The Bears had the third, fourth and sixth picks in the FIRST ROUND of the 1965 draft. Their first round picks were Butkus, Sayers and Steve DeLong. DeLong signed with an AFL team instead and had a distinguished seven year career that actually ended with him as a Bear. The Bears also drafted Dick Gordon that same year late in the draft and he would have been a nice NFL receiver if only they could have developed a quarterback.

Butkus and Nitschke are both from the Chicago area, Butkus from the city and Nitschke from my hometown, Elmwood Park. Both played college ball at Illinois just a few years apart. And they are, arguably, two of the BEST linebackers in the history of the game.

Butkus wore number 50 in college. Number 51 was assigned to Bruce Capel, the starting center and Butkus's roommate when they travelled to away games. You'll find a photograph in google images (from the Univ of Illinois archives) of Butkus and Capel side-by-side in uniform, two young men entering the prime of their lives. Butkus was a first-round draft pick of the Bears in 1965. Capel, attending Illinois on a ROTC scholarship and playing football as a walk-on, enlisted in the Marines following his graduation in 1965. He was killed in action in Vietnam in May 1966 almost exactly one year to the day from his graduation. Butkus has a college football award named after him. Capel's name lives on at Illinois in an award given annually to a player who best exemplifies courage, dedication and accomplishment during the season.

There are 57,000+ names on The Wall, the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. I consider myself very fortunate that I do not know anyone personally on The Wall. But I like to believe every name has a story as compelling to someone as Capel's story was to me.

Tony B.