George Halas
Halas in 1982
Born	George Stanley Halas Sr. (1895-02-02)February 2, 1895 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	October 31, 1983(1983-10-31) (aged 88) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Spouse	Wilhelmina "Minnie" Bushing ​ ​ (m. 1922; died 1966)​
Children	Virginia Halas McCaskey andGeorge Halas Jr.
Football career
Halas with the Chicago Bears in 1922
No. 7
Position	End
Personal information
Height	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Weight	182 lb (83 kg)
Career information
High school	Crane (Chicago, IL)
College	Illinois (1914–1917) Great Lakes Navy (1918)
Career history
Playing
Hammond All-Stars (1919) Decatur / Chicago Staleys / Bears (1920–1929) Chicago Stayms (1920)
Coaching
Decatur / Chicago Staleys / Bears (1920–1929,1933–1942,1946–1955,1958–1967) Head coach
Operations
Decatur / Chicago Staleys / Bears (1920–1983) Owner Newark Bears / Bombers (1939–1941) Owner Akron Bears (1946) Owner
Awards and highlights
8×NFL champion (1921,1932,1933,1940,1941,1943,1946,1963) 2×AP NFL Coach of the Year (1963, 1965) NFL 1920s All-Decade Team NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team Sporting News 1940s All-Decade Team Second-teamAll-Pro (1920) Chicago Bears No. 7 retired 100 greatest Bears of All-Time Second-team All-Service (1918)
Career statistics
Games played 104 Touchdowns 10 Stats atPro Football Reference
Head coaching record
Regular season	318–148–31 (.671)
Postseason	6–3 (.667)
Career	324–151–31 (.671)
Coaching profile at Pro Football Reference
Executive profile atPro Football Reference
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Baseball player Baseball career
Halas with the New York Yankees in 1918
Right fielder
Batted: Switch Threw: Right
MLB debut
May 6, 1919, for the New York Yankees
Last appearance
July 5, 1919, for the New York Yankees
MLB statistics (through 1919)
Batting average	.091
Home runs	0
Runs batted in	0
Stats atBaseball Reference
Teams
New York Yankees (1919)
Last updated on: February 27, 2025
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1918, 1942–1946
Rank	Captain
Unit	Seventh Fleet
Battles / wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Bronze Star

George Stanley Halas Sr. (February 2, 1895 – October 31, 1983), nicknamed "Papa Bear", was an American professionalfootballend, coach, and executive. He was the founder and owner of theChicago Bears of theNational Football League (NFL), and served as his own head coach on four occasions. He was also lesser-known as a player for theNew York Yankees ofMajor League Baseball (MLB). He is the namesake for theNFC Championship trophy.

Halas was one of the co-founders of the American Professional Football Association (now the NFL) in 1920, and in 1963 became one of the first 17 inductees into thePro Football Hall of Fame. Halas was the oldest person in NFL history to serve as a head coach, aged 72 years and 318 days when he coached the final game of his career in December 1967, a record that stood for over 50 years untilRomeo Crennel became the interim head coach of theHouston Texans in October 2020, aged 73 years and 115 days.

Halas was born inChicago, Illinois, into a family of Czech-Bohemian immigrants.^[1][2][3] His parents, Barbara (Poledna), who ran a grocery store, and Frank Halas, a tailor, were migrants fromPilsen,Austria-Hungary.^[4][5][6] He was the brother ofWalter Halas. George had a varied career in sports. In 1915, Halas worked temporarily forWestern Electric, and was planning on being on theSSEastland. He was running late, however, as he was attempting to gain weight to playBig Ten football and missed the capsizing, which killed 844 passengers.^[7]

On February 18, 1922,^[8] Halas married Wilhelmina "Minnie" Bushing,^[9] to whom he remained married until her death in 1966.^[10]

After graduating fromCrane High School in Chicago, he attended theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, playing football for coachBob Zuppke, as well asbaseball andbasketball, and earning a degree in civil engineering.^[11] He also became a member ofTau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He helped Illinois win the 1918Big Ten Conference football title.

Serving as anensign in theNavy duringWorld War I, he played for a team at theGreat Lakes Naval Training Station,^[11] and was named the MVP of the1919 Rose Bowl. In recognition of his Rose Bowl accomplishments, Halas was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2018.^[12] On a team which includedPaddy Driscoll andJimmy Conzelman, Halas scored a receiving touchdown and returned an intercepted pass 77 yards in a 17–0 win over theMare Island Marines of California; the team was also rewarded with their military discharges.

