Foot Fraternity Dirk
Richard Marvin Butkus (born December 9, 1942) is an American former professional football player, sports commentator, and actor. He played football as a middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) from 1965 to 1973. He was invited to eight Pro Bowls, named a first-team All-Pro six times, and was twice recognized by his peers as the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year. He was renowned as a fierce tackler and for the relentless effort with which he played and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most intimidating linebackers in pro football history.
foot fraternity dirk
Butkus was born in Chicago, Illinois and played his entire football career in his home state, which began at Chicago Vocational High School. He was a linebacker and a center at the University of Illinois. He was a two-time consensus All-American, and he led the Illini to a Rose Bowl victory in 1963 and was deemed the most valuable player in the Big Ten Conference. He was named college football's Lineman of the Year in 1964 by United Press International (UPI). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983.
Richard Marvin Butkus was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of eight children, but the first to be born in a hospital. He was a very large baby, weighing 13 pounds 6 ounces (6.1 kg) at birth.[3] His father John, a Lithuanian immigrant to Ellis Island who spoke broken English, was an electrician and worked for the Pullman-Standard railroad car manufacturing company. His mother, Emma, worked 50 hours a week at a laundry.[4] Butkus grew up in the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. He was a fan of the NFL's Chicago Cardinals and attended their games at Comiskey Park. His older brother Ron played football for three colleges and tried out for the Cardinals before quitting due to a bad knee.[5] For four years starting at age 15, Butkus worked with his four brothers as a mover.[6]
Butkus played high school football as a fullback, linebacker, punter, and placekicker for coach Bernie O'Brien at Chicago Vocational High School. He averaged five yards per carry as a fullback, but preferred playing linebacker, where he made 70 percent of his team's tackles.[4] In Butkus' first year on the varsity team, Chicago Vocational surrendered only 55 points in eight games.[5] In 1959, he was the first junior to be honored by the Chicago Sun-Times as Chicago's high school player of the year.[5] Injuries limited his play as a senior, but he was still heavily recruited by colleges to play football.[3]
As a senior in 1964, Butkus was named the team's co-captain along with safety George Donnelly.[12] UPI deemed Butkus college football's Lineman of the Year for 1964,[13] and he was named the player of the year by the American Football Coaches Association and The Sporting News.[14] For the second consecutive season he was deemed the Illini's most valuable player. He was chosen for the 1964 All-America team by five of the six major selectors. In a cover story for Sports Illustrated that season, sportswriter Dan Jenkins remarked, "If every college football team had a linebacker like Dick Butkus of Illinois, all fullbacks soon would be three feet tall and sing soprano."[15] Butkus also finished sixth in Heisman Trophy balloting in 1963 and third in 1964, rare results both for a lineman and a defensive player.[16] According to statistics kept by the university, he completed his college career with 374 tackles: 97 in 1962, 145 in 1963, and 132 in 1964.[17]
Early in the first quarter against the Oilers in 1973, Butkus pounced on a fumble in the end zone for the only touchdown of his career. Houston tight end Mack Alston accused Butkus of intimidating the officials, saying he "grabbed the ball and started yelling 'touchdown, touchdown,'" after which "the officials looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and called it a touchdown."[43] His season was cut short after nine games by a lingering right knee injury, which he had been playing through for years, but was further aggravated after it gave out in Week 5 against the Atlanta Falcons.[44] Prior to the 1974 season an orthopedic surgeon told him, "I don't know how a man in your shape can play football or why you would even want to."[45] The injury ultimately forced him to retire in May 1974 at age 31.[46]
Butkus became most noted for his tackling ability, and the ferocity with which he tackled opponents. He was named the most feared tackler of all time by the NFL Network in 2009.[62] Once during practice, he hit a metal football sled so hard that he crumpled it and left a piece of it dangling off.[53] "Tackling wasn't good enough," recalled former Bears defensive end Ed O'Bradovich. "Just to hit people wasn't good enough. He loved to crush people."[60] Butkus is credited with 1,020 tackles in his NFL career.[16][63][64]
After his university years, Butkus continued to receive recognition for his college career. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983.[69] His No. 50 jersey is one of only two retired by the Illinois Fighting Illini football program, the other being the No. 77 of Red Grange,[70] and he was an inaugural inductee into the Illinois Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016.[71] Butkus was named to the Walter Camp Football Foundation's All-Century Team in 1999, compiled to honor the best college players of the 20th century.[72] In November 2017, Illinois announced it would erect a statue of Butkus on campus to overlook a future football performance center.[73]
