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Chuck Bednarik
Chuck Bednarik |
| No. 60 |
Linebacker
Center |
|
Personal information |
| Date of
birth: May 1, 1925 (1925-05-01) (age 84) |
| Place of birth: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania |
|
Height: 6 ft 3 in
(1.91 m) |
Weight: 233 lb (106 kg) |
| Career information |
| College:
Pennsylvania |
| NFL
Draft: 1949 / Round: 1
/ Pick: 1 |
| Debuted in 1949 for the
Philadelphia Eagles |
| Last played in 1962 for
the Philadelphia Eagles |
|
|
| Career history |
As player:
|
| Career highlights and awards |
- 8× Pro Bowl selection
(1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1960)
- 10× All-Pro selection
(1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961)
- NFL
75th Anniversary All-Time Team
- NFL 1950s
All-Decade Team
- 1953 Pro Bowl MVP
- 1948 Maxwell
Award
- Philadelphia Eagles Honor Roll
- Philadelphia Eagles #60
Retired
|
| Stats at NFL.com |
| Pro Football Hall of
Fame |
| College Football Hall of
Fame |
Charles Philip Bednarik (born May 1, 1925 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) is a
former professional American football player, known as
one of the most devastating tacklers in the history of football and
the last two-way player in the National Football League. A Slovak - American from the Lehigh Valley
region of Pennsylvania, he is perhaps best
remembered for a tackle on the New York Giants' Frank Gifford, then
a star running back, that knocked Gifford out of professional
football for a year and a half, and shortened Gifford's playing
career.
He played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1949
through 1962 and, upon retirement, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in
1967 (his first year of eligibility).
Bednarik currently resides in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania in
the Lehigh Valley. His great-nephew, Adam Bednarik, was a
third-string quarterback at West Virginia University.
Early life,
military service and college career
His parents emigrated from Široké, a village in eastern Slovakia, in 1920 for work, settling in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and
working for Bethlehem Steel. Their son Charles was
born in 1925. He was attending school at SS. Cyril & Methodius
in Bethlehem, which was a Slovak parochial school with Slovak the language
of instruction.
Bednarik began playing football in Bethlehem. He played for
Bethlehem's Liberty High
School.
Following his graduation from high school, he entered the United States Army Air
Forces and served as a B-24 waist-gunner with the Eighth Air
Force. He flew on thirty combat missions over Germany and was highly
decorated. After the final mission, he thanked God for surviving and said he was never going to
fly again, though he flew many times afterwards.
Bednarik subsequently attended the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia,
where he was a 60-minute man, excelling as both center and
linebacker, as well as occasional punter. He was a three-time All-American, and was
elected a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, as were two
of his teammates on the 1947 squad—tackle George Savitsky and
tailback Tony
Minisi-- and his coach, George Munger. At Penn, he also was
third in Heisman
Trophy voting in 1948 and won the Maxwell Award that year.
Bednarik was the first player drafted in the 1949 NFL Draft,
by the Philadelphia Eagles, starring on
both offense (as a center) and defense (as a linebacker). He was a member of the Eagles'
NFL Championship teams in 1949 and 1960. In the 1960
championship game, Bednarik tackled Jim Taylor on the final play of
the game at the Eagles' eight yard line (the last Eagle between
Taylor and the end zone), and remained atop Taylor for several
seconds as the final seconds ticked off the clock, ensuring the
Packers could not run another play. The Eagles won that game
17-13.
A tough and highly effective tackler, Bednarik is perhaps best
known for knocking Frank Gifford of the New York Giants out
of football for over eighteen months, with one of the most famous
tackles in NFL history in 1960. Bednarik had a famous quarrel with
Chuck Noll, who once,
as a player for the Cleveland Browns, smashed him in the
face during a fourth-down punting play.
Bednarik proved extremely durable, missing just three games in
his fourteen seasons. He was named All-Pro eight times, and was the
last of the NFL's "Sixty-Minute Men," players who played both
offense and defense on a regular basis.
Bednarik's nickname, "Concrete Charlie," originated from his
off-season career as a concrete salesman for the Warner Company,
not (contrary to popular belief) from his reputation as a ferocious
tackler. Nonetheless, sportswriter Hugh Brown of The
Bulletin in Philadelphia, credited with bestowing the
nickname, remarked that Bednarik "is as hard as the concrete he
sells."
In 1999, he was ranked number 54 on The Sporting News' list of the 100
Greatest Football Players. This made him the highest-ranking player
to have spent his entire career with the Eagles, the
highest-ranking offensive center and the eighth-ranked linebacker
in all of professional football.
Opinions on current NFL
players
Bednarik has been an outspoken, even bitter critic of today's
NFL players for playing on only one side of the ball, calling them
"pussyfoots", noting that they "suck air after five plays" and that
they "couldn't tackle my wife Emma". He even criticized Troy Brown of the New
England Patriots and Deion Sanders of the Dallas Cowboys,
two players who also have played both offense and defense, because
their positions as a wide receiver and cornerback didn't require as
much contact as the center and linebacker positions that Bednarik
played.
Relationship with the
Eagles
Bednarik's former Eagles number, 60, has been retired by the
Eagles in honor of his achievements with the team and is one of
only seven numbers retired in the history of the franchise.
When the Eagles established their Honor Roll in 1987, Bednarik
was one of the first class of inductees. He attended reunions for
the 25th anniversary of the 1960 NFL Championship team in 1985 and
the 40th anniversary of the 1948-49 NFL Championship team in 1988
(though he had not played for the 1948 team), held in pregame
ceremonies at Veterans Stadium.
Bednarik feuded with current Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie in
1996 because he refused to buy 100 copies of Bednarik's new book
for $15 each for the entire team, as that was against NFL rules,
and that grudge carried over into the Eagles' most recent Super
Bowl appearance in 2005, when he openly rooted against his former
team. He has been a consistent critic of several league issues,
including his pension, today's salaries, and one-way players.
During Eagles training camp in the summer of 2006, Bednarik and
the Eagles reconciled, seemingly ending the feud between Bednarik
and Lurie. However, at the same time, Bednarik made disparaging
remarks regarding Reggie White[1], an
Eagle fan favorite, leading to a somewhat lukewarm reception of the
reconciliation by Eagles' fans. However, in the August 4 edition of
Allentown's Morning
Call newspaper, it was reported that Bednarik apologized,
stating he had been confused, and meant to make the statement about
former Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens[2].
See also
- Chuck Bednarik Award (awarded
annually in Bednarik's honor to the Best Collegiate Defensive
Player.)
External
links
Notes
| Philadelphia Eagles |
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1933 • Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
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