Afterward, Halas playedminor league baseball, eventually earning a promotion to theNew York Yankees, where he played 12 games as anoutfielder in 1919.^[11] However, a hip injury effectively ended his baseball career. Halas said that he was succeeded as the Yankees'right fielder byBabe Ruth,^[13] but in reality, it wasSammy Vick.^{[citation needed]}

Halas signed his first professional football contract with the independentHammond All-Stars, who would become the Hammond Pros the next season.^[14]

Halas moved toDecatur, Illinois, to take a position with theA. E. Staley Company, a starch manufacturer. He served as a company sales representative, an outfielder on the company-sponsored baseball team, and the player-coach of the company-sponsored football team theDecatur Staleys. Halas selected his alma mater's colors—orange and navy blue—for the team's uniforms.^[15] In 1920, Halas represented the Staleys at the meeting which formed theAmerican Professional Football Association (which became the National Football League in 1922) inCanton, Ohio.^[16] After the Staleys' season ended, Halas and teammatesGeorge Trafton,Hub Shoemake, andHugh Blacklock joined the Chicago Stayms for a December 19 match against theChicago Cardinals, marking the only time Halas would be an NFL team's opponent for another team besides the Staleys/Bears.^[17] The game ended in a 14–14 tie.^[18]

Despite a 10–1–2 record, the Staleys ended the season awash in red ink. The Staleys' financial troubles didn't dissuade Halas from significantly upgrading the roster, to the point that it was aworks team in name only. After the first game of the 1921 season, company founder and namesake Augustus E. Staley turned over control of the team to Halas so he could move the team to Chicago, where the team had attracted its biggest gates of the 1920 season. Staley gave Halas a $5,000 bonus for the move to Chicago provided that he keep the Staleys franchise name for the 1921 season. Halas then took on teammateEdward "Dutch" Sternaman as a partner.^[19][20] The newly minted "Chicago Staleys" set up shop at Cubs Park, soon to be known asWrigley Field; Halas had a good relationship withChicago Cubs ownerWilliam Wrigley Jr. and presidentBill Veeck Sr. The Staleys maneuvered their schedule to wintheir first NFL championship that year.^[21] The following year, Halas renamed his team the "Chicago Bears." Years later, he recalled that he wanted to find a way to choose a name that would give a nod to the Cubs. Reasoning that football players were far bigger than baseball players, he concluded, "if baseball players are cubs, then football players must be bears!"^[22][21]

Halas was not only the team's coach but also played end (wide receiver on offense, defensive end on defense) and handled ticket sales and the business of running the club. Named to the NFL's all-pro team in the 1920s, his playing highlight occurred in a 1923 game when he strippedJim Thorpe of the ball, recovered the fumble, and returned it 98 yards—a league record which would stand until 1972. In 1925, Halas persuaded Illinois star playerRed Grange to join the Bears; it was a significant step in establishing the league's respectability and popularity, which had previously been viewed as a refuge for less admirable players.

After ten seasons, Halas stepped back from the game in 1930, retiring as a player and handing coaching duties toLake Forest Academy coachRalph Jones; but he remained the team's owner, becoming sole owner in 1932. However, severe financial difficulties brought on by theGreat Depression put the Bears in dire financial straits even though Jones led them to the NFL title in 1932.

Halas returned as coach in 1933 to eliminate the additional cost of paying a head coach's salary. He coached the Bears for another ten seasons. His 1934 team was undefeated until a loss in the championship game to theNew York Giants.^[23]

In the late 1930s, Halas—withUniversity of Chicago coachClark Shaughnessy—perfected theT-formation system to create a revolutionary and overwhelming style of play which drove the Bears to an astonishing 73–0 victory over theWashington Redskins in the1940 NFL Championship Game—still the most lopsided margin of victory in NFL history. Every other team in the league immediately began trying to imitate the format. The Bears repeated as NFL champions in 1941 and 1943, and the 1940s would be remembered as the era of the "Monsters of the Midway".

