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The family of Walter Payton wants to put up a statue honoring the Bears legend, but they've been met with resistance from the Chicago Park District. It seems the Park District is a-okay with a statue of Payton going up - it is, after all, being donated by the Payton family - but has adopted a hard line of not allowing the statue to go up in the one place it makes sense: Soldier Field.
According to a Payton family spokeswoman, park district officials explained that Soldier Field and the area surrounding it is to be preserved strictly as a memorial to war veterans. There also is concern a Payton statue outside of Soldier Field might diminish the stature of other former Bears Hall of Famers.
The family said the team has been "cooperative" with their efforts in trying to get the statue placed outside of the stadium. There are hopes to have it all sorted out in time for a weekend of special events around November 7th to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Paytons death (November 1, 1999).
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War Veterans? So that glass flying saucer that they landed Soldier's Field, that's to commemorate our brave boys fighting Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance?
It's WALTER PAYTON. SWEETNESS. Give him a bloody statue ya knobs.
I don't think that it slights veterans if you have a statue of Payton outside Soldier Field.
I wonder though, if there should also be a statue of Dick Butkus and a few other greats.
You might not need to go back to Sid Luckman to make statues of him and others from the pre-Soldier Field days, since Luckman and others from his era did not play at Soldier Field. There is no perfect answer.
If we're talking about statues of actual Bears greats, how many statues are we talking about, three? Luckman, Butkus and Payton. That's pretty much it. Maybe you can throw in one of George Halas. But as for the debate, what the hell are the Bears supposed to do if they want to honor their great players? Build a special museum somewhere else. Hell, why not stop advertising beer and stuff inside the stadium, because that's not a tribute to the vets, is it? And besides, isn't there a special wall or something that honors the vets not too far away from the stadium already?
Look, the name aside, it's a football stadium. They have to make allowances for football-related things going on. If it's such hallowed ground, then let's stop holding football games and U2 concerts and all of those other non-military related events.
Re: statues of other greats. There are other greats?
I think veterans types who get upset over a statue of a football player at a football stadium are dumb, even if the original intent of the football stadium's name was to honor veterans. If you don't want your veterans memorial to be tarnished with things related football, don't make it a football stadium.
I mean, really, how much honor does it do our veterans for drunk people in Urlacher jerseys to stuff themselves into the war memorial parking lot and down a bunch of beer and hot dogs while playing corn hole?
As far as this thing reads, though, veterans groups aren't complaining, at least not yet. This seems to come entirely from the Park District.
I think a Mike Ditka statue featuring Da Coach counting his wine money would be glorious.