Charles “Ookie” Miller still watches Bears games. This might seem impressive if not for the fact he also still plays cards, takes walks, gives speeches, signs autographs and enjoys the company of his “lady friend” in an assisted-living apartment just outside Tampa in which they clearly need very little assistance.
The oldest surviving Bear turns 92 Sunday, a fitting day for a celebration for someone who played for both Chicago and Green Bay.
“I don’t feel like I’m 92,” says Miller. “I feel like I’m 110.”
As sharp as he is funny, Miller’s memories of Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski and a young George Halas are priceless and tinged with a sense of humor that was clearly necessary given the times and the men involved.
Miller, nicknamed “Ookie” for his fondness of cookies as a baby, played center and linebacker for the Bears from 1932-37, a span that included two NFL championships, the first being the most memorable.
“I played in the first indoor championship game ever played [in 1932],” Miller said. “It was a little 2-by-4 that was 80 yards long and 40 yards wide because [Wrigley Field] was covered in snow and ice.”
The “2-by-4” was Chicago Stadium and the title game–a 9-0 Bears victory over the Portsmouth Spartans–was added after the season ended with the first tie for first place.
The game ended in a protest when the Bears scored the winning touchdown on a 2-yard pass from Nagurski to Grange. The Spartans argued that it was thrown from less than 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage, which was the rule at the time.
“The line was full, so Bronk jumped up and tossed the pass that won the game,” said Miller, who was the first modern center.
Miller laughed when he told stories of Halas, although he said, “It wasn’t so funny then. I liked George very much, but we didn’t always agree and he had a control over me I wasn’t happy about.
“He used to fine the heck out of me,” Miller recalled. “Once we went to New York to play the [1934] championship. I’d never been there before and another player said he had a couple of girls and would I like to go see Cab Calloway, dance and have some fun.
“When I got back, my roommate said, `Halas is looking for you. He has been calling every half-hour.’ When I went to see him, George said, `Have a good time, Ook?’ And I said, `Yeah, great. I’ve never been to New York before.’ And he said, `Good, it’s only going to cost you 100 bucks.'”
Miller was barely making $100 a game back then and stubbornly told his roommate he wasn’t going to play if Halas wasn’t going to pay him.
“The player said, `Look, he fined me once and I played a good game and he rescinded it.’ So I played a good game and went up to George afterward and he said, `Good game, Ook. I think I’ll fine you again. You play better when I do.'”
Halas’ tightwad reputation apparently was developed early.
“Another time,” Miller said, “George told me to come in and sign a contract for the next year. When I walked in he said, `You know, Ook, I lost money this year and I was going to cut back everybody’s salary. But you had a real good year, so I’m going to let you have the same salary and we’ll call it a raise.’
“The thing is, I was happy about that. I was young and it was a great time.”
It was especially great when Miller got to play and room with Grange, his boyhood hero.
“He was the biggest thing in the United States when he was in college and I had a lot of respect for Red,” Miller said. “One time he got hurt and Halas said, `I’m going to put you in on defense, but as soon as we’re on offense, I want you to get out of there because I don’t want you to get hurt again.’
“But Red stayed in for three or four plays and got jammed up again. Halas was raising Cain on the sideline and Red came over and said, `Look, George, these people paid to see me play and I’m going to do it as long as I possibly can.’ That was Red.”
Miller’s recollections of the Bears-Packers rivalry are interesting, given that legend tells us it was bitter from the start.
“I never remember Halas or Curly [Lambeau] ever saying anything bad about the other,” Miller said. “And we had very good relations between the two ballclubs. We wanted to win, naturally, but we had a much more sociable attitude than players have today.”
Miller said part of the camaraderie was because of the times.
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“It was the Depression–you’re talking about poverty,” he said. “I suppose we were all just happy to have a job.
“Also, there weren’t as many good athletes as there are today, so when we could get together with other football players, it was special and we really enjoyed the relationship.”
So close were they that Halas worried it would compromise the competition.
“We had trouble getting plays nobody else had,” Miller said, “so George would say, `Now you smart [alecks] don’t go up to Green Bay and tell them all the plays we’ve got. We’re going to try to beat ’em.’
“We had fellas who were so excited about the T-formation, they’d want to tell their buddies from Green Bay all about it.”
After playing for the Bears for six years, Halas asked Miller if he wanted to coach the defense, but Miller still wanted to play.
“When I left the Bears, Curly called me and wanted to know if I wanted to play more football,” Miller said. “He wanted me to come play up there because both his centers went into teaching, so I went up there [for a season] and they treated me like they knew me my whole life.”
He is, however, still a Bear.
“Once a Bear, always a Bear,” he said.
The other night Miller gave a speech to a group of about 40 men in his complex.
“They all wanted to ask questions about pro football,” he said.
“They were very diligent and very interested. One of the wives said her husband told her I gave a real nice speech. It made me feel good.”
He is grateful to a league that now pays the players of his generation a monthly pension despite the fact that they didn’t contribute to the retirement plan.
“It came as a complete surprise,” he said. “I’m making more money now than I ever did playing pro ball.”
If Ookie Miller was in Chicago on his 92nd birthday, sitting inside the Soldier Field locker room, looking into the faces of his Bears brothers, he knows what he would say:
“I’d tell them what George Halas told us, that there’s only one way to win a football game and that is to give the maximum effort.
“That has to be done, that the better team will win but you can’t win it on prestige or someone else doing it for you, you have to do it yourselves. And it takes each and every one of you.
“For the honor of George Halas and the honor of the Chicago Bears, I would think they would give their greatest effort to go on as far as they have to go, to go on to the Super Bowl.”