Halas and Shaughnessy had created a revolutionary concept with the T-formation offense. The complex spins, turns, fakes, and all-around athletic versatility required to execute the scheme limited the possible players available. Halas believed he'd found the perfect quarterback for his new offense inSid Luckman, a passing star atColumbia University. Luckman was asingle wing tailback; the tailback is the primary runner and passer in that scheme. Luckman launched his Hall of Fame career playing quarterback for the Bears from 1939 to 1950. Halas was not satisfied with other players who succeeded Luckman under center. During this coaching stint, he had on the Bears roster two future Hall of Fame players,Bobby Layne in 1948 andGeorge Blanda from 1949 to 1958. Other notable players includedHeisman Trophy winnerJohnny Lujack from 1948 to 1951 andZeke Bratkowski from 1954 to 1960. Blanda played in the NFL until 1975; Bratkowski moved on theLos Angeles Rams before signing withVince Lombardi'sGreen Bay Packers in 1963, where he played an important role as "super sub" to starterBart Starr in winning three straight NFL championships in 1965–'66–'67; and Bobby Layne quarterbacked theDetroit Lions to three NFL championship games between 1952 and 1954, winning two.

While Halas was in the Navy, the Bears won another title in 1943 underHunk Anderson andLuke Johnsos. Returning to the field in 1946, he coached the club for a third decade, again winning a title in his first year back as coach.^[24] That same year, Halas met with theArmyChief of Staff,General Dwight Eisenhower, theNavy Chief of Staff,Admiral Chester Nimitz, and theAir ForceChief of Staff,General Carl Spaatz, and offered to set up an annual charity football game, with the Bears as hosts, whose proceeds would go to the relief agencies of the armed forces. By mid-1957, proceeds from this game were $438,350.76^[25] and proceeds from all games the Bears participated in between 1946 and 1957 were over $2 million.^[26]

After a brief break in 1956–57, he returned as head coach for a final decade from 1958 to 1967. Despite winning his sixth and last league title in 1963, he did not enjoy the same success as he had before the war, and he officially retired on May 27, 1968.^[27] He did win his 200th game in 1950 and his 300th game in 1965, becoming the first coach to reach both milestones. His six NFL Championships as a head coach is tied for the most all time with Green Bay'sCurly Lambeau and later, New England'sBill Belichick.^[28] In 40 years as a coach, he endured only six losing seasons, three of which came during his final stint.

In 1939, Halas followedTim Mara's footsteps who purchased theStapleton Buffaloes in 1937 and obtained the rights to a former NFL clubNewark Tornadoes (now in theAmerican Association) fromPiggy Simandl, changed the team's name to Bears and stocked with talent that did not make the Chicago roster.^[29] He used the club to incubate talent and for easy return for injured players, thus making it pro football's first true farm team. Newark's most notable names includedJoe Zeller as coach andGene Ronzani who led them to the1939 championship (with a little help in the playoff fromSid Luckman). Halas folded the team in 1941, after the Japaneseattack on Pearl Harbor ushered in the United States’ participation inWorld War II. It would later be revived for one more season (1946) as the Newark Bombers under Halas ownership (not as a farm team^[30]), but was folded altogether at the end of the season, and was substituted by theBloomfield Cardinals.

In 1946, after he returned from service inWorld War II, Halas also launched theAkron Bears of theAmerican Football League as the Chicago Bears' minor league affiliate.^[31] The launch was an attempt to interfere with the territorial rights of theCleveland Browns, a team in the NFL rivalAll-America Football Conference (AAFC);Akron is located just 30 miles fromCleveland.

The team was coached again by Ronzani and had notable players like quarterbackGeorge Gulyanics,Ed Ecker,Lloyd Reese,Raymond Schumacher andJack Karwales. The Bears were successful on the field—including reaching the league final before losing 14–13 to the Jersey City Giants—but lost at the box office a sum of $52,000, partly because they had large traveling expenses as most of the league team were located on the East Coast. The team did not return for a second season.

A pioneer both on and off the field, Halas made the Bears the first team to hold daily practice sessions, to analyze film of opponents to find weaknesses and means of attack, place assistant coaches in the press box during games, place tarp on the field, publish a club newspaper, and to broadcast games by radio.^[32] He also offered to share the team's substantial television income with teams in smaller cities, firmly believing that what was good for the league would ultimately benefit his own team. A firm disciplinarian, Halas maintained complete control of his team and did not tolerate disobedience and insubordination by players. He also insisted on absolute integrity and honesty in management, believing that a handshake was sufficient to finalize a deal; few, if any, intermediaries were necessary.

