Chuck Bednarik

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Chuck Bednarik

Date of birth	May 1, 1925 (age 81)
Place of birth	Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Position(s)	Linebacker, Center
College	Pennsylvania
NFL Draft	1949 / Round 1/ Pick 1
Career Highlights
Pro Bowls	1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1960
Awards	1948 Maxwell Award 1953 Pro Bowl MVP
Honors	NFL 1950s All-Decade Team Eagles Honor Roll
Retired #s	Philadelphia Eagles #60
Stats
Statistics	Pro Football Reference CBS.com DatabaseFootball
Team(s)
1949-1962	Philadelphia Eagles
College Hall of Fame
Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1967

Charles Philip Bednarik (born May 1, 1925 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) is a former professional football player, known as one of the most devastating tacklers in the history of football and the last two-way player (excluding Deion Sanders who played offense and defense for the Dallas Cowboys in 1996, he filled in for the suspended Michael Irvin) in the National Football League. He is perhaps best remembered for inflicting a crushing tackle on the New York Giants' Frank Gifford, then a star running back, that shortened Gifford's football career.

He played for the Philadelphia Eagles from the late 1940s to the early 1960s and, upon retirement, was immediately voted entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967 (his year of Hall of Fame eligibility).

Bednarik currently resides in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, in the state's Lehigh Valley region.

1 Early life and military service
2 Football career
3 Opinions on current NFL players
- 3.1 Relationship with the Eagles
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Early life and military service

Bednarik began playing football in his hometown of Bethlehem. As a player for Bethlehem's Liberty High School, Bednarik competed in what eventually became the Lehigh Valley Conference, known as one of the better high school football leagues in the nation.

Following his graduation from Liberty 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 30 combat missions over Germany and was highly decorated for his honor in battle.

Bednarik subsequently attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he was an All-American. At the University of Pennsylvania, he also was third in Heisman Trophy voting in 1948 and won the Maxwell Award that year.

[edit] Football career

Bednarik was the first player drafted in the 1949 National Football League draft, chosen by the Philadelphia Eagles. With the Eagles, he starred 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.

A tough and highly effective tackler, Bednarik is perhaps best known for putting 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, then a player for the Cleveland Browns (before his NFL coaching career) who once smashed him in the face during a 4th down punting play. Bednarik's helmet flew off and, according to Bednarik, he saw "little black spots and the yellow thing". The feud grew over time.^{[citation needed]}

Bednarik proved extremely durable. In 14 seasons, he missed just three games. 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 conventional wisdom) because of his ferocious reputation as a 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 most of his career with the Eagles, the highest-ranking offensive center and the eighth-ranked linebacker in all of professional football.

[edit] Opinions on current NFL players

He has been an outspoken, even bitter critic of today's NFL players for playing on only one side of the ball, calling them "pantywaists", noting that they "suck air after five plays" and that they "couldn't tackle my wife Emma". He even criticised Troy Brown of the New England Patriots and Deion Sanders, 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.

[edit] 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 Eagles 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 was a rookie with the 1949 team), held in pregame ceremonies at Veterans Stadium.

Bednarik has 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 complainer about 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, an Eagle fan favorite, leading to a somewhat lukewarm reception of the reconciliation by Eagles' fans. However, in the August 4th edition of Allentown's Morning Call newspaper, it was reported that Bednarik apologized. He stated he had been confused and meant to make the statement about controversial former Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens.