Chuck Bednarik

3 Chuck Bednarik. In 1960, plenty of players in the NFL might have thought they could play both ways, but one did, and excelled. Chuck Bednarik was the last iron man of pro football. When linebacker Bob Pellegrini pulled a groin muscle against Cleveland in the fifth game of the season, coach Buck Shaw looked at the 35-year-old Bednarik and said, "Get in there, Chuck, but don't pull any hero stuff. " Because he played both ways to help lead the Eagles to the 1960 world championship - the franchise's last - Bednarik solidified his spot among the greatest Eagles of all time.

Neither an angry Chuck Bednarik nor an AWOL Harry Kalas dimmed the enthusiasm last night when the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association held its 100th awards banquet at the Hilton Hotel in Cherry Hill. Braving 20-degree temperatures more chilling because of a gusting wind, the earliest sellout crowd in association history responded with warm affection for notables Julius Erving, Bob Clarke, Billie Jean King, Carl Lewis, Tom Lasorda, Ken Hitchcock, Randy Ayers, John Chaney, Bill Bergey, Bernard Hopkins, Larry James and other sports heroes they cheered in the past.

There's no truth to the rumor that Jim Taylor is buried under the artificial turf at Franklin Field. It just seems that way. It's been 37 years now since Taylor, a Hall of Fame fullback for the Green Bay Packers, got up. But, like Willie Wilson of the Kansas City Royals in his final, futile swing in the 1980 World Series, Taylor will always be down for the count in Philadelphia - frozen under Chuck Bednarik as the last seconds of a season disappear...

When the caller ID flashed "Charlie Bednarik," Bethlehem Catholic quarterback Adam Bednarik knew he was hearing from both a boyhood idol and a distant relative. Adam Bednarik grew up in Bethlehem, about a one-hour shot up the turnpike from Philadelphia, entranced by his father's stories about former Philadelphia Eagles center and linebacker Chuck Bednarik. His bone-rattling hits, bulldozing blocks, and blue-collar work ethic landed him in the Hall of Fame and in Adam's highest regard.

Eagles legend Chuck Bednarik is expected to remain in a Lehigh Valley hospital for a few more days, according to his son-in-law, Ken Safarowic. Bednarik, 85, ate solid food yesterday and is continuing to undergo tests as doctors try to determine why he had shortness of breath and a drop in blood pressure and felt faint Tuesday. Safarowic had told the Daily News on Wednesday night that Bednarik has no ongoing conditions and he is "about as healthy as you can be at this stage" and doctors have determined his heart is OK. Safarowic reiterated that Bednarik is eager to get out of the hospital.

In Chuck Bednarik's opinion - which he is not afraid to offer - being honored with a statue is similar to taking a step toward sainthood. No wonder Bednarik was in such high spirits on Saturday afternoon. As a Franklin Field crowd that included many former teammates looked on, a 9-foot bronze statue of Bednarik was unveiled at halftime of the Penn-Cornell football game. "Statues are saints; they go to heaven. You're putting me in heaven while I'm still alive," Bednarik said.

Eagles great Chuck Bednarik, who was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem last week after suffering shortness of breath, is expected to be released later this week, his son-in-law said Monday night. "He was up and walking around today and eating more," said Ken Safarowic, who has been a spokesman for the Bednarik family. Safarowic said that tests had revealed no major problems for Bednarik, although he conceded that the 85-year-old Hall of Famer "needed to get retooled.

The NFL held a pep rally yesterday in front of the American Embassy. A couple of hundred people and a couple of television cameras witnessed this lunch-time spectacle on tony Grosvenor Square. Two things caught your eye: (1) The Eagles' cheerleaders. (2) An Eagles jersey bearing Chuck Bednarik's No. 60 that was hanging from an embassy window. "I figured that a jersey that had been retired ought to be displayed," said Jeff Garrison, the man who owns it and will be wearing it at Sunday's American Bowl game between the Eagles and the Cleveland Browns.

HONORING the 1960 Eagles on the eve of the season opener against the very franchise it defeated a half-century ago for the NFL championship was a classy tribute to the last Philadelphia squad to win an NFL title. For many older fans, saluting the surviving members of the only team to vanquish Vince Lombardi's juggernaut of the 1960s likely eased the frustration of 50 years that have seen more agony than ecstasy. And to cheer such legends as Tommy McDonald, Pete Retzlaff, Norm van Brocklin and Chuck Bednarik afforded a thrill for those too young to have enjoyed an Eagles championship firsthand.

THE PHILADELPHIA Sports Hall of Fame has been looking for a location to display some of the items its founders have accumulated since the Hall's inception. They have found it in a dedicated portion of Spike's Trophies' 24,000-square-foot facility on Grant Avenue in the Northeast. The Hall's museum staging facility had been in a Northern Liberties building for 5 years, but that was closed last fall when the landlord sold the building. The new facility has a Preview Gallery that "features themed exhibits, multimedia presentations and scaled-down vignettes as a launch-pad towards the vision of a future, full-service sports museum.

