Bear Goggles On
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Celebrating ’85 Bears Just Another Painful Reminder

By Mike "Boomer" Burzawa

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Feb 6, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Studio photograph of the game program cover from Super Bowl XX between the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots played on January 26, 1986 at the Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Garrett Reid-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 6, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Studio photograph of the game program cover from Super Bowl XX between the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots played on January 26, 1986 at the Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Garrett Reid-USA TODAY Sports /

The 1985 Chicago Bears held yet another reunion to celebrate a milestone anniversary of their magnificent Super Bowl XX victory and glorious 1985 season.  It’s been 30 years since the Chicago Bears last hoisted the Lombardi Trophy.  The faces look similar with a few more wrinkles and a lot more grey stubble.  A lot of the big guys are significantly smaller; some of the smaller guys got bigger and the Fridge, well, he’s gone from a residential unit to a commercial model.   The old Bears partied like it was 1985 all over again.

"The ’85 Bears, of course, are no strangers to parties and quite familiar with reunions, still proudly wearing their badge as the most celebrated team in Chicago history. On Tuesday night, at a private gathering masterminded by former linebacker Jim Morrissey and sponsored by RumChata, the city’s only Super Bowl champion gathered again to reconnect about what they accomplished and the mischief and memories they created.“The stories come back in a second,” middle linebacker Mike Singletary said. “It’s like we never, ever left.”"

Flipping through the Tribune’s gallery from the latest reunion and seeing”the old gang” brought a smile to my face and then a sobering reality swept over me.  We’ve had more reunions in recent years than playoff victories.  The reunions serve as a consistent reminder that the Bears best days are in the past; the distant past.  Part of the reason that Bears team was so celebrated is that they did what no Bears team had done since 1963; win a title, even though it was before the Super Bowl era.  It’s been substantially longer between the last title in 1985 than the 22 years that had elapsed between titles before.  Heck, it’s been nearly a decade since the last trip to a Super Bowl, the loss to Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLI following the 2006 season.

The Bulls and Blackhawks (and the White Sox for one season) have quenched the city’s thirst for titles over the last three decades, so it’s not quite the same as a championship starved Chicago that embraced and permanently cemented the 1985 Bears in local lore.  It’s time for us as fans to stop “living in the past” and stop celebrating the ’85 Bears.

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I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the 1985 Chicago Bears, but I’m ready to let them go.  Let the old team get together every few years and have their “high school reunion” and reminisce about “the good old days” but for us, as fans, we need to start demanding titles.  It’s been far too long since we’ve had a Bears parade in this city.  Da Coach Mike Ditka once said “If you’re not in the parade, you watch the parade. That’s life.”  Easy for him to say as he’s profited from the ’85 Bears more than anyone else.

Seeing the ’85 Bears celebrating again serves as a painful reminder about what was instead of what is or what could be.  It just reminds me that Bears fans have nothing better to celebrate for the last three decades.

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