{"id":19747,"date":"2026-03-11T08:11:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T08:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/guideposts-classics-gale-sayers-on-the-power-of-courage\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:08:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:08:31","slug":"guideposts-classics-gale-sayers-on-the-power-of-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/inspiring-stories\/stories-of-faith-and-hope\/guideposts-classics-gale-sayers-on-the-power-of-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"Guideposts Classics: Gale Sayers on the Power of Courage"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first saw Brian Piccolo at the Chicago Bears\u2019 football<\/a> practice back in 1966, I didn\u2019t think he would make the team. \u201cPick\u201d was not very big and not very fast, but he hung in there with determination and guts and became a solid all-around player.<\/p>\n

The great thing about Pick was his sense of humor. When he was assigned a locker between me on one side and Dick Gordon on the other (both of us blacks), Pick, who is white, kidded us saying, \u201cI feel like an Oreo cookie.\u201d The fact that he was my substitute at running back didn\u2019t bother him a bit. When the coaches graded his performance higher than mine during the 1968 season, he never let me forget it.<\/p>\n

The best thing about our relationship as it developed was that we could kid each other all the time about race. It was a way, I guess, of easing into each other\u2019s world. So when in 1967 the coaches began pairing roommates who played the same position, it was logical that Pick and I room together. When sports writers began trying to make a big deal of the black-white angle, we just joked about it.<\/p>\n

Another great thing about Pick was his unselfishness. He was never uptight about his secondary role on the field. He would fill in at any position, hardly ever missed a block, always gave 100 percent. When I began the 1969 season worried about a postseason operation on my knee, Pick always had an encouraging word<\/a> at the right moment even though he knew he would get a chance to play more if I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It was during the \u201869 season that Pick\u2019s cough began. It wasn\u2019t much at first but got worse as the season entered the cold months. Despite the cough, Pick played well. After one game when he scored a touchdown, he started coughing, then laughed saying, \u201cIt\u2019s nothing. I\u2019m just having a coronary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally Pick went to a doctor to get a stronger cough syrup. The doctor took an X-ray of his chest. \u201cBrian\u2019s very sick,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s got a malignant tumor<\/a> in his chest that has to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was stunned. I just didn\u2019t know what to say or think. After practice Saturday, I went over to the hospital to see him. He was in a fantastic mood<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m ready to play, man,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a little cough, you know.\u201d His wife, Joy, was with him, and she was in good spirits too. We kidded around for a while and then I left.<\/p>\n

That night, the night before the Baltimore game, Mr. Halas, the team\u2019s owner, called me. He said, \u201cGale, I think maybe you ought to say something to the team before we go out tomorrow. Try to dedicate the game to Brian. I think it would be altogether appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I said I would.<\/p>\n

I had never in my life talked to a team. I don\u2019t consider myself a leader. All the leading I do is by the way I go out and play the game.<\/p>\n

After our warm-up and just as we were getting ready to go back on the field, Coach Jim Dooley told the team, \u201cGale has something to say to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I just said, \u201cAs you all know, Brian Piccolo is very, very sick. He might not ever play football again. So I think each of us should dedicate ourselves to winning this ball game and give the game ball to Pick. Then we can all sign the ball and take it up to him\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

About this time, they probably didn\u2019t understand me, because I had started to cry. On the bench, I leaned over with my head down, sobbing. Jim Ringo came over and said, \u201cGale, I\u2019ve been in football for twenty years and never heard anything like that before.\u201d<\/p>\n

And we went out and we played good ball, and we should have won the game. We had them by a touchdown with six minutes to go and John Unitas came in and drove them 80 yards for a TD. Then they got a field goal, and we lost it. I felt rotten.<\/p>\n

After the game, my wife Linda and I went to the hospital to see Brian. He was still in fine spirits<\/a>. Listening to him, I found it hard to believe this terrible thing had struck him down. But he just said, \u201cIt\u2019s a tumor and it\u2019s got to come out, and it\u2019s got to come out now.\u201d He was loose about it because that was his way. His only concern, he said, was for his wife and his three small daughters and their future.<\/p>\n

What he was really doing, I think, was carrying through the \u201cI am third\u201d philosophy of life, which I had learned from my track coach at Kansas: \u201cThe Lord is first<\/a>, my friends second, and I am third.\u201d And I wasn\u2019t really impressed by his courage because now I knew the man and I expected courage of him.<\/p>\n

Pick flew into New York Monday, and Dr. Edward Beattie told Pick the tumor figured to be the size of a baseball. When they got it out-after a four-and-a-half-hour operation\u2014it was closer to a grapefruit.<\/p>\n

