Shaun Gayle didn’t have the right stuff when he was drafted in the 10th round 10 years ago, or so he learned over lunch.
While Wilber Marshall, the Bears’ marquee selection of 1984, got the grand tour downtown, Gayle was whisked off to a fast food joint near the team’s headquarters in Lake Forest for a hamburger and a handshake.
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“Nothing fancy,” he recalls.
But here is Gayle, having it his way as the Bears prepare to engage Tampa Bay in Sunday’s NFL opener at beautiful Soldier Field. He is still their safety, yet is not a safety first, because there is more to the man than the uniform.
Only hours after a murder suspect of age 11 is found shot to death beneath railroad tracks in Chicago, Gayle can stand there and give you hope. He made 124 tackles for the Bears last season, second best on the team. What he takes on during his free time is more important.
“Our youth,” Gayle says. “I worry for them, because they’re the victims of what goes on in this country. They don’t reap the profits of gun sales or violence on TV. We do. The adult population. Our children are still our greatest assets, because they’re the purest.”
Gayle is everything a role model should be. He doesn’t reject the part, as do so many other athletes, which is their privilege. And he certainly doesn’t ask for it, because Gayle neither raises his voice nor turns into a moth when cameras come around. He just does it, that’s all. Quietly, occasionally in rhyming couplets.
“So whether we get candy or apple pies,
God wants us to love with our hearts, not our eyes.”
The snippet is from “Jill and the Hill,” one of four in a series of “Shaun Gayle’s Sports Tales.” The stories are in booklet form with colorful illustrations and accompanied by a cassette of Gayle reading his own works. The others are “The Little Quarterback,” “Jonathan McBoo” and “Home Run Pete.”
They all put sports in their place, with the kids and out of our grimy hands.
“Stories, hopefully with a message,” says Gayle. “Jill, for instance, runs faster than anyone. But she gets hurt before the big race and worries that she won’t be as popular because she can’t win it for her friends. Then she finds out she’s got true friends, who don’t care whether she can run fast or not.”
As one of only three remaining Bears from the Super Bowl XX championship team, Gayle can identify.
“I treasure that ring, but it didn’t change my life,” he says. “I can’t tell you what my salary was that year and the afternoon we beat New England in New Orleans wasn’t even the highlight to me. My lasting memory is not so much the winning, but all the enjoyment we had getting there. The trip. The characters.
“I had the perfect seat in the auditorium for 1985. I was in the locker room every day, watching all these different individuals interact, and I was also part of the cast. That’s where our youth is missing out. Everything now is winning, in sports and life. Win, regardless of what it takes or whether you experience the exhilaration of participating, or trying.”
Only the trophy counts, and that unfortunate game plan goes directly from the big leagues to the little leagues. Robots are in, personality is out.
“Greed instead of values,” says Gayle, and he can say it again from a chair in the front row. A former Pro Bowler, a regular at 32, he is underpaid because of a salary cap, but at least he plays with the only team he knows. The same cannot be said of Phil Simms and Art Monk.
“We are all in part responsible for the system,” says Gayle. “And if I allow outside factors to affect the way I perform, then I’ve given in.”
Shaun Gayle could have done that 10 years ago, but he’s telling America’s children there’s more to life than the three-car garage. The right stuff works, if you let it happen.