Vintage Chicago Tribune: The Bears of summer — revisiting memorable moments from past training camps

Training camp for the Chicago Bears began this week — which means summer is over, Chicago.

Well, for my family, anyway.

This is the 10th season my husband, Patrick Finley, has covered the Bears for the Chicago Sun-Times and his ninth training camp. If you are familiar with local sportswriters, he’s the one who creates chicken-scratch drawings representing key moments when photos aren’t allowed to be taken by the media during practice.

His first training camp experience in 2013 (or, three head coaches ago) was similar to that of the players — days began early and continued under an unforgiving sun followed by uncomfortable nights trying to sleep on an extra-long twin bed in a dormitory room at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais. While photographers captured players lugging toilet paper, giant televisions and even massage chairs into their temporary quarters, Pat brought a newly purchased mini-fridge for his space — just like his freshman year at the University of Missouri.

Through the decades, the venue for Bears training camp has changed with the times, even taking the team to Indiana and Wisconsin.

This is the second season the Bears have stayed home to practice at their recently expanded and remodeled headquarters in Lake Forest. Instead of dorm rooms, players live at home or in hotel rooms near Halas Hall. While our son and I enjoy that Pat now comes home each night during camp, I think Pat misses the camaraderie that only happens when reporters — tired from a day capturing, editing and sending along their takes on all things notable — are away from their families for days or weeks, but are looking for someone to grab dinner or a beer with.

Those bonds forged during training camp continue throughout the season when the team’s game and practice schedule takes precedence over birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. That’s why it’s bittersweet to begin another cycle without two members of this hodge-podge fraternity — Jeff Dickerson and John “Moon” Mullin.

Still, training camp also combines the excitement and possibility of what could happen for the Bears this NFL season. And that’s why I wanted to highlight some of that electricity, humor and optimism found in moments from camps decades ago and more recent.

I hope these recollections from the Tribune’s archives rekindle the joy that comes with new beginnings and fresh starts — even if you’re not a Bears fan or reporter.

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Thanks for reading. See you next week! Bear down!

— Kori Rumore, visual reporter

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Relive highlights of training camps from 1940 onward. See more photos here.

“It is 9:30. Truth time. The flashy car, newspaper clippings, praise from a college coach — all are no help now. Practice is a time for sweating intelligently, for the head to know what to do and the body to be able to do it. It is a time when jobs are won and lost,” longtime Tribune reporter Charles Leroux wrote about the first day of Bears training camp at Lake Forest College in 1975. Read more here.

Payton paid $400 an hour for the hour and 20-minute ride to Platteville, Wis., and he had to buy the round trip.

‘’It was the only way I could get up here fast enough without getting a ticket,’’ he said.

Payton had been “involved in litigation in Chicago with his restaurants,” the Tribune reported, causing him to miss the first two days of camp. Read more here.

“I just kept trimming and trimming and it kept getting worse and worse,” he said. Read more here.

The Bears broke camp to play in the inaugural American Bowl at London’s Wembley Stadium against the Dallas Cowboys. Though the game didn’t generate many headlines in the local papers, the Bears’ defensive tackle sure did.

“Reporters had considered and analyzed everything from his dietary habits to his love life,” the Tribune reported. Read more here.

A year earlier, the Bears quarterback arrived in Bourbonnais driving a Cadillac Escalade. Read more here.

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The Vintage Tribune newsletter is a deep dive into the Chicago Tribune’s archives featuring photos and stories about the people, places and events that shape the city’s past, present and future.

From TVs to toilet paper to a guitar. See more photos here.

“Cupping seems to have increased in popularity since American swimmer Michael Phelps’s body was all dotted up at the Summer Olympics in Brazil in 2016. Since about that time, the Bears have been using it too,” the Tribune reported in 2017. Read more here.

In the 1980s, Jay Hilgenberg and Tom Thayer made the 180-mile trek from Chicago to Platteville on motorcycles.

Running back Tarik Cohen drove 90 miles from Vernon Hills to Bourbonnais in 2019 in his own custom three-wheeled version known as a Slingshot.

“I only do the speed limit,” he insisted. Read more here.

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Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com.