As Steve Sabol, late cofounder of NFL Movies, places it on this hour of NFL Icons, “Now we have a library of 100 million toes of soccer movie relationship again to 1894. Probably the most thrilling footage in that library is Gale Sayers within the open area.” Watching these runs on this episode, you’ll marvel how Sayers ever bought tackled.
The person lived as much as his early-career nickname of “The Kansas Comet,” says Wealthy Eisen, who narrates the collection. “He had such a spectacular, albeit all-too-brief profession,” Eisen factors out, defending the legendary operating again’s induction into the NFL Corridor of Fame (he’s the youngest participant ever voted in) regardless that he performed solely 68 video games from 1965-71 earlier than accidents ended his profession. “All these a long time later, his greatness is unquestioned.”
However the nice legacy lesson of Gale Sayers — who died in 2020 — stays his life’s affect. Particularly, his racial boundaries-breaking bond together with his Chicago Bears teammate Brian Piccolo, a tragic story instructed within the 1971 TV film Brian’s Track. The 2 runners have been roommates throughout an period when such an integration was unprecedented. When Sayers endured the primary of his career-threatening knee accidents, Piccolo was instrumental in retaining his teammate on a grueling, profitable rehab schedule. And Sayers was at his pal’s aspect throughout his battle with most cancers that claimed him at age 26. Their friendship, Eisen says, stays “the usual bearer of teammates who’re there for one another by way of thick and skinny in life — and loss of life.”
As Chicago Bears founder, proprietor and coach George Halas mentioned throughout Sayers’ Corridor induction ceremony, “He captured my coronary heart. … His like won’t ever be seen once more.”
NFL Icons: Gale Sayers, Friday, February 7, 10/9c, MGM+