Autographs

I have been very fortunate to meet and greet a few of my Chicago Bear idols in person. It started around the Super Bowl time, ...(Actually, before I was a Bear Collector, I did meet Jack Concannon and some of the players from his time at a celebrity basketball game in the late 60's early 70's)...Around 1986... Ditka was in town doing a "motivational" type speech, and I was able to meet him. I had the same opportunity with Walter Payton and Mike Singletary. Each time I attended a speech, however, I never had anything decent to get an autograph on...It was always a wrinkled up dinner program or some scrap of paper...That's when I switched to 3X5 blank notecards, because they are quite effective, and easy to carry and protect.

Don't get me wrong. I have some sweet 8x10 photos autographed by Butkus, Sayers and Ditka as well. Actually, Ditka came back to my town in 1995 just for autograph signing, and I got him to sign the infamous "flipping the bird" photo. He wrote "You're #1" on it, which was pretty funny.

The last ten years, or so, I have been getting my notecards signed at Training Camp or The Fan Convention. If I get a few per year, I am happy. I keep them stored in a nice flip photo album that has a Chicago Bear pewter front.

Besides Butkus, Sayers and Ditka....just from flipping through my book, I have:

Dennis McKinnon, Emery Morehead,Tom Waddle,Erik Kramer, Jim Covert, Rick Casares, Matt Suhey, Mike Tomzcak, Chris zorich, Jim McMahon, Neal Anderson, Bob Avellini, Ron Rivera, Dennis Gentry, Shaun Gayle....Those are the more known ones...I have dozens more.

The fun is just remembering the when and where you met each player when you got his autograph. I am not an autograph hound like you see many places. If I get one, I get one. It's difficult as a 48 year old male to get the players to sign. They think you just want to sell their graph, I think.

One year I took my 20 year old daughter and her friend on a hot day to Bourbonaisse...They were attired in halter tops...LOL...They were able to get me a dozen signatures.

Hey, a Man's gotta do, what a Man's gotta do...it was a tad bit exploitive, but they had fun too.

The program pictured is from Bears' Training Camp, the last year it was in Platteville, Wisconsin...It is LOADED with top notch signatures of the majority of the team and coaching staff, including Urlacher.