Brian Dawkins posed a simple question: If all those fans who wear No. 20 to Eagles games could play one football game, how would they play? How would they react? "Would you do a flip? Would you crawl? Would you do those things?" Dawkins said. "Probably so. Because you're so excited to play those games. " That was Dawkins' approach when he played safety for the Eagles from 1996 to 2008 - 13 seasons in which he delivered ferocious hits and inspirational locker room speeches and became one of the most beloved Philadelphia athletes the city has ever cheered.

SOME MEN ARE meant to lead. They are meant to nurture, to take the first steps so others may follow. Brian Dawkins always was such a man. When the Eagles retire his No. 20 jersey Sunday night they will honor 13 seasons of class and character, of a well of talent and integrity exploited to its final drop. Seldom do athletes merit this sort of honor. Consider some of the group that Dawkins joins. There is No. 15, running back Steve Van Buren; a champion, a finisher, perhaps the greatest of all Eagles; a man whose death in August reminded us of the quality of his play and the depth of his character.

A BRONZE BUST sat on a table in the sanctuary of the chapel. It was the replica that the Pro Football Hall of Fame gives to its inductees, the one they gave to Steve Van Buren. A bust, an urn, a photograph, a football, a single red rose - and, on the other side of the space, a portrait of No. 15, carrying the ball. The arrangement was simple and dignified, like the man. More than 100 people came to The Chapel of the Four Chaplains, at the Navy Yard - family, friends, fans. Steve Van Buren, arguably the greatest player in Eagles history, the hero of their 1948 and 1949 NFL championship teams, died last month at the age of 91. The memorial service was arranged as a final goodbye, open to the public.

STEVE Van Buren, the Hall of Fame running back who propelled the Eagles to the 1948 and '49 NFL titles, died Thursday evening in Lancaster of pneumonia at 91. Few fans alive today ever saw him play, but Van Buren might have been the best NFL player of the postwar '40s. Barroom historians like to debate whether Van Buren or center/linebacker Chuck Bednarik is the greatest Eagle of all time, with modern-era defensive end Reggie White polling well in some precincts. Certainly, Van Buren dominated his peers as no other skill-position Eagle ever has. Van Buren won four league rushing titles from 1945 to '49. To a franchise that has experienced so few championship celebrations - three, the most recent in 1960 - Van Buren was a cherished link through the years to the days when head coach Greasy Neale's Eagles were the undisputed class of the league.

THE EAGLES who won back-to-back world championships in the late 1940s were a rugged bunch of birds - and one of the toughest was their star receiver, No. 35, Pete Pihos. The son of Greek immigrants, hardened by serving in World War II's Battle of the Bulge under Gen. George Patton, Pihos dashed his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame not so much for his ability to catch a long pass as the way he flattened defenders on the way to the end zone. Like many NFL greats of postwar years, Pihos then galloped into retirement and relative obscurity, ending up as a construction manager in North Carolina.

In Chuck Bednarik's opinion - which he is not afraid to offer - being honored with a statue is similar to taking a step toward sainthood. No wonder Bednarik was in such high spirits on Saturday afternoon. As a Franklin Field crowd that included many former teammates looked on, a 9-foot bronze statue of Bednarik was unveiled at halftime of the Penn-Cornell football game. "Statues are saints; they go to heaven. You're putting me in heaven while I'm still alive," Bednarik said.

IT HAS BEEN nearly 50 years since Chuck Bednarik last planted an opponent's face into the sod at Franklin Field, and yet his accomplishments have never been forgotten. As the greatest Eagles player of all time and the greatest college football player this city has ever seen, he's now going to be immortalized. Tomorrow, Concrete Charlie becomes Bronze Bednarik. A 7-foot bronzed statue of Bednarik will be unveiled during halftime of the Penn-Cornell game (1 p.m. kickoff). Bednarik played for the Quakers from 1945-48 and then went immediately to the Eagles with the No. 1 overall draft pick following his senior year.

CHUCK BEDNARIK arrived on the University of Pennsylvania campus midway through the 1945 football season, not long after being discharged from the Army Air Corps. He had not played football for 3 years. Within 2 weeks, he was starting. The next 3 years, he started at center and linebacker in the days when Penn used to draw 70,000 to Franklin Field. With the first pick of 1949 NFL draft (actually held on Dec. 21, 1948, not long after Bednarik's final game at Penn), the Eagles chose Bednarik.

BETHLEHEM - They filed past the tall, gaunt, old man in single file, most of the soldiers looking past him to the practice field ahead, where their clean, crisp uniforms were about to mingle with the muddy practice uniforms of the Eagles on Military Day at training camp. Every now and then, though, there was one who knew who the old man was, who would stop with an item to sign and a fervent wish to express, that the players of today were more like the white-haired fellow in the Pro Football Hall of Fame polo shirt, squinting through wire-rimmed glasses.