Halas's career ledger reads as follows: 63 years as an owner, 40 as a coach, 324 wins, and 8 NFL titles as a coach or owner. His 324 victories as a head coach stood as an NFL record for nearly three decades until 1993 whenDon Shula broke the record with his 325th win. Halas's 324 wins are still far and away the most in Bears history; they are three times that of runner-upMike Ditka.^[32] He was a charter member of thePro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.

In both 1963 and 1965, Halas was selected byThe Sporting News, the AP and the UPI as the NFL Coach of the Year. In 1997, he was featured on aU.S. postage stamp as one of the legendary coaches of football. He has been recognized byESPN as one of the ten most influential people in sports in the 20th century, and as one of the greatest coaches. In 1993,Miami Dolphins coachDon Shula finally surpassed Halas' victory total. From the 1984 season onward to this day, the jerseys of the Chicago Bears bear the initials "GSH" on their upper left sleeves in commemoration of Halas. In 1956, Halas was awarded theNavy Distinguished Public Service Award, which is the Navy's highest civilian award.^[25]

There are two extant awards named for Halas: theGeorge Halas Trophy (awarded by the NFL to the National Football Conference champion) and theGeorge S. Halas Courage Award (Pro Football Writers Association). From 1966 to 1996, aGeorge Halas Trophy was also awarded to the NFL defensive player of the year by theNewspaper Enterprise Association. TheChicago Bears retired number 7 in his honor, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame is located on George Halas Drive.

TheUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign inducted Halas into the Engineering Hall of Fame in 2016.^[33]

The Bears erected a statue and marker dedicated to Halas in 2019 near the south entrance toSoldier Field.^[34]

In 1925, Halas tipped his hand in probasketball when he helped to create the first professional basketball league in the United States – theAmerican Basketball League – as the owner of theChicago Bruins. The team played six seasons before folding following the 1930–31 season because of the Great Depression.^[35]

The Bruins struggled during their existence, failing to reach the playoffs in every season, but featured several notable names, including twoHall of Famers in player-coachHoney Russell andNat Holman who played for half a season in 1926. Other notable players included Bears quarterbackLaurie Walquist,Robert J. Dunne,Slim Shoun andChicago Cardinals backIke Mahoney.^[35]

Halas revived the team for four more seasons, 1939 to 1942, and played in theNational Basketball League (NBL) and in theWorld Professional Basketball Tournament. The Bruins were more successful this time, reaching the World Professional Basketball Tournament finals in 1940, losing to theHarlem Globetrotters 31–29. Notable players wereWibs Kautz,Bill Hapac andRalph Vaughn. In their second incarnation, the team played in theChicago Coliseum.

Halas served as anensign in theUnited States Navy duringWorld War I.

Halas entered the United States Navy again after the advent ofWorld War II in 1942, with the rank oflieutenant commander. He served overseas for 20 months under the command ofAdmiral Chester Nimitz. His duties were supporting the welfare and recreational activities of theSeventh Fleet.^[36] He was awarded theBronze Star during his recall and was released from duty in 1946 with the rank ofcaptain.^[25]

After the 1967 season, Halas—then the oldest coach in league history—retired as coach. He continued as the team's principal owner for the rest of his life. Although he nominally ceded the general manager's post to son and heir apparentGeorge "Mugs" Halas, Jr. in 1963, he continued to make the franchise's football decisions until hiringJim Finks as general manager in 1974. He continued to take an active role in team operations until his death. He was honored in 1970 and 1980 as the only person involved in the league throughout its first 50 and 60 years of existence. One of Halas's final significant ownership acts was to hireMike Ditka as head coach in 1982 (Ditka had been a Bears player in the 1960s). He had won 6 NFL championships before retiring.

In the 1971 made-for-television filmBrian's Song, about the friendship between Chicago Bears playersBrian Piccolo andGale Sayers, Halas was portrayed byJack Warden, who won anEmmy Award for his performance.

Halas died ofpancreatic cancer in Chicago on October 31, 1983, at age 88, and is entombed inSt. Adalbert Catholic Cemetery inNiles, Illinois. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving participant of the meeting that formed the NFL in 1920.

