room with Alex Michael from the first season of The Bachelor. Aside from being really arrogant and self-centered, Alex spent every waking moment riding out his 15 minutes of reality TV fame. Calling girls on their birthday, making special appearances, etc. And since we like never hear of Bill Rancic actually working on the Trump Tower, but always hear about him doing promos and charity events, we're guessing that's what his deal is too.

The Bears got the stuffing beat out of them once again, this time 21-7 by the lowly Dallas Cowboys. The offense played as imeptly as they have most of the season, again getting outscored by the Bears defense as the only Bears points came on a 45-yard R.W. McQuarters interception return for a TD.