Chuck Bednarik No. 60
Linebacker / Center
Date of birth: May 1, 1925 (1925-05-01) (age 85)
Place of birth: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Height: 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) Weight: 233 lb (106 kg)
College: Pennsylvania
NFL Draft: 1949 / Round: 1 / Pick: 1
Debuted in 1949 for the Philadelphia Eagles
Last played in 1962 for the Philadelphia Eagles
Career history
* Philadelphia Eagles (1949-1962)
Career highlights and awards
* 8× Pro Bowl selection (1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1960)
* 10× All-Pro selection (1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961)
* NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team
* NFL 1950s All-Decade Team
* 1953 Pro Bowl MVP
* 1948 Maxwell Award
* Philadelphia Eagles Honor Roll
* Philadelphia Eagles #60 Retired
Charles Philip Bednarik (born May 1, 1925) is a former professional American football player, known as one of the most devastating tacklers in the history of football and the last two-way player in the National Football League. A Slovak American from the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, he is perhaps best remembered for a tackle on the New York Giants' Frank Gifford, then a star running back, that knocked Gifford out of professional football for a year and a half, and shortened Gifford's playing career.
Bednarik played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1949 through 1962 and, upon retirement, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967 (his first year of eligibility). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame two years later.
Bednarik currently resides in Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley. His great-nephew, Adam Bednarik, was a third-string quarterback at West Virginia University.
His parents emigrated from Široké, a village in eastern Slovakia, in 1920 for work, settling in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and working for Bethlehem Steel. Their son Charles was born in 1925. He attended school at SS. Cyril & Methodius in Bethlehem, which was a Slovak parochial school with Slovak the language of instruction.
Bednarik began playing football in Bethlehem. He played for Bethlehem's Liberty High School.
Following his graduation from high school, he entered the United States Army Air Forces and served as a B-24 waist-gunner with the Eighth Air Force. He flew on thirty combat missions over Germany and was highly decorated. After the final mission, he thanked God for surviving and said he was never going to fly again, though he flew many times afterwards.
Bednarik subsequently attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he was a 60-minute man, excelling as both center and linebacker, as well as occasional punter. He was a three-time All-American, and was elected a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, as were two of his teammates on the 1947 squad—tackle George Savitsky and tailback Tony Minisi—and his coach, George Munger. At Penn, he also was third in Heisman Trophy voting in 1948 and won the Maxwell Award that year.
Bednarik was the first player drafted in the 1949 NFL Draft, by the Philadelphia Eagles, starring on both offense (as a center) and defense (as a linebacker). He was a member of the Eagles' NFL Championship teams in 1949 and 1960. In the 1960 championship game, Bednarik (the last Eagle between Green Bay's Jim Taylor and the end zone) tackled Taylor on the final play of the game at the Eagles' eight yard line, and remained atop Taylor for several seconds as the final seconds ticked off the clock, ensuring the Packers could not run another play. The Eagles won that game 17-13.
A tough and highly effective tackler, Bednarik is perhaps best known for knocking Frank Gifford of the New York Giants out of football for over eighteen months, with one of the most famous tackles in NFL history in 1960. Bednarik had a famous quarrel with Chuck Noll, who once, as a player for the Cleveland Browns, smashed him in the face during a fourth-down punting play.
Bednarik proved extremely durable, missing just three games in his fourteen seasons. He was named All-Pro eight times, and was the last of the NFL's "Sixty-Minute Men," players who played both offense and defense on a regular basis.
Bednarik's nickname, "Concrete Charlie," originated from his off-season career as a concrete salesman for the Warner Company, not (contrary to popular belief) from his reputation as a ferocious tackler. Nonetheless, sportswriter Hugh Brown of The Bulletin in Philadelphia, credited with bestowing the nickname, remarked that Bednarik "is as hard as the concrete he sells."
In 1999, he was ranked number 54 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. This made him the highest-ranking player to have spent his entire career with the Eagles, the highest-ranking offensive center and the eighth-ranked linebacker in all of professional football.