His son, Mugs, had been president and heir apparent of the Bears from 1963 until his sudden death in 1979 at the age of 54. Thus, his eldest daughter,Virginia Halas McCaskey, succeeded her father as principal owner upon his death. Virginia was empowered to vote her children and grandchildren's shares, allowing her to control the team until her own death in 2025. Her sonMichael McCaskey served as team president from 1983 to 1999 at which time the elder McCaskey was forced to fire her own son. In the 1985 season when the Bears won their only Super Bowl (and post-merger NFL championship), they recorded a song called "Super Bowl Shuffle."^[37] In the song, backup quarterbackSteve Fuller rhymes "Bring onAtlanta, Bring onDallas / This is for Mike [then-current coachMike Ditka] and Papa Bear Halas."^[38]

Super Bowl XVIII was dedicated to Halas. The pregame ceremonies featured a moment of silence and the ceremonial coin toss by former Chicago BearBronko Nagurski, the latter of which was previously performed by Halas forSuper Bowl XIII.^[39] Themissing-man formation overTampa Stadium, performed by airplanes fromMacDill Air Force Base inTampa, Florida at the conclusion ofBarry Manilow's performance ofthe National Anthem, was also presented in tribute to Halas.

Assistants under George Halas who became college or professional head coaches:

• George Allen:Los Angeles Rams (1966–1970),Washington Redskins (1971–1977),Chicago Blitz (1983),Arizona Wranglers (1984),Long Beach State (1990)
• Hunk Anderson:Chicago Bears as a co-head coach (1942–1945)
• Jim Dooley:Chicago Bears (1968–1971)
• Paddy Driscoll:Chicago Bears (1956–1957)
• Abe Gibron:Chicago Bears (1972–1974),Chicago Winds (1975)
• Phil Handler*
• Luke Johnsos:Chicago Bears as a co-head coach (1942–1945)
• Gene Ronzani:Green Bay Packers (1950–1953)
• Joe Stydahar*
• Bulldog Turner:New York Titans (1962)
• George Wilson:Detroit Lions (1957–1964),Miami Dolphins (1966–1969)

• List of NFL head coach wins leaders

• Hibner, John Charles (1993). "University of Oregon and University of Pennsylvania (1917)", inThe Rose Bowl, 1902–1929: A Game-by-Game History of Football's Foremost Event, from its Advent through its Golden Era. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers.
• Organized Professional Team Sports: Part 3. (password protected except at participating U.S. library) by United States House Committee on the Judiciary III, Subcommittee on Antitrust (1957). pp. 2713–2716

Wikiquote has quotations related toGeorge Halas.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toGeorge Halas.

• Pro Football Hall of Fame profile
• Coaching record at Pro-Football-Reference.com
• Career statistics fromMLB · ESPN · Baseball Reference · Fangraphs · Baseball Reference (Minors) · Retrosheet · Baseball Almanac
• George Halas at theSABR Baseball Biography Project
• George Halas Bio (Staley Museum)

• 1895 births
• 1983 deaths
• Players of American football from Chicago
• Baseball players from Chicago
• Halas family
• American football ends
• Major League Baseball right fielders
• Player-coaches
• Chicago Bears owners
• Chicago Bears executives
• Chicago Bears head coaches
• Chicago Bears players
• Chicago Bruins
• Chicago Staleys players
• Decatur Staleys players
• Hammond Pros players
• Illinois Fighting Illini baseball players
• Illinois Fighting Illini football players
• Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball players
• Great Lakes Navy Bluejackets football players
• New York Yankees players
• St. Paul Saints (AA) players
• National Basketball League (United States) owners
• NFL founders
• NFL general managers
• NFL team presidents
• NFL players with retired numbers
• Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
• United States Navy officers
• Recipients of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award
• United States Navy personnel of World War I
• United States Navy personnel of World War II
• American people of Czech descent
• American people of Bohemian descent
• Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Illinois
• American men's basketball players
• Crane High School (Chicago) alumni
• 20th-century American sportsmen
• NFL Coach of the Year winners

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use American English from December 2019
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from January 2019
• Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter
• Pages using infobox military person with embed
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox person with deprecated parameters
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from May 2023
• Commons category link from Wikidata