Caleb Hanie's Pack mentality

Maybe it's a good thing that the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers only meet in the playoffs every 70 years. These two storied franchises apparently don't bring out the best in each other - at least not in January.
Each team played one strong half of football, just not the same half. The Packers took the first, the Bears the second, and when it was all over, Green Bay had a 21-14 victory, the NFC title and a trip to the Super Bowl to face the Pittsburgh Steelers.
But the Packers were nearly derailed by a 25-year-old quarterback out of Colorado State with three years of NFL experience, most of it holding a clipboard. Caleb Hanie came this close to being able to drink free in Chicago for life when he rallied the Bears to two fourth-quarter touchdowns and very nearly forced the game into overtime.
"You don't expect to play on a day like this, but that's how it goes sometimes," Hanie said.
Two interceptions, one for a touchdown by Green Bay nose tackle B.J. Raji - "one of those 'oops' type of things," Hanie said - the other on fourth and five with 47 seconds remaining, ended the Bears' hopes. Still, his performance - 13 of 20, 153 yards, a touchdown and a 65.2 rating - got him a lot of praise from both locker rooms. Hanie understood perfectly well just how unusual that is for a losing quarterback.
"Throw two picks," he said. "That's the only time you're going to get congratulations [for that], when they don't expect you to do anything."
Or when you follow two quarterbacks who were found wanting. The Bears (12-6) couldn't or wouldn't say when starter Jay Cutler hurt his knee, except that it happened at the end of the first half. Cutler said it was a hit to the outside of his knee. He played the first series of the second half and couldn't continue. "I knew that it was probably better that I didn't," he said. "I know my knee, I know my body."
His coach, Lovie Smith, became testy in defending Cutler, saying it was a decision by the doctors and trainers. Told that NFL players were questioning Cutler's injury on - where else? - Twitter, linebacker Brian Urlacher said, "Nothing like jealous people sitting around watching."

Perhaps. Cutler didn't come off the field limping or holding a leg. No one seemed certain about when the injury happened, although it shows up in the post-game stats as occurring when he was hit after throwing an interception to Sam Shields with 42 seconds remaining in the half. It's hard to imagine that a starting NFL quarterback wouldn't want to try to redeem himself in the second half after throwing just six completions for 80 yards and an interception - but it's telling that so many people in and out of Chicago were so ready to question his toughness.
Urlacher wasn't one of them. "Jay was hurt," he said. "He's tough as hell. He doesn't complain."
When Cutler went out and backup Todd Collins was ineffective in the next two series, Hanie got his chance. There were 57 seconds remaining in the third quarter, with the Packers leading, 14-0. Hanie drove the Bears 67 yards in eight plays to cut that lead in half. The Chicago faithful - increasingly subdued since cheering their way through the national anthem - finally got a chance to sing "Bear Down, Chicago Bears." For an encore, they belted out Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" - with emphasis on one lyric in the chorus: "We're halfway there."

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Jack LaLanne, fitness icon, dead at 96

Fitness icon Jack LaLanne, a man who pushed Americans to pump iron, eat better and lose weight for more than 70 years, has died. He was 96.
The so-called "godfather of fitness" died of respiratory failure from pneumonia in his Morro Bay, Calif. home Sunday afternoon, his longtime agent Rick Hersh told The Associated Press.
LaLanne was a fitness pioneer, opening the first of his many exercise studios in 1936. He focused on weight-training at a time when the idea of pumping iron was strictly taboo, especially for women.
"You have to understand that it was absolutely forbidden in those days for athletes to use weights. It just wasn't done. We had athletes who used to sneak into the studio to work out," he once said.
Athletic trainers believed bulking up would slow athletes down and women were supposed to look curvy and feminine, not athletic and toned.
"Back then, women weren't supposed to use weights. I guess I was a pioneer," LaLanne said.
LaLanne became a household name after he launched a televised exercise program in the 1950s that aired until the 1970s. He would forever after be known for his dedication to healthy living and his signature one-piece belted workout suit.
"This is a nation of tired people," he said, in an effort to encourage people to exercise. "Everyone is suffering from that chroinc disease that I like to call pooped-out-itis."
"Inactivity is a killer," LaLanne once said.  "The only way you can hurt the body is not use it."
LaLanne is survived by his wife and workout partner Elaine, his two sons Dan and Jon, and a daughter, Yvonne.
"I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for," Elaine LaLanne said in a statement. The two had been married for 51 years.

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