We had a Saturday game in San Francisco, and right after the game, I flew back to Chicago, then into New York. Sunday morning I went to see Pick.<\/p>\n

Same old Piccolo. He had seen the San Francisco game on TV\u2014and he chewed me out for not fielding a punt that went on to roll 70 yards. Considering everything he had gone through, he looked well, and he was in his usual good spirits. He had got thousands of cards and letters which had sort of overwhelmed him.<\/p>\n

His attitude was so great<\/a>, it made me feel all the worse about how I had acted after my knee surgery. The day after I was operated on, Pick had come to see me in the hospital. I just lay there and said nothing. Pick tried to make small talk, but it was like talking to a wall.<\/p>\n

After coming home from the hospital, Pick naturally took it easy for a while. We talked on the telephone a lot, and Linda and I visited him a few times, and he seemed to be making terrific progress. He had got his weight back up to 188 and was getting ready to go out on the golf course and start working out a little in the gym.<\/p>\n

The next time I talked to him he was going back to New York for more tests. There was a lump on his chest. They had to operate again.<\/p>\n

When I flew into New York to see him, he was coughing quite a bit and all the medication had weakened him. But mentally he was as strong as ever<\/a>. I thought to myself, If anybody can lick it, it\u2019s going to be Pick.<\/p>\n

As much as they cut into this man, as much as he was afflicted with terrible pain and discomfort, as much as he suffered because of this wicked disease, as much as he was faced with all these tortures, his spirits would not be destroyed<\/a>. This was the beautiful nature of Brian Piccolo.<\/p>\n

At the end of May, I came to New York to attend the Professional Football Writers annual dinner and receive the George S. Halas Award as the most courageous player in pro football, because of my comeback from knee surgery. I had wanted Brian to attend with me but he couldn\u2019t. At least I could tell the audience about Brian Piccolo.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has the heart of a giant,\u201d I said, \u201cand that rare form of courage that allows him to kid himself and his opponent<\/a>\u2014cancer. He has the mental attitude that makes me proud to have a friend who spells out the word courage twenty-four hours a day of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I concluded by saying, \u201cYou flatter me by giving me this award, but I tell you that I accept it for Brian Piccolo. It is mine tonight. It is Brian Piccolo\u2019s tomorrow. I love Brian Piccolo, and I\u2019d like all of you to love him too. Tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God<\/a> to love him\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday morning, June 16, Linda called me at the hospital in Chicago where I\u2019d been sent with a strep throat, to tell me that Brian Piccolo had passed away. I couldn\u2019t talk. I wasn\u2019t able to say a word for the rest of that day.<\/p>\n

I was discharged from the hospital that afternoon. When I came home, I found that my trophy had arrived from New York. I sat down and wrote Brian\u2019s name on a piece of paper and pasted it over mine on the trophy. The next morning, I went to the wake with the trophy, gave it to Joy and told her I wanted it buried with Pick. Joy said no, she wanted to keep it because it meant so much to her.<\/p>\n

The funeral was held that Friday, a clean lovely morning, and I went through it like a sleepwalker. The only thing I remember about the service was one line: \u201cThe virtuous man, though he dies before his time, will find rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was at the cemetery, as the priest was delivering his final words, that I broke down. He referred to the trophy and to our friendship, and it was too much for me.<\/p>\n

As soon as the service was ended, Joy came over and put her arms around me, and I told her how sorry I was. \u201cDon\u2019t be sorry, Gale,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m happy now because I know Brian is happy<\/a>, and I don\u2019t have to watch him suffer anymore. He\u2019s through suffering now.\u201d<\/p>\n

She comforted me, and I said to myself, \u201cIf she can be that composed, Brian must have really given her something.\u201d And I thought, Well, he gave us all something<\/a>, all of us who knew him.<\/p>\n

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first saw Brian Piccolo at the Chicago Bears\u2019 football practice back in 1966, I didn\u2019t think he would make the team. \u201cPick\u201d was not very big and not very fast, but he hung in there with determination and guts and became a solid all-around player. The great thing about Pick was his sense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229,349,185],"tags":[66,44,220,46,58,268],"ppma_author":[1412],"class_list":["post-19747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-friends","category-sports","category-stories-of-faith-and-hope","tag-cancer","tag-courage","tag-football","tag-friends","tag-guideposts","tag-guideposts-75th-anniversary"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGuideposts Classics: Gale Sayers on the Power of Courage - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guideposts Classics: Gale Sayers on the Power of Courage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I first saw Brian Piccolo at the Chicago Bears\u2019 football practice back in 1966, I didn\u2019t think he would make the team. \u201cPick\u201d was not very big and not very fast, but he hung in there with determination and guts and became a solid all-around player. 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