The dark secret behind the success of Sid Luckman, the greatest Bears quarterback ever

quote:

---

In one of the loveliest of father-son traditions, a little boy was given his first football by his dad. Sid Luckman would spectacularly throw that ball and many others through a legendary career that culminated with his becoming the greatest quarterback in Chicago Bears history.

But for a strange time in the 1930s, the son and father both appeared in headlines of New York City newspapers, the youngster for throwing touchdowns, the father for murdering his brother-in-law.

That is but one of the stunning stories contained in a remarkable new book. “Tough Luck: Sid Luckman, Murder, Inc., and the Rise of the Modern NFL” (Atlantic Monthly Press). It’s an artfully organized and deeply researched book, one that alternates the vastly different but united-for-keeps stories of father and son, and is filled with dozens of colorful characters, good and evil, and secrets no longer hidden.

Throughout Sid’s playing career and later life as a successful Chicago businessman, the sins of his father stayed in the shadows. “This was a hands-off time,” said author R.D. Rosen. “It was a very courteous media that observed the fine line between an athlete’s public and private lives. If I were to speculate, I would say that the thinking was, ‘We love this guy, let’s not saddle him in print with the misdeeds of the father.'"

Those misdeeds were significant. Meyer Luckman ran a Brooklyn trucking business and had ties to organized crime, notably a modest association with Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, a prolific killer, one-time head of the murder-for-hire outfit known as Murder, Inc. and an energetic labor racketeer.

But the crime for which Meyer was arrested and tried was for beating and strangling his brother-in-law to death. It was a gruesome killing and messy trial, Sid often sitting with other family members in the courtroom. His father and two others were convicted of the murder and sentenced to 20 years to life “of hard labor” at Sing Sing, the state prison in upstate New York.

---