Bears great Dan Hampton offers business leaders advice for success at Schaumburg function

In the search for sports metaphors for success in business and life, the 1985 Chicago Bears remain the local gold standard after nearly four decades.

But in speaking to the Schaumburg Business Association Tuesday, Super Bowl champ, Hall of Famer and radio host Dan Hampton suggested one party possibly unfamiliar with that model is the 2024 Chicago Bears.

Despite the team’s 24-17 defeat of the Tennessee Titans Sunday, Hampton said he saw players who weren’t prepared. And he feels inexperienced quarterback Caleb Williams to be miscast in the role of team captain.

“It’s the big debate,” Hampton said of Game 1. “It’s like buying a brand new car that won’t start. Hope is not a game plan. The Bears have a lot of questions, and they should have had the answers by now.”

In contrast, his personal experience at the University of Arkansas and on the Bears of the ‘80s was of the work that goes into achieving greatness, he said.

Back then, even as he grew more confident in his own performance under new Head Coach Mike Ditka, Hampton said he and his teammates knew they still weren’t champions.

“Ditka said, ‘If you want what you’ve never had, you have to do what you’ve never done.’ That was profound,” he said.

Though it unfortunately yielded only one Super Bowl victory, the Bears became the most winning team in the NFL over a five-year period. Along the way, Hampton claims a role in the invention of the Gatorade dump on a coach to celebrate winning the division in 1984.

But after not being able to play football until the 11th grade due to injuries from a fall from a tree, Hampton cites his recruitment to the Razorbacks by Jimmy Johnson and subsequent coaching by Lou Holtz for his starting to learn the lessons that lead a team of individuals to a necessary shared goal.

“Everybody needs to have a goal,” he said. “A goal is what gets you up in the morning and going after something that a normal person wouldn’t ever be thinking about. In life, your goals have to be something beneficial not only to you but to everyone else.”

He listed his four steps to happiness as having something to do, having someone to love, finding something to believe in and identifying something to hope for.

“Make yourself indispensable,” he told the assembled business leaders. “Find a way to make the way you do your job better than anyone else’s.”

One of Hampton’s links with his audience Tuesday is his ongoing role as a spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau of Chicago & Northern Illinois, which introduced and sponsored his presentation.

During the Q&A session that followed, Hampton cited the pay of today’s players that grew from free agency as a distraction from the game possibly responsible for the poor play he saw on Sunday.

“I think it’s pathetic,” he said of the money situation. “I think it’s out of control.”

Hampton also spoke emotionally of the journey his friend and teammate Steve McMichael has been on with ALS, from his initial diagnosis to the look of victory he saw in his eyes upon his recent induction into the Hall of Fame and becoming part of that most exclusive club.

“It gets harder and harder, folks. It’s insidiously awful,” Hampton said of McMichael’s physical decline. “I’m sick to my stomach just thinking about it.”

But he added that both of them take pride in having been part of the team the late, highly respected John Madden called the greatest he ever saw.