As an homage, actor Sylvester Stallone named his pet Bullmastiff Butkus after the dog ate a security blanket. He decided to name him after "possibly the fiercest football player in history".[88] The dog later starred alongside Stallone in the Rocky film series.[1]
Butkus has three children: Ricky, Matt, and Nikki.[99] Matt played college football for the USC Trojans as a defensive lineman, and joins his father in philanthropic activities. Butkus's nephew Luke Butkus has been an assistant coach in the NFL for the Bears, Seattle Seahawks, and Jacksonville Jaguars, he also coached for the University of Illinois, his alma mater, and as of 2019 is an assistant coach for the Green Bay Packers.[100] Butkus's grandson Ian Parish plays volleyball for the UCLA Bruins.[101]
Injuries sustained during Butkus's playing career have compounded with time. He had his knee replaced with a metal unit. An osteotomy left him with one leg one-and-a-half inches shorter than the other, which has affected his hips, back, and neck. Around 2002, nerve damage in his spine caused him to develop foot drop. He lost strength in his hands, needing both to lift a coffee cup.[6] Still, Butkus maintains that football had a largely positive impact on his life, and that its benefits should not be overlooked.[102]
The 63-year-old Pocatello native said he felt a little lost last fall without football in his life for the first time in 37 years, but showing up at a few practices and watching Davis take the field for games at Albertsons Stadium helped him stay connected to the sport and his son.
Cooperating sources and cooperating defendants identified AMBER JANNA JOHNSON as a subordinate cocaine distributor to CD2. JOHNSON began supplying a cooperating source (CS) with one-half ounce quantities of cocaine every six (6) weeks from 2016 until 2018. JOHNSON introduced the CS to CD2 in 2018. The CS began obtaining one-ounce quantities of cocaine from CD1. In 2019, JOHNSON introduced the CS to a second cocaine supplier who provided cocaine to the CS until the spring of 2020. CD2 advised the DEA that JOHNSON, a student at Duke University, distributed cocaine to students at Duke and to fraternity members from UNC-Chapel Hill. CD2 supplied JOHNSON with ounce-quantities of cocaine for distribution on both campuses. It appears JOHNSON obtained and distributed at least 200 grams, but less than 300 grams of cocaine, from August 2017 through March 2019.
CD2 identified JASON BLAKE NITSOS as a subordinate cocaine distributor, and advised that NITSOS sold the cocaine to members of the Eta Chapter of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity at UNC-Chapel Hill. Between October 2017 and March 2019, NITSOS paid CD2 approximately $15,000.00 for cocaine in 32 Venmo transactions. Fifteen of the transactions occurred over the Internet Protocol address located at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill.
Dirk: Yeah. So in high school, I was a pretty decent student and I was a pretty decent football player. So kind of combined all those things. And actually I started at Cornell in engineering because it was one of the top five engineering schools depending on how it was ranked in civil engineering. And I thought engineering was engineering. I got recruited to play football there, but I only played a year. I didn't really make the decision to play foot...decision to go there because I was going to play football. But it was a nice opportunity. I really chose it because it was a good engineering school and my philosophy has always been kind of play the best game you possibly can.
Dirk: Yeah, I grew up doing that until I was about 13 and then I switched over to football and basketball. After a certain period, you're not playing football anymore. Swimming is much better on your body than that. So I just got back into it after I graduated from college and liked the workout and then actually will swim pretty regularly, did a triathlon as a relay and said, well, I can do the whole thing. And that's how I got into the triathlon deal.
Dirk: Oh, man. Maybe the one, it was about Vince Lombardi and what's called ''When Pride Mattered.'' It was all about him and his legacy, how he started in coaching, how he grew up, how he started in coaching, what kind of coaching tree followed him. And I don't know you know, if you follow football. You know, a lot of times you'll find a head coach, he'll say his coaching tree and who did that guy work for? And who's working for him and where are they now? But I really, really loved kind of the...they had a couple of quotes in there, but you know, he's like you, we're gonna, you know, the goal was perfection and hopefully along the way, we might not reach perfection, but hopefully along the way, we'll reach excellence. And, you know, I think if I look at what's my why in working in construction and working at Tarlton is I really want us to focus in and be the best builder we can be. And, you know, that operational excellence, it can be defined in a lot of different ways. But if we concentrate on being the best builders we can be, then you know what, we're gonna be successful.